let's answer this frequently Asked interview question today how do you remain relevant in
the agile space what are the things that you do to consciously improve yourself given that you can
never know it or one can never know it all and the whole essence of agile is continuous learning and
continuous Improvement so what are the things that you are doing to continuously improve yourself and
keep your skills relevant my name is Karen from my phone your agile evangelist and welcome back to
my channel hi everybody so if this is your first time here you're very welcome here we talk about
agile we talk about project management product development the agile ways of working the agile
um Frameworks you know just as a way to continuously keep our learning alive and
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never miss out on our content thank you so very much now let's go straight into the topic
what are the things you are doing to continuously improve yourself as a scrum Master as an agile
coach as a product owner as a release trained engineer this answer to this question should
be applicable on any agile role of today okay regardless even if it's not an agile role it
should be applicable on any professional interview you're going for all right so I just have some
some recommendations for you on how to answer this question 98 of the time I always like to go with
data this question you will be asked whether I like it or not because it's a very vital part of
being an Azure practitioner so they always like to know they always like to assess that area now
let's ask let's try to answer this question what are the things you do to remain relevant in this
in the market or to continuously improve yourself as an agile practitioner well what I have done
what I am still doing I am a big I mean I have a self-starter mindset and I strongly believe in
continuous learning and conscious Improvement which is the whole essence of agility you see
so some of the things that I am doing as caring for my phone to continuously improve myself is I
am a member of different communities of practice so if you've been asked this question just list
some of the communities of practice you belong to that's a way to continuously keep your learning
alive and you know um throw ideas here and there with other agile practitioners so um belonging
to a community of practice is is critical it is vital you know so you can even use being agile
um YouTube platform as one of the communities you belong to that is that that that's what I'm
talking about you see because so many times I've seen people reaching out to me and they're asking
oh can you recommend communities of practice this is a community of practice and it kind of
information we share here I mean I'm telling you to be honest with you it's rare to find this kind
of information that we share it authentically you know so feel free to quote being agile as a
company of practice you belong to and talking about being agile as a community of practice
so far we have about 18 000 subscribers so far and going by by analytics um in YouTube only 52
percent of our viewers have actually subscribed to our Channel we have 48 of people that consistently
watch us and learn and benefit from our materials but they just don't want to subscribe why
why are you doing that why are you doing that to us it doesn't cost you anything whatsoever
to subscribe so subscribing it goes a long way to show us that you support our idea you support our
platform you support that message you know there are so many different ways to show your support
joining our membership that will cost you some dollars every every month year and then which we
always appreciate and you get some perks for that just subscribing which doesn't cost you
anything like in our content sharing with other people it doesn't cost you anything whatsoever
okay so don't only come and watch And just pack it back and go subscribe subscribe to our Channel
or I'm talking to the 48 of people that don't want to subscribe go ahead and subscribe please
so yeah that's one of the things that you would do to continuously keep your learning alive
the second thing is books I read books I I love reading books I didn't used to like reading books
before at all you know this is me where we come from there is a there is a joke that people always
say that if you want to hide um a very important information from an African-American put it in
a book I don't know how true is that but that was true for me until I decided to choose this path as
as a career path and then I realized that there's no way I'll be successful in this path if I don't
pick up reading as a new habit okay I get books all the time I read and when you are quotes saying
that you read books all the time please make sure that you have a specific example of some of the
books you've read or the book you're still reading for example I'm currently reading agile readiness
this is not a sponsored video but if you go on LinkedIn just type agile Readiness you will
you will get that book that's um a book that we we studied while I was taking my master's
program in agile project management so that was a fantastic book so I still you know go in that book
from time to time and just keep my my learning alive when I'm deployed to support a new thing
so be specific on the book that you've read if not they will come with a follow-up question
and ask you and you don't want that and then another thing that I do to consciously keep my
learning alive and you know improve myself is I take more certifications you can quote some other
certifications you've taken to show that you're consciously improving yourself and you remaining
relevant or some other subscriptions that you are that are in process you see so quote some of that
and then another thing is I attend webinars conferences which I see some people I mean
most people don't they they minimize that you can never minimize the power of attending conferences
and webinars and just interacting with fellow agile practitioners you can that you can just
never minimize that so yes feel free to quote that and um last but not the least you know you just I
I leverage YouTube a whole lot I leverage Google a whole lot too as a way to continuously keep my
learning alive social media platforms you know I also belong to so many different Azure agile
um comments of practice even on on LinkedIn on Facebook you see so these are some of the things
that I do to continuously improve myself and remain relevant in the market so I also listen
to podcasts through Spotify and so many different things if you want recommendations on some of the
ones to listen to drop it on the comment section and I will drop my my suggestions
on some of the ones that you can join and continuously learn so again just to recap
but before I recap I just want to also remind us that you know that we offer fantastic training
um build you on your fundamentals and and you Earnest a professional scrum Master certification
and if you're looking for a good organization that will help you through you earning your
certification and having a great Foundation um of the concept contact us check the description box
you will see our contact information there reach out to us I will be glad to help you become a
successful agile practitioner if you're in between just um having a certification and Landing the job
which is 90 of the journey that Gap is huge if you've been struggling you've been in the job
market forever you're just not sure how to go about this anymore we have a fantastic program
designed to help you close that Gap and win and break through this Market which is what we call
our level 2 program reach out to us today and we will be thrilled to be part of your success story
we have helped thousands and thousands of people you know that I say this with confidence because
that people know that's what we have done and we continuously do this humbly privilegely because
I consider it as a privilege you know to impact lives so reach out to us I don't know how else I
can stress on this we will be so glad to celebrate with you and if you're already on the job and
you're struggling and most people that will be on the job and they're struggling are people that
took shortcuts maybe their Foundation is faulty they never had any mentoring before they got they
they got that job if you're just struggling on how to add value because you know if you're not adding
value they'll fire you they'll fire you this they pay a lot of money over a hundred thousand dollars
you see so if you come in there and you're not delivering the value that they're paying you for
they will let you go so if you don't want to be in that position or you're already in that
position reach out to us we'll be glad to help you close that Gap and you will be impactful in your
organization through our level three program if you're looking for just a resume service you're
looking for just an hourly Consulting service or you're looking for just LinkedIn service
or you're looking to just be able to um have a real-time um experience on the scrum
events contact us we will be glad visit our website and learn more about our programs so
um that being said to just give a quick recap on this question so if they ask you this question
on how what you're doing to continuously improve yourself and keep your learning alive number one
I'll talk about the communities of practice I belong to number two I'll talk about the books
I'm reading and I give a specific example on the particular book I have read or I'm still reading
number three I will you know talk about the certifications that I am taking or the ones that
I've already taken you know or the ones that are still in process to continuously improve myself
and just be better I mean I even have a product owner certification not because I'm a product
owner I only took a product owner certification and training so that I can better serve my product
owner you see um and then the webinars conferences you belong to and all those little all the things
there and there that you're doing to continuously improve yourself like joining LinkedIn forums
um Facebook um agile groups and and taking advantage of Google taking advantage of YouTube
and stuff like that okay I hope this video was helpful if you give this answer to your
employer they'll be so impressed with you okay thank you so much for watching and take care bye