Three Pro-Tips for Mentoring Conversation

Mentoring is a choice.

Mentoring is not a spare time activity. It is more a relationship. It needs to have both mentor and mentee know about each other well. Also, one needs to be committed to making the mentoring work.

Mentor Considerations

Mentoring is about the mentor willingly sharing their experience and knowledge for mentees to learn from them. The mentor needs to be mindful of the general behaviour of people.

Let us consider the concept of advising. Humans are, in general, good at heart. Therefore, if someone finds it difficult to find a solution, it is natural human behaviour to help them out.

But if you ask someone about their opinion on getting advice from a different person, the answer is usually a NO. In contrast, the answer changes if you ask them about getting the same advice from an influencer in a specific field. So always leave the mentee’s of their choice to consider or ignore your advice.

Mentee Considerations

Talking from my professional experience, I can recommend that, “If you want to grow in a field, find a good mentor from the domain.” The reason behind this statement is, it is a prime tool to rise above the mediocracy and succeed more.

There are multiple reasons why you require a mentor to succeed. The advice and information that you receive from a mentor help in your career development with agile scrum master certification. It also helps you to drive through the different career paths. At distinct career junctures, you would need different mentors to guide you through.

Mentoring Conversation

The core of mentorship gets defined by the people concerned with the matter. However, it is a worthy point to note that real magic truly happens during productive mentoring conversations.

But, do you know what makes the process so special? Here are the three things that need consideration:

·       Humility and humanity are the two things that people bring with their relationships, provides strong power to mentoring.

·       Having a conversation helps in converting ideas and learning from two individuals into context.

·       The support system between a mentee and a mentor plays a prime part in outshining. Overcome the obstacles by learning from past mistakes.

If you put all of these aspects in a combined effort, you can make a powerful mentoring relationship. It impacts other people’s careers and lives, besides influencing the organization positively.

Three pro-steps will help you with mentoring conversations and developing profound relationships:

Develop a rhythm and flow

The foundation base between the relationship of a mentee and mentor is the conversation. It stimulates development in every way. The conversation quality truly impacts on a deeper level in developing a mentee.

Mentoring conversations require the right rhythm and flow. You need to find it and follow it right. Set a pattern in the conversations which suits the concern and follow it time and again. Notable points to consider are

·       The actional progress since the last meeting

·       Which actions worked and which did not

·       Recommending the next trial

·       Path to follow next

The conversation model must be cyclical in pattern, which you can follow through the complete relationship course. First, the focus needs to be on short steps to later jump into bigger goals to progress rightly.

Convert the mentoring conversations into actions

Conversing about issues and concerns with mentoring partners forms the mentoring foundation. You can take things further with productive conversations, which stimulates personal development. Close any conversation on an active note for the next step. The three ways to accomplish it are:

Focus on goals

Mentees: Focus on ideas and activities that can enhance your skills to make you closer to mentoring goals

Mentors: Think about asking the reason behind every action. It helps the mentee to move ahead towards the goal with a clear perspective. They can express better and present the reasons behind every action.

Be practical

Mentees: Choose a straightforward way to adapt key learnings. Focus on actions that align with the principles of your conversations. Report your experience to the mentor and explain your observations to generate newer conversational dimensions.

Mentors: Guide your mentee by following their ideas to learn how to put the ideas into action in reality. Encourage discussions on both topics of what worked and what did not.

Model representation

Mentees: While conversing with your mentor, reflect on how the discussed concepts influence your existing behaviour. If you wanted to adapt to a new behavioural standard, what would that be?

Mentors: Honest feedback is the key. Tell them your honest observation of their behaviour. It would be better to share personal insights from your experiences with similar behaviour adaptations. Guide them on how you covered the path that they are on right now by sharing your learning experiences.

Expressing appreciation

It is vital to take out time to express your appreciation. You require to express your gratefulness to be a part of the productive mentoring relationship. It is a great conversation generator. It works by building a reliance and rapport between the two.

Do you mention the things that changed in your life for the mentoring relationship? Do you invest ample time to express your gratitude through practical examples related to your mentee or mentor? Also, do you tell them about their impact on your work?

By opening up to each other, you can reduce the distance between minds. Expressing real emotions makes you feel closer to the person more. Therefore, it is vital for a strong mentoring conversation.

Consider the following conversation starters:

·       I am indebted for

·       Conversations are helpful for me when you

·       Your insights/personality/experience/words have helped me . . .

·       Your relationship means a lot . . .

·       I am grateful to you for . . .

It strengthens your relationship when you share genuine feelings. It develops your character as you learn to appreciate the good things. Also, it also creates a sense of commitment for both parties.

While you are still in the process of mentoring, keep in mind that it is a personal relationship. It is between two human beings who are having productive conversations. The conversations help them succeed in life and achieve bigger goals in the future.

