Australian Scrum Community

Way back in April 2008 there was a significant change in the Australian Scrum landscape that went largely unnoticed. Australia gained its first resident Certified Scrum Trainer when Martin Kearns received his CST credentials.

In the same month, Rowan Bunning also received his CST while he was working in London. Rowan’s now back in Australia, so that gives us two local Scrum trainers.

I’m in Melbourne this week so I caught up with Martin for lunch. That reminded me that I had done a mini interview with him months ago that I’d forgotten to post, so here it is…

ASC: What does this actually mean in the bigger picture?

MK: This will give us the ability to scale Scrum a lot better over here. We are not going to be so reliant on foreign trainers, limited to the few willing to travel to provide public training sessions, etc. If Scrum is to scale mainstream, as we all think it possible, then we need to have a better solution that just have 4-5 classes in a year.

It will also allow Australia companies to have internal classes without the additional costs of travel.

My intention is not to compete with the CST’s currently providing classes in Australia. It is more to compliment their abilities to increase the number of classes available.

ASC: What about training courses other than just CSM?

MK: I can also provide training in Agile Estimation and Planning and User Stories. Course material is from Mountain Goat Software.

This gives me the ability to complement Scrum with the techniques that are very relevant within our industry. My aim is to understand the needs of a company and develop a tailored program to assist in their transition to agile utilising my coaching and training abilities where needed.

ASC: Will we get more CSMs in Australia?

MK: Scrum has the ability to go mainstream in Australia, as it provides the answer to a lot of company’s need to manage the progress of agile projects upwards. Rather than selling Scrum as a bottom up approach only, we need to start making CIO’s etc understand the level of control and risk management Scrum offers due to the transparent nature of progress reporting, etc.

Having a domestic CST will provide the additional ability to increase the CSM levels in Australia substantially, and increase visibility to the framework. I want CEO’s and CIO’s talking about Scrum to their management boards!!