About ScrumIntelligence.org
Assisting individuals and teams in tackling complex challenges.
A Little History About Us
Scrum.org, founded by Scrum co-creator Ken Schwaber, is a mission-driven organization dedicated to helping individuals and teams solve complex problems. It achieves this by empowering people to apply Professional Scrum through training courses, certifications, and ongoing learning based on a unified competency model.
Our courses provide an engaging, hands-on learning experience led by Professional Scrum Trainers (PSTs). These trainers are experienced practitioners, thoroughly vetted for their expertise and teaching skills, and undergo additional training before teaching any course. The course content is continuously updated with input from over 350 PSTs, ensuring it reflects a collective wealth of expertise. Each PST incorporates their real-world experience into the classroom while delivering a consistent learning experience.
Scrum.org certification tests are globally recognized for assessing, enhancing, and certifying Professional Scrum knowledge. These tests are independent of training, allowing individuals to validate their understanding regardless of how they acquired their knowledge.
Scrum.org supports learners at every stage of their journey, from beginners to advanced practitioners, offering resources and opportunities for growth. Community members engage with each other through forums, blogs, and other platforms to share insights and expand their understanding.
Follow us on Twitter @scrumdotorg, explore insights from our expert community on the Scrum.org blog, and discover the true meaning of Professional Scrum.
An Introduction to Scrum.org
The Genesis of Scrum.org
Ken Schwaber originally tried to establish Scrum.org’s programs within other organizations. However, he realized that in order to achieve his goal of enhancing Scrum knowledge, training, and implementation, he would need to break away and create an independent entity—Scrum.org.
Below is an excerpt from a letter Ken Schwaber wrote to Scrum.org trainers and partners, explaining the reasons behind the creation of Scrum.org. The letter was originally written on March 30, 2010, and posted on June 15, 2010.
Why
“Why did you found Scrum.org?” I’ve been asked this question countless times since I created Scrum.org last fall. This is the story of my journey with Scrum, beginning with its creation, moving through its establishment and evolution, and culminating in my work with Scrum.org. My journey has been shaped by two opposing forces: the desire to do the right thing and the desire to make money. I founded Scrum.org to realign my efforts with doing what is right.
Creating Scrum
The story of Scrum’s beginnings is well-known, so I won’t dwell on it here. Jeff Sutherland and I had been using Scrum for ten years before the meeting at Snowbird, where we and others signed the Agile Manifesto. This manifesto, along with my first book on Scrum (“Agile Software Development with Scrum”) and the rise of modern integrated development environments (IDEs), helped Scrum spread rapidly in the early 2000s.
A few years later, Martin Fowler and I were flying back to Boston from a conference on scaling Agile projects at the University of Calgary. We were disheartened by how many of our customers still didn’t fully understand what Agile and Scrum were about. Martin and I decided that some form of structured instruction and even certification would be necessary to address this gap. As a result, I developed a two-day ScrumMaster course, the first of which took place at ObjectMentor in Chicago in 2002. I certified the attendees as “attendees” and listed their names on my website, controlchaos.com. I conducted many of these sessions throughout 2002 and 2003. Over time, the course became more refined and experience-based, distinguishing between what Scrum is and how it should be applied. I considered the course a success because I could see how much better the attendees were able to apply Scrum in their work. The feedback from course participants was overwhelmingly positive, and as word spread, the courses became increasingly popular.
Fighting “Flaccid Scrum”
By early 2009, more organizations were adopting Agile processes than traditional waterfall methods, and of those using Agile, 84% were employing Scrum. However, less than 50% of these organizations were developing in incremental iterations, which are the core of Scrum. Martin Fowler mentioned in his blog that he was encountering many instances of “Flaccid Scrum.” Teams were using Scrum terminology but were unable to create a potentially shippable increment of functionality within a single Sprint.
I launched three initiatives to remedy these problems:
Creating the “Scrum Developer” program was a response to one of the biggest challenges in Scrum: the steep learning curve for developers on Scrum teams. Since Scrum is a management practice, most instructors were not developers and often lacked the expertise to teach engineering practices like test-driven development or emerging architecture. To address this, I partnered with three organizations skilled in teaching hands-on software development with Scrum: Accentient, Conchango, and Microsoft. Together, we developed a course for Scrum developers focused on the .NET technology stack. With Microsoft’s help, we had access to a pool of experienced trainers, including Microsoft MVPs and Inner Circle Partners. Launching the course in spring 2010 alongside Visual Studio 2010, we were able to offer a fully integrated technology stack and planned to expand the course to other technology stacks with different partners.
As Scrum spread, so did confusion and misunderstanding of its principles. To combat this, Jeff Sutherland and I compiled the Scrum body of knowledge into what we now call the Scrum Guide. We also worked to improve the quality and consistency of Scrum training. One key insight was that inconsistent training contributed to the “flaccid Scrum” phenomenon. Different instructors had varying interpretations of Scrum fundamentals—such as defining “done”—and many struggled with questions about team and development dynamics during a Sprint. To address this, I launched an initiative to standardize and improve course materials and ensure trainers were evaluated by their students. Additionally, I introduced a formal assessment before certification to help students better understand their level of comprehension and improve the overall training experience.
Establishing Scrum.org
With the newfound freedom to restart an organization driven by a mission, I was able to focus on my goal of advancing Scrum training, including the development of Scrum developer programs. This led to several key commitments I made as I established Scrum.org:
Create Scrum.org – I would establish a new organization dedicated to developing and sustaining the Scrum Developer program.
Develop Assessments and Certifications – The program would be structured around assessments and certifications based on a defined body of knowledge, ensuring that professionals could validate their understanding of Scrum.
Redesign Scrum Courseware – I committed to redeveloping the existing Scrum courseware, creating an advanced version called Scrum-In-Depth. This new course would focus on applying Scrum in more complex and advanced scenarios, catering to experienced practitioners.
Publish the Scrum Body of Knowledge – I planned to make the Scrum body of knowledge publicly available on Scrum.org, with structured beginner, intermediate, and advanced assessments and certifications based on this guide.
Form a Group of Transparent Scrum Trainers – I would bring together a new group of Scrum Trainers who valued openness and transparency, with a focus on high-quality, consistent training across the board.
These commitments set the foundation for Scrum.org to evolve into a leading organization in the Scrum training and certification space.
“Scrum.org would follow its mission within a framework of checks and balances.”
The Road Forward
“Our mission remains the same today as it was when we started – to help our profession rise to the demands of an increasingly complex world that relies on increasingly complex technologies and products. Advances in materials and techniques can only succeed if we shift to a collaborative, creative approach to build the enabling software.
As we use Scrum, we continue to find new opportunities for professional improvement. As the inspect-and-adaptation mechanism of Scrum uncovers issues, we intend to develop and apply new programs at Scrum.org. We then intend to inspect their effectiveness, adapt to circumstance, and improve whenever necessary. These programs will refine bodies of knowledge, create training and coaching capabilities, and offer assessment and certification of knowledge and skills. To that end, we are aligning communities of people around common goals to encourage ownership, participation, and advancement.”
Ken Schwaber
Chairman, Founder of Scrum.org, and Co-Creator of Scrum