Resource: https://www.tryscrum.com/blogs/three-pro-tips-for-mentoring-conversation/

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Guide to Building a Career as Scrum Master

Are you interested in becoming a Scrum Master, but you are yet to have any experience?

People frequently ask me – if I don’t secure a job, how will I gain experience?

In the last seven years, I have assisted several interested and enthusiastic professionals to become Scrum Masters. In fact, in my first job, at Hewlett Packard, I was a Software Engineer. I gradually elevated to the role of a Scrum Master.

In this blog, I will share my valuable experience in my journey towards becoming a Scrum Master. I would also share stories of various professionals, including women, who were successful in getting a Scrum Master’s job even after a career break.

The tips and strategies I will share helped several professionals understand both the fundamental and experience associated with Scrum Master’s role. Moreover, various professionals also experienced the essence of these concepts in their professional lives.

They became more confident in their job search, presenting themselves as better, more deserving candidates.

The job of an agile scrum master certification is both exciting and challenging. Once you take this journey seriously and succeed in an assignment, you would be content with the results. It makes me genuinely satisfied, as I feel that I have inspired some talented people with my experience.

Coming back to the core question – How is it possible to get the job of a Scrum Master without relevant experience – I would like to share ten valuable tips that effectively help you get the desired results.

A known devil is better than an unknown angel.

A highly productive first step is nurturing the willingness to experiment by finding the most appropriate opportunities under your current company. You need to be straightforward and request your employer about playing the role of a Scrum Master, getting associated with one of the teams.

You have to locate a team that is new to the Agile ways of working and try out few things such as:

Introducing the fundamental ideas of Sprint

Practising various Facilitation techniques to facilitate different Scrum events

Showing the stakeholders the functionalities and attributes of working software and getting their feedback

Introducing the concept of Scrum Board

Implementing a set of modern techniques to facilitate retrospectives

When you experiment with the activities mentioned above and strategies, you can obviously mention the details on your resume, enriching it.

Pen down a Plan for Personal Development

After you have already experimented with few basic Scrum techniques, it is essential to visualise personal development aspects properly.

For example, after a couple of years, you would like to be in a Scrum Master’s role, helping your Organization radically re-imagine the kind of work done.

A clear, crisp and well-designed plan is also vital for your mental health in the long run, which would help you progress further in your career.

Under the personal development plan, you can consider:

Setting clear goals for yourself

Smartly prioritising those goals

Marking the deadlines for achieving the set goals

Recognising threats, along with opportunities

Constantly developing your skills and expanding your knowledge

Utilising the support network you have

Measuring your progress

Your CV is hugely important – start building it

There is no need to panic if you don’t have any significant experience as a Scrum Master. But, it is pretty essential to particularly highlight the contributions you have made in various Agile teams.

For example, you can mention how the team benefitted from your practices.

My experience from the fields

“I had started my professional career as a Software Engineer. To my employer, I had expressed my clear and honest intentions to work in different Scrum teams. I expressed my interest to become a full-time Agile team member. I gradually learned the fundamental practices of Scrum. In my next job, I applied some of the Scrum practices that I could pick up. That was a genuinely defining moment for me, as an aspiring Scrum Master.”

It is highly essential to project your experience as a member of the Scrum team. Mention in your CV the exact practices that you had employed in the Scrum team. Talk about how did you slowly seed your thoughts in teams. Also, keep in mind not to falsify facts in your resume. Simply mention precisely the scrum practices you did and not the ones you did not.

Get appropriate training and get certified.

Earning too many certificates is not the answer to every question. Personally, I don’t vouch for it. But, acquiring a recognised credential certainly indicates two main things:

Strengthening the fundamental knowledge you possess

Creating a learning mindset by investing productively in yourself

I would recommend receiving a certificate from Scrum.org (PSM). You can also earn it from Scrum Alliance (CSM).

Some many other organisations and institutes provide certificates on Scrum. I don’t recommend any of those. You need to be alert from being tricked by an impostor. When searching for an experienced trainer, you need to get connected with someone who has previous work experience of being a Scrum Master.

Preparing Your Resume

This could be the trickiest part of your preparation. You have to ensure that your application, rather CV, gets shortlisted for the role of Scrum Master in a company that you have targeted. Companies nowadays rely on advanced software that screens resume. Hence, you have to take a highly pragmatic and professional approach.

You need to ensure highlighting some essential keywords while writing your resume, such as ‘Scrum Master’, ‘Facilitation’, ‘Retrospectives’, ‘Agile Teams’, ‘Metrics’, ‘Coaching’, etc.

Most modern software tools and products, including LinkedIn, will scrutinise and scan the resumes based on these keywords. Keep in mind to logically connect all these terms in your resume. Also, don’t forget to highlight some key contributions in your resume.

