Update from the Agile 2008 conference

I’ve spent a lot of time in the Borland booth the last few days, explaining our new BMS software to passersby. It’s actually been a lot of fun, as I’ve had the opportunity to talk with lots of people about our own agile experiences at Borland.
The most interesting conversation was with an agile coach from Sweden. If I understood him correctly, he believes that scrum has reached the point of being just another buzzword, and that many organizations are pursuing it just for buzzword-compliance, not understanding the fundamentals and value of scrum. I’m sure there’s a certain amount of that, but I don’t think it’s widespread enough to warrant his sharp opinion.
He did raise interesting one point, though: fork out a couple thousand dollars, attend two days of training, and you, too, can call yourself a certified scrum master. He believes that scrum masters should have much more training than that. He said that the agile coaches he’s working with have developed a year-long process for learning how to facilitate agile.
This guy’s thoughts on what it takes to be a qualified scrum master meshes with a conversation I had yesterday with some of my Borland coworkers. One of them was suggesting that scrum masters could benefit from facilitator training since facilitation is an established discipline that’s very similar to the role of scrum master. I would love to get some facilitation training.