How COVID-19 kickstarted my Scrum Master journey — Part 2 (2021)
My personal journey as a Scrum Master in Thailand (2021)
This story continues from Part 1, please skip back to read if you are keen on the beginning of my journey.
“BUT what do I need to DO? What exactly do I need to DO as a Scrum master?”
These are the 2 questions I asked myself everyday at work. Luckily, my Agile Coach was there to guide me through. He taught, mentored, coached, advised, led by example, and did everything in his power to make sure he set our team up for success.
2021… The year of separations, realizations and growth
Learning by doing and seeing my Agile Coach in Action helping our team set-up, I realized and learned that the two core skills I would need to be effective as Scrum Master for my team are Facilitation and Coaching.
I chose to focus on Facilitation first because I thought “who really understands coaching, let alone do it?”
With guidance and support from my Agile Coach, I slowly see better results from my facilitation learning from useful resources like Liberating Structures, and practicing it with my team.
It was not long before I realized that facilitation was enough to take my team through to the end of the Sprint Retrospective, BUT not enough to help the team gain the awareness and commitment needed to take through the actions to make their next sprint a better one.
So I know I need to learn how to do Coaching and decided to invest in the Certified Associate Coach Program to get proper education in Coaching.
It was hands down the best use of my money to date. I learned and made so many professional and personal breakthroughs which transformed and made me who I am today.
One of the key realizations was “It’s not just the DOING, the importance lies in the BEING.” The being of a coach or a facilitator. Who you are at your core and how you show up to be of service to the people you serve is all that matters.
Riding on the momentum and my newfound appreciation for proper education to enhance my skills, I decided to also invest in Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO®) courses and walked away with newfound knowledge and realization to course correct and continuously improve my practices.
Maybe things were going TOO well… So the universe made me taste more of what life had to offer.
Suddenly, my Agile Coach had to leave the company… it was like the world was crashing down on me for two main reasons.
- Who would lead the Scrum adoption?
- Who would help guide me through this new world of work I’ve discovered and want so badly to be a part of and create this working environment for my team and my company?
In the midst of angst, pain and sorrow from the separations and the lack of hope on how I can continue as a Scrum Master in the company and with support from my Agile Coach and my lovely peers, I was able to shift myself out of being drowned in the disempowering thoughts… And one day, it just dawned on me that “My life is in my own hands.”
So I opened up LinkedIn and searched for the REAL Scrum Master job (so I thought it was) and landed one soon after.
…to be continued…
