Newly minted Scrum Master

I now face the world as a Certified Scrum Master.  Of course, I should note that Ken Schwaber practically chuckles at that term and points out that all he's certifying is that you learned something in the class, and he doesn't even verify that much.  However, I would certainly recommend the course (see here).  The course doesn't really cover anything that you wouldn't read in the books, but as a high-bandwidth medium it really helps to gel the concepts, and it's definitely enriching to engage in experiential exercises and listen to Ken's war stories.

Ken spent a fair amount of time talking about how to use Scrum with managers and customers who know nothing about it, and adapting it to serve your needs (there's a lot of that in the books as well).

It was nice to know that a lot of the challenges we face at MSFT are shared by others in our industry.  Scrum is still in its early phases, but I have a feeling its presence will continue to grow.  Scrum has actually reached the point of being somewhat supported and acknowledged within Microsoft (though very inconsistently throughout the company), but I can see from internal discussions that it's growing.

My plan now is to implement Scrum with an internal project, hopefully within the next couple of weeks.  It will be a lot of fun to try!

Take care! -Chris