Chapter 1: Introduction

Welcome to this audio course on preparing to become a Certified Scrum Master! I will guide you through the course material. If you are listening to this course and have made the decision to become a certified scrum master, you are likely preparing for the written exam. Maybe you are just contemplating becoming a scrum master and want to get some information about the certification process as well as specific information about the job. Whatever the case, I want to congratulate you for deciding to move forward in your professional career. After listening to this course, you will be prepared to take the written scrum master exam; additionally, you will have a solid understanding of the steps you need to take as you search for and secure a scrum master position.

Over the last several years, there is an increasing number of success stories, where organizations have dramatically improved the performance of their teams and projects using agile and scrum practices. Therefore, a variety of industries is widely adopting agile practices, including technology, media, big corporations and even governments. Scrum is mainly used in the software industry, but it is also used in a variety of others. So, I guess this would be a good time to talk to you about agile and the scrum frameworks.

An Agile methodology helps companies benefit from faster time to delivery and time to market production rates and reduces uncertainty and risk; agile methodology also increases the return on investment because it focuses on customer value.

Scrum is one type of agile methodology, and it has proved to be very successful worldwide over the last several years. The scrum methodology will be the focus of this course.

In a little bit, I will give you a brief overview of the course. Before I do, though, I want to tell you about what you can expect as we go through the material together. Thank you, again, for your interest. If you are ready, let’s begin.