Is getting a professional qualification the right thing to do, as an entrepreneur?

As a young entrepreneur or any young professional, you may feel like you are missing something, from your artillery of professional skills. One way of strengthening your confidence and credibility in the professional world is by getting a professional qualification in management .

These qualifications can be really useful in the work place, and are sometimes if you are lucky funded by the company you work for. However, what if you are running the company, and want to take an extra vocational course? Or you are currently unemployed and want to boost your CV?

Now there is a competition run by QuickQuid, to win £300 towards a professional course. You can learn more about the competition here. They have also advertised for this competition with a banner on the right column of this site.

I have signed up for a course to get a professional qualification, it is called Certified Scrum Master course. This is agile software management course, run by the Scrum Alliance.

I have stated a new blog about my journey to the scrum alliance course and reading through Mike Cohn‘s book, Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum (that was indeed an affiliate link). The site is also an experiment in blogging about agile scrum management. Startup companies especially technology business use Scrum to manage their software development.

First of all it is a tumblr blog on agile software development. Tumblr is a blogging tool I have not used properly before. Second of all I have tried to use two different form of income for the blog that I have never tried to use before. On this website I have used sponsored posts and added clicks to make a small income. On my tumblr I have used affiliate links, like the one above to test how much income they make. I have also experimented with Flattr, a social micro payments site to support good content.

Social Micro payments has a slight similarity to crowdfunding, they are both a way to fund a start up project, using small payments. With Flattt’s social micro payments you give a small amount of money, normally less than $10, to sites  that use Flattr, with crowdfunding you normally give over $25. Unlike crowdfunding, you do not get any thing in return for your money with Flattr’s Micro payment. This is because Flattr was made to support good content online, for more details about how Flattr works, please see this video:

To get a better understanding of crowdfunding please read my crowdfunding article I published last week.

To summarise, my tumblr blog will document my journey in learning about agile scrum management, and I will tweet my updates regularly.  I hope you find time to have a look at it if you are interested in scrum, agile software management or professional learning. If you are interested in a vocational course, have a look at the QuickQuid competition, as they could fund your training.

Related article

• Innovation in Finance: The Alternative Lenders Changing the Financial Landscape for Small Businesses (thestartupmag.com)
• Entrepreneurial Spirit, by the Cirion Group (thestartupmag.com)
• Is crowdfunding a viable way to fundraise capital for your start-up? (thestartupmag.com)