Certified Scrum Trainer®
(CST®) Certification

CST® Prerequisites

Updated April 2024 by the Scrum Alliance Providers Team and Trainer Approval Community

Purpose: The CST prerequisites have been carefully established to prepare an aspiring CST for success. Each prerequisite ensures that the CST candidate will be able to meet or exceed the expectations of world-class training skills and deep and fluent scrum understanding required of a CST. Successful completion of all prerequisites prior to application ensures candidate readiness and contributes to the overall credibility of the CST certification.
 

  1. A CST candidate must be an active Scrum Alliance certificant in good standing (free of Scrum Alliance Code of Ethics complaints or violations).
 
  1. A CST candidate must hold (and have visible on their Scrum Alliance profile) an active CSP®-SM certification. If applying via the product owner path, the CST candidate must hold an active CSP®-PO certification.
 
  1. A CST candidate must have delivered at least:
  1. 10 qualifying training events* (please see additional information below under "Definitions").
  2. At least five of the qualifying training events must be delivered with the most current version (including no substantial changes, see section VII, below) of the candidate’s Certified ScrumMaster® or Certified Scrum Product Owner® course materials.
  3. All of the qualifying training events must have occurred within the last 60 months.
  4. To count as a qualifying training event, the CST candidate must have delivered at least 50% of the duration of one qualifying training event.
  5. For each qualifying training event, the candidate must be able to describe how they are inspecting and adapting based on student and/or co-trainer feedback.
 
  1. A CST candidate must validate the following minimum recent experience:
  • A minimum of 60 months, within the last 84 months, either:
    • Actively working on a scrum team
    • Actively working as a coach directly with scrum teams
  • This experience, above, must have been gained in at least three different areas; for example:
    • Different companies or organizations
    • Different business units
    • Different product lines
    • Different contexts
 
  1. A CST candidate should be able to explain their personal vision for training scrum as well as their future Trainer goals. 
 
  1. A CST candidate must demonstrate and explain their personal approach to training scrum masters or product owners.
 
  1. A CST candidate must create their own CSM or CSPO training materials, which validate the most recent version of the Scrum Alliance Scrum Foundations® and CSM or CSPO learning objectives*. A CST candidate must maintain up-to-date training materials (updates may be substantial, e.g., structural changes to course materials, or non-substantial, e.g., tweaking wording or an activity prompt).
 
  1. A CST candidate must provide at least five (5) letters of recommendation from those who can directly validate the candidate’s expertise in training and breadth and depth of scrum knowledge.
 
  1. A CST candidate must demonstrate and describe how their materials and delivery method(s) have evolved through their experience of delivering the training, both through the use of feedback and from self-reflection.
  • If a CST candidate has co-trained with an active CST, they must provide feedback from each of their CST co-trainers. If feedback is not submitted for any co-training event, an explanation of why it is not provided must be presented.
 
  1. A CST candidate must have participated in at least one Scrum Alliance event (Global Scrum Gathering®, Regional Scrum Gathering®, or Agile Coaching Retreat) within the last 24 months.
 
  1. A CST candidate must be an active and engaged member of the agile/scrum community (see examples listed in Standard 3A of the CST certification standards) for at least 24 months prior to application.  



Definitions:

 

  • CST: an active Certified Scrum Trainer, meeting and maintaining all certification and renewal requirements designated by Scrum Alliance.

  • Learning Objectives (LOs): statements that define the expected goal of a curriculum, course, lesson, or activity in terms of demonstrable skills or knowledge that will be acquired by a student as a result of instruction. The learning objectives for a CSM or CSPO course are validated by a CST, who measures the student’s depth of understanding and what the student will be able to do after successful completion of the course.

  • Qualifying Training Event (QTE): a Scrum Master (or, if applying via the product owner path, a Scrum Product Owner) training course, either certified or non-certified, which must include:

    • For in-person courses, there must be a minimum of 16 hours of contact time (including reasonable breaks and lunch) with the students.  Please note that the minimum contact time can be met over multiple sessions and may be non-consecutive.

    • At least six students must attend the course.

    • At the time of delivery, the course must fully integrate and cover the most recently published version of the Scrum Alliance Scrum Foundations and CSM or CSPO learning objectives.

    • The course must provide clarity to the students on what is a part of scrum and what is not part of scrum, as aligned with the most recently updated version of the Scrum Guide.

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