Yesterday, we had gathering by few agile Practitioners from Hyderabad. This meeting was hosted by Temenos+Agility represented by Sarthak Gupta and was facilitated by Arshiya Sultana. At the outset, I would like to thank Sarthak and Arshiya for making this happen.
The main topic of discussion was “The Journey from Scrum
Master to Agile Coach”.
We dwelled on the path
towards being an agile coach. One of the main questions, is being a Scrum
Master a necessity to be an Agile Coach. Does it help and to what extent does
it help? Of course we could not get a conclusive answer, which itself, is a
testament to the passion in the diverse opinions on the topic. It was generally
agreed that the agile system by itself does not prescribe a particular
requirement other a good knowledge on the subject and implementation of the
same.
Another important topic, was the market need of a scrum
master and agile coach to have a technical background. All of us agreed, though
the market demands it, but the role itself does not mandate it by any stretch.
It is could be a budgetary issue that could be driving the need being expressed
in this fashion. Also, it could be the issue of “other fringe benefits” to the
company. It was suggested that we need to bring in the decision makers of
companies into the agile group so that they have the exposure.
We had also discussed the factual loss of leverage /
influence of a scrum master, which kind of makes then unable to influence
decision making. It was generally agreed that market in India believes that the
scrum master is go-between the scrum team and project manager. This factual loss
of leverage diminishes the role of the scrum master. It reduces the positive impact
they could bring on the scrum team. Also it diminishes the influence of the
scrum master to lean on some critical scrum team members.
There was discussion on the need of certificates and of
which that makes most sense. Arshiya advised that one should target a certification
based on their dream companies. As an example, MS needs PMPs from PMI, CA uses
SAFe and some others use DAD.
Sarthak, who flew from Bangalore, to organize this meet,
spoke about Temenos+Agility and the upcoming “The Temenos
Effect Gathering 2017” at Bangalore scheduled from 14th Jan 2017
to 17th Jan 2017. For more information on this gathering, please
contact
Ms. Chaithra Rajanna SPC4, Agile Coach.
+91 9901015895