The first Shanghai Scrum Gathering was a great success with over 275 people joining together April 19 and 20 for all things Scrum! Highlights from the Gathering included a robust open space, and the agile ways the group quickly inspected and adapted to fill a few presentation spots as a result of an impediment, the volcano. Yes, the volcano served as a major impediment for our friends from Europe that were not able to make it to the Gathering due to the grounding/delays of some air travel.

The keynote sessions were a crowd favorite as was the Scrum Clinic. The opening evening cocktail reception provided social time for the Gathering attendees and was filled with lively conversations and excitement. The group collectively discussed ideas and topics for another Gathering in China in the near future as the popularity of Scrum is rapidly growing throughout the country. Board Chairman Tom Mellor closed the event by thanking the attendees for their collaboration and interaction and for making the China Gathering outstanding!

We’re excited to announce the first technical skills course in our new Certified Scrum Developer (CSD) curriculum is open for registration! This course fulfills the three-day technical requirement for the CSD certification.
Information about the May 5-7 course is here.
Information about the May 12-14 course is here.

About CSD
The CSD certification is the next step in your Scrum journey. A CSD demonstrates through a combination of formal training and a CSD assessment that he or she has a working understanding of Scrum principles and has learned specialized agile engineering skills. To read more about this certification, click here.

Good news! We’ve posted our new, amended Bylaws on our website here and here.

The new Bylaws are a product of collaboration with you, our members, and we thank you!

The Scrum Alliance has selected a nominating committee, according to rules set forth in Section 5.2 of the amended bylaws.

The nominating committee will soon meet to consider and nominate potential candidates for the two Scrum Certified Member (SCM) Director seats on the Scrum Alliance Board of Directors, as per Section 3.5 of the amended bylaws. The Nominating Committee, in its sole discretion, shall select three candidates for election for each available vacancy, to be voted on by the Scrum Certified Members.

This month, the Scrum Alliance Board of Directors approved a new CST application process. The approval is not final, and is subject to beta testing (the three-applicant pilot) and legal review.

This simple, 6-step approach offers a different take on CST application. It is built on the principles of trust, respect, collaboration and self-organization, promotes continuous improvement, keeps paperwork and documentation to a minimum, and requires only light-touch administration by the SA. The process allows the applicant, his champion and his sponsors to self-organize to meet the CST requirements and for all to feel comfortable that the application is sound and that the applicant will be an asset to the trainer community. It puts the approval process firmly in the hands of the CST/C community in such a way as to involve all members equally, and promote close collaboration. Having more CST/Cs be involved in each application creates a greater degree of impartiality and avoids accusations of nepotism.

This process is easily scalable, and many applications can be active at one time. It is correctly balanced: it takes a lot of work and effort for an unknown or inexperienced trainer to qualify, but an experienced trainer, well-known and respected in the Scrum community will qualify with relative ease. All existing CSTs are treated equally in this process, to each other and to new applicants. The trainers that have built a better CST network, have co-trained, and taken time to attend gatherings and conferences will find the process much easier to pass than other trainers.

This process meets the key Board of Directors requirements:
   • scalable (can handle any number of applications)
   • treats new applicants and existing CSTs equally
   • ready to be implemented immediately
   • is legally defensible

Additionally, it is light touch, low cost and simple to administer. Most importantly, the process encompasses and promotes the values and principles of Scrum.