Virtual VS In-Person Class

It's possible to achieve PSM II remotely even with the PSM I course. I know I've had at least one student who's accomplished this in the past few weeks.

Thank you for the insight.

Yet I am rather interested in the opinions of others about these classes.

On the other hand: What kind of learning material should I use for PSM II. The guide here on Scrum.org is rather vast and to be honest a number of the videos and articles are not really helping me.

If someone has any specific advise for this I would be grateful.

I invest in classes, workshops and conferences each year. My preference is for in-person classes so the travel expenses make it a significant investment. But they help me learn from my instructor, and from others in the class, and that is an invaluable learning experience. Plus, it helps that I can network with future bosses and/or clients.

While I do value the individual advise I am afraid to say that none of these answers really help me.

@Mark Adams

I do understand your point of view since it is a good investment to have in-person classes but these are not the details that I need to decide whether a Scrum.org class is really for me.

I would really value at least some insight here. What can I expect to learn? How are the courses structured? I am not asking for the detailed information but without any kind of feedback from people who already participated in these classes I am afraid I am unable to see the benefit for me at this point.

I have attended three Scrum.org classes; all in-person, and all before COVID-19 necessitated online classes (and I assume some changes to the in-person classes).

So I have a perspective, but a limited one.

I attended the Professional Scrum Master course in April 2017. I credit this one as having the most dramatic impact on me. It was structured brilliantly, and quickly deconstructed a lot of myths about Scrum, before building up the basics of Scrum, and preparing us to continue learning long after the class had finished.

Professional Scrum with Kanban (May 2018) and Professional Scrum with User Experience (March 2019) gave me new perspectives on how to combine Scrum with other techniques. In doing so, I gained practical knowledge of other ways of working, but also discovered more about Scrum itself.

Both of these were new courses at the time, and also attended by multiple Professional Scrum Trainers, so I'm aware that they're special cases, but they did also include several people who were less experienced, and so I think they're still somewhat representative.

All courses have been interactive, with a large element of group work to discover solutions to problems, and an atmosphere of asking questions as they come up. In some cases the trainer(s) will move things along, in order to keep to the timebox. The classes tended to be very collaborative, with students often answering each other's questions (or giving advice), when they could.

There was a good balance of theory to introduce topics, but then exercises (mostly as groups, sometimes individually) to solve problems; then that was backed up by further discussion to address what the group had learned/discovered.

There were moments in each class, where some subjects were more rushed. I felt this was an appropriate trade-off, where the trainer allowed longer discussions when the group needed it, and accepted that this would mean less time to go into other subjects.

We ate lunch as a group. The lunch conversation was a mix of personal anecdotes, and the occasional specific course-related question that the trainers seemed happy to answer. The trainers also tended to stay behind a little while after the end of both days, in case anyone wanted to ask them anything.

@Simon Mayer

This really helps me! It gives me some idea of what I can expect at one of these courses. If I look at your experience the courses do vary depending on the level and the trainer.

But I have to say that I now feel much more inclined to invest money for one of these classes.

Thank you Simon!