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A Scrum Master Certified (SMC) is a highly advanced certification that signifies deep understanding and proficiency in the application of Scrum. Achieving this level demonstrates an individual's ability to handle complex, multi-team scenarios and resolve intricate challenges within Scrum environments. SMC holders are not only adept at facilitating Scrum events and practices but also excel in coaching, mentoring, and leading organizational transformations towards agile methodologies. Their expertise enables them to guide teams in optimizing productivity and efficiency while maintaining a strong adherence to Scrum principles and values.

Scrum principles, as outlined by SCRUMstudy, form the foundation of the Scrum framework, guiding teams towards effective collaboration, adaptability, and value delivery. These principles emphasize customer-centricity, iterative development, and self-organization. Transparency is paramount, ensuring that all aspects of the project are visible and understood by all stakeholders. Inspection and adaptation allow teams to continuously improve their processes and products, responding swiftly to changing requirements and market dynamics. Collaboration among cross-functional teams fosters creativity and innovation, while time-boxed iterations promote predictability and flexibility. By embracing these principles, Scrum teams can navigate complexity with agility, delivering valuable outcomes that meet customer needs and drive business success.

Agile methodology is a dynamic project management approach to software development and implementation. Within a few years of its inception, Agile methodology has become popular because it is both developer and customer friendly. This is because—unlike the traditional Waterfall approach—Agile methodology is an adaptive approach that permits changes and modifications to be incorporated into the overall project plan at multiple points.

The hallmark of Agile methodology is the incremental and iterative approach to software development. In other words, the entire project is broken down into various customer-valued features that are developed in small repetitive cycles so that these features are delivery ready at the end of each iteration. The frequent delivery of business-valued features is customer as well as developer friendly. This is because, first, the technical team and stakeholders work collaboratively; second, this saves time and money; third, constant feedback from stakeholders enables developers to continuously evolve the software; and last, this promotes lightweight framework with more emphasis on working software than on documentation.

One of the key practices is daily meetings in which the team members inform the entire team on the progress of the project and discuss issues faced and obstacles. This helps the team foresee potential risks and work toward resolving them. Thus, close communication among the team members, increased productivity, evolutionary approach and reduced risks are the four pillars of the Agile methodology. Agile can be best described in the following four basic principles enshrined in the Agile Manifesto:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan