My notes on: [P]rofessional [A]gile [L]eadership, a lifelong journey of learning and serving — but with the heart
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Hello, and here we are, I said I would try to do this more often :P Hope everything is fine there! — the gif above is from “The Hobbit” movie. The phrase quoted, is from “The Lord of the Rings” book-. Meanwhile, since the last sharing, I got this ⬇
The beautiful Scrum.org Professional Agile Leader certification. Was it worth? Every bit of it, and I’m sure the road ahead will be too.
Let’s talk about my findings till now :
PAL I: Origins 👀
The Professional Agile Leadership (PAL I), is a certification provided by Scrum.org, since April 25, 2018. The assessment validates and certifies your knowledge of how agility adds value and why leadership understanding, sponsorship, and support of Agile practices are essential.
According to scrum.org, since it’s release, now we have 3,637 PAL I persons certified around the world! You can be the next :D
PAL I: Why?🤔
Personally speaking, for me it was an extra challenge set for this year (2020), a career milestone. I do believe in leadership, I want to become the best I can, as my personal mission says “ .. to be a facilitator in solving problems in a practical and assertive way. Always committed, partnering and keeping up to date with information to help others, and making a difference in people’s lives”
I do believe the best ways on helping are : collaboration, listening, seeking learning and putting it on practice. And hey, aren’t collaboration and listening one of richest ways to learn?! A thanks to my mentors and to my colleagues and friends, I’m always learning with you!
Technically speaking, scrum.org is one of the most one of the most renowned organizations in the agile land, formed by Ken Schwaber in 2009 after he left Scrum Alliance. This certification is recognized worldwide, and it does not expire. So it’s an investment.
PAL I certificates that, as a leader, you understand that being Agile adds value to your business, and why leadership understanding, sponsorship, and support of Agile practices are essential to an organization becoming more agile. Those who pass receive the industry recognized certification as a PAL I from Scrum.org; demonstrating a fundamental level of understanding about how agility adds value to an organization, why leadership support of agile teams is essential to achieving organizational agility, and what leaders can do to support their teams to help them achieve higher performance. — Source: scrum.org
PAL I: How? How Much? 😎
General Overview :
- Fee: $200 USD per attempt
- Passing score: 85%
- Time limit: 60 minutes (I had enough time to answer and review the questions)
- Number of Questions: 36 (more complex than PSM I. You need attention on reading and interpretation)
- Format: Multiple Choice, Multiple Answer, Choose the Best Answer and True/False
- Difficulty: Intermediate ( for my experience, I would compare the challenge to PSM II)
- Language: English only ( but you can use the translate option in your navigator)
- Required course: None
- Recommended course: Professional Agile Leadership Essentials (PAL-E)
- Practice assessments: Agile Measurement Open, Scrum Open , Agile Leadership Open ( PAL page does not mention Measurement Open, but I found that it, combined with Leadership Open, makes your test! You will need it!)
My Test Insights and Preparation
First of all : I WAS SCARED. It was challenging, I thought I knew a good part of it, I realized I was only in the top of the iceberg!
I’ve decided to take the Professional Agile Leadership Essentials (PAL-E) course, it’s not required but I realized it would be different from my routine as Scrum Master, and I wasn’t wrong. What were the main benefits of taking the course?
- Gaining a brand new view on : Why Agile Matters? — We must always start with the Why!
- Gaining knowledge through sharing with experienced leaders in class. The class was full of amazing experienced professional, with the richest points of view, about leading multiple teams, in complex environments, and taking strategic and corporate decisions, and it’s challenges.
- The instructor — also very experienced- led us through a hands on class, with agile AND leadership concepts, beyond scrum guide, based on agile values and principles, targeting not only the squad environment, but the enterprise as a whole echosystem, and that opened my mind.
- We saw concepts of team maturity, management 3.0 and developing people!
- Ecocycle Planning — Liberating Structures
- We learned about Evidence Based Management (EBM), it’s concept, tools and benefits
- We discussed strategic decision making and how to collaborate, foster and respect the agile ecosystem among our corporation, as a Agile Leader.
- We discussed cultural changes and mindset
- Scrum Framework
Believe me, it all counted during the test.
After the class I’ve taken the Agile Measurement Open and the Agile Leadership Open , as many times I could, even getting good rates, so I could see different questions that could be in the official test. I was always reviewing the answers, reading the comments and using the sfrum.org RESOURCES, materials to improve the points where I was feeling weak, and also, my preparatory class colleagues created a group where we would exchanging our studies evolution and recommendations.
I’ve also read and studied both the Evidence-Based Management Guide and the The Scrum Guide, and that was it! Between the two days preparatory class, it took me a week to take the official test. I was lucky to pass in the first attempt.
The test time was enough for me to answer and reviewing the questions. The level of difficulty reminded me of PSMII, with bigger enunciates and requiring attention on reading and interpreting the text. It’s common to see “choose the best answer” kind of question, so it’s good to have cause knowledge, and to always have in mind that you point of view must be the Agile and Scrum’s point of view — respect the time boxes, roles and artifacts! Consider transparency, inspection and adaption. Collaborate through it!
Summary :
- Why Agile? — We must always start with the Why!
- It’s good to have concepts of practical leadership — mid level or above, leading multiple teams.
- If you are not yet in that position, you can gain lots of insights by exchanging ideas people with that kind of expertise. The preparatory class could be a good opportunity for that.
- If you are already there, prepare to open your mind to a new way to see your practices — or maybe to discover you are already in the good path ;)
- If you are not familiar with: read the scrum guide and the agile manifesto. Try to see how those values and principles could fit in a daily basis.
- Seek to learn about Business Agility and Management 3.0 Levels of Delegation.
- Read the Evidence-Based Management Guide — I will write my notes on it soon.
- If possible, have a partner or study group — it helps
- Have faith in yourself! Everything will gonna be alright! ;)
That’s it for now! Hope it helps!
This moment reminded me of Bilbo Baggins, leaving home to a unknown adventure — the gif from “Th Hobbit “ movie- 1 : because I’m a Tolkien fan since I was 13 🤣. 2: because it was new for me, and because leadership is path I want to walk and discover, I wouldn’t say that was the first step, but for me it was big, and once again I’ve learned that there are MUCH MORE to learn. I’ve shared my mission statement, it was from a few years ago, it’s personal — but to be shared -, and it’s above all, true! “..to help others, and making a difference in people’s lives”
