A snapshot of my CST journey

I have heard the word "Congratulations" many times in my life, but the one I heard on the 5th October 2018 at London, hotel Alaft, First floor, TACTIC - 1 room, was so sweet and memorable one for me. It was one of the greatest moments of my life, because I was approved as CST (Certified Scrum Trainer) on that day.

It took close to 3 years and a couple of attempts for me to reach this goal. I feel it was a tough journey but realized that it needs to be like that to have the quality bar high that challenges people.

I consider there are three pillars that are important in the CST journey :

1. Scrum experience: One should have worked as one of the three roles of Scrum (Product Owner, ScrumMaster, Development team member) and should have strong Scrum experience in delivering products.

I worked in all three roles in the past 9 years and also worked as an Agile Coach in an Agile transformation for a gaming company. This helped a lot in understanding the practical challenges and the various extreme customization attempts that we need to be careful about.

It is important to understand the Scrum Guide in-depth and should know what is Scrum and what is not Scrum.

2. Training Experience: The person should have a very strong Training experience, especially Teaching Agile and Scrum in a multi day environment. This will help gaining experience in handling the classroom dysfunctions and to manage the training effectively.

I have facilitated several Training sessions and also worked with 9 existing CSTs to co-train with them and to see their style, their way of managing the classroom, based on which I created my own style. I was fortunate that out of 9 CSTs I co-trained with, I had received 8 strong recommendations. I want to thank all the 9 CSTs here for allowing me to work with them.

I also have attended the "Training From the Back of the room (TBR)" Training in January 2018 at Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This helped a lot to prepare 4C Map (Connect, Concept, Concrete Practice and Conclusion) for all the topics.

I also joined the "Toastmasters" club in order to get familiar with voice modulations, including humor, taking logical pauses, body language, improving eye contact and to get out of fear of public speaking. This has helped a lot in my CST journey and I would strongly recommend anyone who wants to go in this path to try this option.

I take care of "Scrum @ Pega" Training sessions on monthly basis to teach Scrum to the new hires at Pega. This training has helped me to practice the learning from the TBR and Toastmasters club.

Those who want to become CSTs, should have a continuous training practice so that you can be natural in delivering at TAC (Trainer Approval Community) interview.

3. Preparation for TAC interview: This is most crucial step in the journey. Usually when people come to this step, they might feel this is simple (At least, I felt this is a simple one to cross but it was not). It is not same as your own Scrum training. Here the TAC members check for many aspects and the candidate should be strong in all those aspects. I was fortunate to get rejected at TAC initially which has helped me to focus on the areas where I had to improve. This learning has helped improve my Passion, Patience and Performance.

In fact, when I submitted my application I had 5 recommendations and when I was not approved, I tried to -co-train with few more CSTs but this time I clearly requested those CSTs to observe the areas of improvements that I received from TAC as feedback. This has helped a lot to see whether I have improved or not. At that point, my focus was more on receiving the feedback and the recommendations were byproduct.

After the TAC interview, if we are not approved, they provide a very clear, actionable feedback. So I focused on that and worked on the feedback. This has helped in cracking the next TAC interview.

Based on my TAC interview process, below are some inputs that I would like to provide to the aspirant CSTs. These are purely from my personal experience and no way related to anyone else or Scrum Alliance. I am providing these points with a hope that they might help others who are on this path.

• In the first 5 minutes preparation:
• Ask relevant questions about the Topic or let the TAC know if you make any assumptions
• Prepare the flip chart of any activity related work during this 5 minutes time so that your 20 minutes simulation will be smooth
• Opening of the 20 minutes simulation:
• Set the ground and prepare the class as if you are doing the session as part of the CSM training. For example: "Welcome back to post lunch session of CSM workshop, our next topic is ......."
• Build a working agreement in less than a minute. Do not try to write this as it may take long time. You may just explain them as "We will not use any electronic gadgets, one questions at a time, one conversation at a time, we will use parking lot,..."
• During the simulation main topic:
• Check if you are clear and louder
• Validate the participants' knowledge
• Keep eye contact with all TAC members
• Do not answer all the questions on your own, try to involve the participants and use their experience
• Ask someone in the participants before you answer (for a couple of questions, not for all)
• Keep smile on your face, do not be nervous
• Paraphrase their questions at times
• Read the mood of the room (very important, you need to catch the visual cues they give)
• Use story telling and bring your own experience in the topic
• Be precise and concise with your answers in the simulation
• At times, you may ask "Did I answer your question?"
• If same question is repeated, try to answer differently, do not repeat the same answer
• Keep strict timebox for the simulation
• Use small little activities in between and make sure the participants move a bit instead of sitting throughout the 20 minutes
• Keep your body language easy:
• Do not move often, move with purpose
• Do not lean on one hip or swing
• Do not play with hair
• Do not point fingers at participants
• Do not fold hands
• Do not show your back to participants (especially when you write on the flip chart, adjust the flip chart stand accordingly)
• Avoid direct questions that might hurt participants
• Refer them using their names
• During the Retrospective after the simulation:
• Think thoroughly and write all possible points that went well and the ones that you felt did not go well
• Your list of improvements should be in sync with the TAC observations

It will be always good to prepare as a group for TAC interview so that you can run mock TAC interviews. At least one month practice for all the topics is really useful to deliver a confident and powerful 20 minutes simulation. Very important point to note during your preparation, do not plan your preparation for entire 20 minutes. You should prepare for maximum 12 minutes and leaving the remaining 8 minutes to manage the questions during the simulation. So if you plan to prepare for 20 minutes, you may not be able to logically complete within 20 minutes. So keep sometime to handle the questions.

I prepared all my topics in such a ways that, every topic should be delivered in 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes intervals. Accordingly I prepared content, activities. Inspect and adapt is the key to success, so at regular intervals keep inspecting and make changes accordingly to your preparation and the content.

That's about my preparation for the CST journey and I feel very proud to be part of the CST community. Overall, it was an interesting and exciting journey which has finally ended with a good note, "Congratulations, you are approved as a CST, welcome to the CST community"

Hope this helps. Feel free to contact me in case you have any further queries.

All the very best !