Today I awake at
5:45am to leave the house at 6:50am and board the early orange line to Vienna. I
am up early because becoming scrum certified is my goal. I admit that I am a
techie and love doing statistical programming. My first foray into project
management is actually IT project management. Scrum is natural to me especially
since it provides the framework for continuous improvement; and, I am all about
this.
This stop is the
last of the line and I have never been here before. Dunn Loring, the
penultimate stop, is the farthest I have even been. I then transfer to the 2B
bus to the office building. The ride is going very well but I miscalculated
staying on the bus an extra stop forcing me to walk back over the bridge. I
have managed to find it. I arrive at 8:30am right on the dot. Well, this is an
adventure.
I sit in the
only remaining seat (in the front, of course). I thumb through the material and
it looks manageable; that’s until the instructor starts going off on tangents.
I admit that I am scared because we start at 8:30am ending at 12:20pm (Lunch
was supposed to be at 12 noon but there was another tangent) and we’ve only
covered 8 slides on 4 pages. I’m just happy that I have read Jeff Sutherland’s
book and some Scrum for Dummies
because I’ve felt abandoned. While dining at P.J. Chang’s for lunch, I am
writing in my notebook about ways to study in order to pass the CSM. I have
paid my own money and have been dead set on getting my scrum certification. I
will figure this out. Luckily, he speeds up the pace. At the end of day one.
I do have a
tablemate who lets everyone know that he is taking a graduate software
engineering program. Okay, when I advise him that he convert the scrum
certification into an elective. This advice is coming from someone who has
earned her MBA in her 20s. His response : ‘the way that I am set up, I am only
4 courses away from my masters.’ Dummy. He could have used this certification
converting it into something else. However, I must remember that I am a quick
study. I bet that we are the same age but have different paths. I refuse to pay
more money than I need to on anything especially my education. Good luck with
that! My father fighting in Vietnam and my paternal grandfather fighting in
World War II also perturbs me about this tablemate who has never seen war but
always talks about the Army. Sheesh! One more day!
I have started
practicing for the CSM because I am anal and need to have as many looks as
possible. It is one thing for the instructor to recommend what I should study
on the exam. It is another to be able to problem solve. I need to know the why
because scrum is a part of agile project management. Mastering scrum is
essential towards my deeper understanding of this. Furthermore, I love
tinkering with technology. For me it is all about walking into the workshop
knowing all of my stuff not just what is recommended.
Yippie! I have
scored 80% on a mock CSM exam. I have gotten 12 out of 15 correct. Two out of
the three that I have gotten wrong are because I don’t know the terminology. I
don’t know anything about technical debt of maintainability. I will ask the
instructor about this.
More yippie! I
have taken a full 35-question mock exam and increased my score to (29/35)!
That’s better than the 15-question one. It is essential to build my stamina by
taking a full mock exam because I need to know how I will react.
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