As documented by Namrata Mishra
My career mantra is to always keep looking up and keep moving forward. I am constantly looking at how I can improve myself and how I can attain my next career goal. This is exactly how when I was faced with the opportunity of becoming a Scrum Master, I took it and haven’t looked back since. Here’s my journey of how I became a Scrum Master.
I have worked my way up ever since I began my professional career, starting as an SAP trainee with SoftSpin Services in Mumbai nearly 20 years ago. Learning on the job came naturally to me. I always make a conscious effort to learn something of value from everyone I encounter—not just at work, but in daily life. This spirit of lifelong learning is exactly how I came into contact with Simplilearn.
I believe a lot can be learned just by doing it in your regular course of work, but sometimes it’s necessary to take a more structured approach to learn, especially when it involves a standardized methodology such as Agile Scrum. For an agile organization to run like a well-oiled machine, you can’t simply wing it. Everyone needs to be on the same page to reap its many benefits.
That is why Simplilearn was the answer to all my problems. A two-day Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM) Certification training course gave me the confidence to excel in my career and that was just the beginning.
The Challenge: Taking On the Role of ScrumMaster
With my mantra in mind, I have advanced through the ranks as a professional software engineer to become a program manager since graduating in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. I worked with SAP software (and the ABAP programming language specifically) at SoftSpin for a couple of years before moving on to a series of senior-level software engineer and management-level jobs.
I joined Mercedes-Benz R&D India as a Program Manager for the Service Operation team. My work focused on SAP and financial services, which was my forte, but my manager knew I wanted to keep growing and taking on more ambitious roles. She asked me whether I wanted to take on the role of ScrumMaster.
ScrumMasters have a lot of responsibility. They coordinate the various activities comprising a given project with business objectives (bringing a new software release to market, for example), ensuring the project is done right and delivered on time. They host meetings and maintain multiple lines of communication to make sure everyone has the information and resources they need—when they need it. It’s similar to the role of a movie director, although it’s typically applied to technology projects that involve large, multidisciplinary teams.
I was awed by my manager’s confidence in me but I was a little skeptical about making the transition right away, as I only knew the basics of the Agile methodology. So, I decided that the best option for me was to pursue formal certification as a ScrumMaster. After extensive research and multiple recommendations, I found Simplilearn. They had exactly what I had been looking for to help me become a ScrumMaster.
