Last fall Anderson Diniz Hummel became a Certified Scrum Trainer. This means that he has been approved by the Scrum Alliance to teach Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Product Owner classes. The journey to becoming a CST is never easy and never as quick as anyone would like and for Anderson, it was over three years from the time he first started working on it. (And this is after already having taught at the University level for a number of years.)

During the recent holidays Anderson and I had a conversation about what his journey to CST was like. We recorded this in hopes of helping offer some encouragement, advice and support for others who are headed down the path.

To help provide some background about the CST designation, according to the Scrum Alliance’s 2018 State of Scrum Report, there are over 500,000 certified practitioners of Scrum worldwide. Within that community, only 234 people are certified by the Scrum Alliance as being allowed to teach Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Product Owner classes. So, it is a rare certification to have and many people who begin heading down the path do not have a great understanding of what to expect. Hopefully this interview will help with that.

SHOW NOTES
00:09 Podcast Begins - What’s up with Anderson
01:56 Anderson’s background as a teacher and how that led to him applying for Certified Scrum Trainer
03:10 How is teaching Certified Scrum classes different than teaching at the University level
04:39 Anderson’s 3 year journey to become a Certified Scrum Trainer
10:17 Being a CST is a lot more than just teaching Scrum correctly
11:36 How Anderson went from failing art exams in school to excelling at creating art in his classes
15:45 How big a role does experience working on Scrum teams play into teaching CSM and CSPO classes
19:25 Anderson’s advice for coaches who want to become Certified Scrum Trainers
25:20 Understanding how teaching all day impacts you as a human and planning recovery time
27:32 A word of caution for new CSTs who try to book too many back to back classes
29:32 Parting words of encouragement and advice for CST candidates
32:25 Getting in touch with Anderson
32:27 Interview Ends

CST CERTIFICATION
https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/trainers/cst-certification

CONTACTING ANDERSON
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersonhummel/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/anderson_hummel