Advanced Certified Scrum Master® (A-CSM®) certification is about more than just taking a course and framing an achievement for your office–it’s about helping your Scrum team reach its full potential.

One of the key differences between being an Advanced Certified Scrum Master versus a Certified Scrum Master is that becoming an A-CSM prepares you to address roadblocks, scale your Scrum, and make meaningful changes in your organization. The A-CSM is intended for people who want to deepen their Scrum practice.

In this article, we’ll explore the A-CSM certification requirements, how your certification can make waves in your work culture, and the benefits of becoming an A-CSM.

What Is Needed to Become an Advanced Certified Scrum Master?

The Advanced Scrum Master certification process is more extensive than first level Scrum certifications and includes a number of prerequisites. These include:

• Complete and hold a current Certified Scrum Master (CSM) certification.
• Attend an accredited A-CSM course, either online, in-person, or via mentoring courses. We run our Advanced Certified ScrumMaster workshops with regular cohorts and have weekly coaching sessions.
• Complete all necessary pre- and post-course work.
• Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the Scrum principles and Scrum Framework. Our A-CSM course requires you to do practical work and report your learnings back.
• Validate at least one year of work experience specific to the role of Scrum Master within the past five years.
• Accept the A-CSM License Agreement.

The course you take is the most important requirement of all. Your course must be certified by the Scrum Alliance®, otherwise it is not an authentic certification. The Scrum Alliance standardizes the knowledge required to become an A-CSM and ensures you are accurately trained.

Who Should Attend an A-CSM Course?

A-CSM courses are best for:

• Scrum Masters
• Agile coaches
• Project managers
• Team leaders
• Agile Team facilitators
• Development Managers
• Delivery Managers

What You Can Achieve with Advanced Certified Scrum Master Training

The A-CSM course includes the same six main objectives as other levels of Certified ScrumMaster training:

• Coaching
• Agile facilitation
• Services to development team
• Services to product owner
• Services to organization
• Personal development

But the Advanced learning course, as you would expect, goes deeper in the areas of:

• Facilitation skills
• Coaching
• Leading and facilitating change
• Visual management
• Scaling and descaling Scrum principles
• Enabling high performance in teams
• Lean Software Development
• Understanding team dynamics
• Resolving impediments and roadblocks

With A-CSM certification training, you will learn how to facilitate dialogue between the Scrum Team members, product owner, customers, and stakeholders. In these interactions, your A-CSM certification equips you to respond effectively when encountering certain obstacles, such as low motivation or resistance to change.

Advanced Certified ScrumMaster training helps you develop the skills to scale Scrum and Agile beyond a singular team in your organization. You will understand what motivates people and how to increase engagement from your Scrum team.

Benefits of Earning Your A-CSM Certification

Your education shouldn’t stop when you become a Certified Scrum Master.

In addition to the skill of growing more effective teams, the A-CSM certification sets you apart from others in the industry, signaling to employers that you put in the effort to learn.

Real-Life Ready

A-CSMs walk away with a robust toolkit that prepares them for Scrum and Agile implementation, including coaching games, exercises, and other tools. You’ll learn how to facilitate dialogue between members in all levels of your organization and help your team overcome obstacles collaboratively and become high-performing and effective.

Expanding Scrum Impact

With your A-CSM certification, you will have the knowledge and understanding necessary to expand the impact of Scrum in your company and will be able to identify new avenues for scaling Scrum and Agile.

Let Agile Pain Relief Lead the Way

Agile Pain Relief’s A-CSM courses offer benefits that other courses fall short on. Rather than sitting on a conference call with your microphone muted for the duration of two business days, our collaborative group of Certified Scrum Trainers create engaging and stimulating courses that immerse you in Scrum and Agile practices over the course of several weeks.

We believe in thoughtful integration, building learning around experience and curating a community of collective expertise. Certified Scrum Trainer Mark Levison himself  has more than twenty years of experience in implementing, teaching, and coaching Scrum. When you complete your A-CSM course training through Agile Pain Relief, you aren’t walking away with just a certification–you’re stepping into a new mindset with the tools and support you need to generate a much-needed shift in your organization!