Doing all these things would increase the probability of your resume getting shortlisted.

Focus on the question – Why an employer should hire you?

Given all other achievements and qualities are on the same platform, a person with more experience would definitely get hired as a Scrum Master. Since you lack that experience, you have to innovatively highlight your attributes and stints relevant to the role you are applying for, making you a perfect fit.

For example, suppose you are applying to the E-commerce industry for the role of Scrum Master. Accordingly, you need to demonstrate your qualities and experience relevant to that specific industry. You can also highlight pertinent blogs you have penned for clients. It is also acceptable to mention a community event that you have organised or facilitated.

Finding volunteering opportunities in communities

If you cannot get enough relevant opportunities under your employer, you need to search for volunteering opportunities in various communities. 

This could be a non-profit at the regional or national level.

At tryScrum, our trainers were once community members. They began their journeys as members of our Studios before they became full-time Scrum trainers. Community forums help you in building a network among several Scrum Masters.

45% of all your opportunities will be from networking and relevant communities (Source: ‘The Stages of Scrum Mastery research’).

You have to become creative to gain experience. I have known people who struggled in the initial stages but never gave up, ultimately achieving the position of a Scrum Master.

Your Network is Your Networth

It is considered that good networking gets you the job that you are desiring and searching for. It is also a matter of luck – being present at the right spot, with the right people and at the right time.

Keep in mind that if getting your current job requires networking, then certainly getting a Scrum Master’s job would require even more vital networking.

Ensure that your colleagues and close friends know very well about your job search intentions. In addition, try to utilise the potential of various groups, forums and professional networks.

Be Patient

Patience is undoubtedly a valuable virtue. In conclusion, I would always say you remain patient in your job search. Shifting to an entirely new position in your professional career could take some time. You have to be persistent.

What is next?

Numerous organisations can help you get valid certificates and help you build an illustrious career. Remember that you have to keep on learning and expanding your knowledge relentlessly. You can explore the following:

Scrum.org (PSM II / PSM III)

ICAgile (ACC or ENT or CAT)

Scrum Alliance (CEC / CTC)

ICF (ACC / PCC)

CPCC (Co-active Coaching)

tryScrum Community Opportunities

Scrum Master Studio

Product Owner Studio

Agile Leader Studio

Resource: https://tryscrum.com/2021/04/30/guide-to-building-a-career-as-scrum-master/ 

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What Is Agile Coach Training?

I have worked with several teams in the past half a decade, across the globe. There has been confusion among many professionals centring on the fact of calling Agile as a specific ‘Methodology’.

So, the question is, if you can’t call Agile a Methodology, what is it actually?

Googling the definition of the term provides you with the following results:

agile

adjective

able to move quickly and easily.

“Ruth was as agile as a monkey”

nimble

Relating to or denoting a method of project management, used especially for software development, that is characterized by the division of tasks into short phases of work and frequent reassessment and adaptation of plans.

What is the explanation for ‘simple yet fast’?

In order to know the answer clearly, you can watch True History of Agile. The video clip clearly tells that agile coach training is practically a strong, balanced philosophy. It is about a continuous process of learning, and evolving your mindset. In the context of developing a software product, Agile is, in essence, the capacity to quickly respond efficiently to changes more rapidly, maintaining simplicity.

Nowadays, without simplifying their business and intent of continuous learning, several organisations call themselves Agile.

Even today, when I interact with various executives, who claim they are agile, I find out that there is inefficiency in the implementation of the right principles within the framework. Moreover, these executives don’t deliver consistently. They don’t aim to iterate focusing on incremental solutions. There is no continuous improvement in the framework. Particularly, teams are not self-managing. They are also not empowered. Worse, the heavyweight and commonly used methodologies today have no resemblance with the agile principles and concepts described clearly in Agile Manifesto. 

Many among us, who are experienced, can identify what authentic agile is, and what is not. Yet, it seems difficult to define it. Agile is beyond the ‘four value statements’, or the 12 principles, mentioned in the Agile Manifesto.

For me, Agile is:

Expertise to respond faster with simplicity, improving continuously by expanding the overall solution space and adding value in the context of the teams and organization involved in the creation of such solution sets for our customers that are valuable.

What is your experience in this regard?

Resource: https://tryscrum.com/2021/02/08/what-is-agile/ 

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Corporate Event by tryScrum

Scrum Master

The Scrum Master course is for anyone involved in Improving software development using the Scrum framework. It is particularly beneficial for those people within an organization accountable for getting the most out of Scrum, including Scrum Masters, Managers and Scrum Team members.

Product Owner

The Product Owner course is intense training for someone that is directly involved in maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the delivery teams. It has been specifically conceived for those responsible over products from a business and product management perspective and taking up the highly accountable role of Scrum Product Owner.

Know more: https://tryscrum.com/corporate-events/

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