I have been walking around in the neighborhood taking photos of the beautiful fall foliage. Red is my favorite color so of course I have found some red leaves.
Confession – Even though I like
living in Washington, DC, these Cleveland leaves are unmatched. In my hometown,
you get all four seasons. DC ‘fall’ goes from 80 degrees to 50. That is not
fall. Enjoy!
Hey there Blogger Family! I know that it has been a while but I am back! To my original blog no less! A lot of things have been happening; but, I am still ready to achieve many of my 2024 goals and get started on some 2025 goals.
Happy Halloween everybody! This post’s inspiration comes from seeing these four Jack O Lanterns in the grass of DeForest Park in Cleveland, Ohio. I have thought that it is pretty cool to share this with you.
Soar is my 2024 word of the year.
Here’s its definition
2: to rise or increase dramatically (as in position, value,
or price)
This year I am soaring personally, professionally and
economically.
Hey
everybody! I passed my SAFE 5.0 Scrum Master certification exam retake on
Memorial Day! I was so happy that this was over because it was a much harder
retake exam than I expected.
I scored a
measly 13% on my experiencing program increment (PI) section the first time so
I spent a lot of time reading that. I also researched the swim lane, product
owner, product management, DevOps CALMR and wrote down the Agile Manifesto
every single day to retain that information. And STILL it was hard!
As
an economics major, Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Project Management
Professional (PMP), I will tell you that SAFe is NOT an entry-level scrum certification.
I would recommend that you take the CSM first and work in a SAFe environment. If
you cannot do those things, I would recommend taking an introductory SAFe
course first to learn the concepts independent of the pressure to pass the
exam!
I
am very happy to end the month of May on a very high note. I went from having a
very weird interview with a lady who had a major attitude, was all over the
place but peaked my interest combining lean with project management to my
learning that this combination was scaled agile framework (SAFE) to finding a
50% off exam prep course on Eventbrite to failing my first time to earning this
SAFe Scrum Master certification!
I took the official Scrum Master certification exam Thursday morning right after midnight and failed scoring 31/45. It stung because I had scored 82% on the official practice test. I also scored a measly 13% on the Experiencing the PI Planning section which I felt did me in. I knew that I was in trouble off the bat when the first question was talking about program board and a swimlane (which I associated with business analysis but later learned that Kanban also used swimlanes.).
Failing was the best thing that ever happened to me because I got to take all of my feedback and experiences to the instructor. He answered all of my questions, learned about the new score reporting structure and went through the official practice exam again pointing out the trick words. Had I taken the certification exam either during or after the fourth day of class, I would not had been able to have access to the instructor. It would had been anti-climatic. However, by learning from my mistakes it helped matters. I see myself passing the SAFe Scrum Master retake this weekend.
On a much happier note, my attending this week’s scaled agile training helped me during my scholarship interview. Thursday I had a scholarship interview to win money to sit for the Certified Scrum Product Owner training. Before this scaled agile training, I thought that the Product Owner role only existed in traditional scrum. However, now I learned that the Product Owner existed in scaled agile too. I felt that from the interviewer’s body language that I won the scholarship.
Once
again, I am having issues. This time Windows 10 is kicking out my wi-fi forcing
me to constantly restart my computer. Next I have to find instructions to do an
online repair of my Microsoft 365 because (you’ve guessed it!), Windows 10 has
messed that up too. However, it is day 3 of my SAFe Scrum Master training
and you WILL get this story!
Okay
so I ask the instructor if the certification exam was an open book or closed
book exam. When he says closed book exam, out of nowhere the same person who
texted the group that it was an open book texted saying that ‘This is my fourth
exam prep course. No one is monitoring your camera or you work’. Um, that can
have your certification exam snatched and banned by the accreditation body.
Some people are just lazy I tell you! Anyway, I am very happy that I have
stayed consistently throughout the whole thing because I am ready to pass my
exam tomorrow night!
I have even taken the practice
exam furnished by Scaled Agile. I have to give a course review where I detail
the whole Scaled Agile meetup out of nowhere and not being able to log back in
because the instructor is hosting another Zoom meeting escapades. After
completing the course survey, I take the practice exam scoring 82%. This fuels
my fire to pass my exam tomorrow night.
I
admit that during the second half of class, I have skimmed through some things (I
know that the Dot review will NOT be on the exam!). However, I have learned how
to save the Zoom meting chat. I have saved them on my red laptop so I will
transfer these chat transcripts via email. My goal is to be SAFe Scrum master
certified by Thursday. Not even the instructor saying that the actual exam is
harder than the practice exam scares me. I have been preparing for this moment
for over 2 weeks! I am getting my certification!
Once again I am dogged with tech problems. This time it was on my older silver laptop. My Windows 10 license was at the ‘end of life’ and Microsoft would no longer support so I had to do an update. No problem, I thought. I would just do the update now and get it over with.
Wrong!
I started the update at 2:45pm. I napped awaking at 5pm and it was only up 78%. My training started at 6pm where it (finally!) got to 100%. But once again, had I relied on the laptop, I would had been late for class. So I started my training on the red laptop. Sheesh! I just wanted one day with any tech issues.
Today I started off mentioning that I put two questions on the collaborate Kanban board regarding the role of the scrum master regarding the backlog and program increment. The instructor said that these were good questions (I try!).
In the second hour, the instructor ends the Zoom meeting. The entire class tries getting in after the break and we all receive a message saying that the ‘host is in another Zoom meeting’. This is the second day and as many disruptions. I’ve honestly never seen anything like this before. The instructor uses his Zoom meeting room for 5011 purposes besides SAFe exam training.
Also unfortunately, there are some technical difficulties not just with me but everyone today. I hope that Al Gore’s Internet does not fail us tomorrow on day 3!
