Improving Agility - Agile Certifications

50 Pages·2013·10.22 MB·English

by  Kane Mar

Improving Agility
Agile Certifications
An overview of the leading Agile
certifying bodies and their programs
Copyright notice
All contents copyright (c) 2013 by Scrumology Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or trans-
mitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Limit of Liability and Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher has used its best efforts in preparing this book, and the information provided herein is pro-
vided "as is." Scrumology Pty Ltd makes no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book
and specifically disclaims any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose and shall in no event be liable for any loss of
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holders. They are used throughout this book in an editorial fashion only. In addition, terms suspected of being trademarks, registered trademarks, or
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction 4

Chapter 2: Trends in Agile Development 6

Chapter 3: The Scrum Alliance 10

Chapter 4: Scrum.org 16

Chapter 5: The Project Management Institute 22

Chapter 6: International Consortium for Agile 25

Chapter 7: Scaled Agile Academy 28

Chapter 8: The DSDM Consortium 31

Chapter 9: What’s Right for You? 35

Appendix A: What is Scrum? 38

Appendix B: Glossary 41

Appendix C: Reference Tables 44

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Introduction
1
About This Book About The Author
Nothing creates heated debate in the Agile software development Kane Mar is a Scrum Coach and Cer-
community like the topic of certification. tified Scrum Trainer. He first worked
with Ken Schwaber (the Co-creator
Detractors claim certification doesn’t indicate a level of expertise or
of Scrum) in 2001 and has been ac-
understanding, merely that the holder has attended a two-day
tively involved with the Agile commu-
course. Supporters argue some level of basic education is better
nity ever since.
than none and certification is the first step to understanding Agile
software development. Both arguments have merit. Whether we Mar became a Certified Scrum
approve or not, certifications are here to stay. Trainer (CST) in 2006, a Certified
Scrum Coach (CSC) in 2007, started
I believe certification is an individual choice with many factors to
the very first Scrum users group (Se-
consider including education, career opportunity, personal growth,
attle Scrum) in 2007, and co-founded
time and money. You are the only one who fully understands the
Scrumology.com in 2009.
intricacies of your career and whether certification would be a po-
tential benefit to what you want to achieve. As a result, you are the He has worked with, coached and
best person to make the decision about certification. trained a number of notable compa-
nies including Microsoft, Oracle, Metlife, Nationwide, Capital One,
This ebook written from an objective viewpoint, not supporting one
and JPM.
side or the other. It’s intended to give you an understanding of the
leading Agile certifications to assist in making an informed deci- In addition to the Improving Agility series of ebooks, Mar has pro-
sion. duced several free Agile products including;
Chapter 2 is an overview and brief history of the origins of certifica- • Scrum101.com, an online introduction to Scrum, and
tion in the Agile community. • Scrum Addendum, a free newsletter on advanced Scrum topics.
Chapters 3 through 7 give an overview of the current leading Agile
certifying bodies and the certifications they offer.
Chapter 8 presents questions for you to consider when making a
decision about whether certification is right for you.
Finally, Appendix C is a summary table I created while researching
material for this book. Start here if you’re short of time.
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Trends in Agile
Development
2
State Of Agile What Is A Certificate?
Let’s think about why you might want to do Agile software develop-
cer·tif·i·cate   [n. ser-tif-i-kit; v. ser-tif-i-keyt]

ment. VersionOne is a well-regarded Agile tool vendor who per-
1. a document serving as evidence or as written testimony, as of
forms an annual survey titled ‘The State of Agile’. [1] The annual
status, qualifications, privileges, or the truth of something.

survey is available online for all to read.
2. a document attesting to the fact that a person has completed an
The whole report is worth reading. If you’re short on time, you owe educational course, issued either by an institution not authorized
it to yourself to read the Executive Summary:
to grant diplomas, or to a student not qualifying for a diploma.
Useful highlights from the survey include:
Certificates and Certifications have been part of the software com-
The top 3 reasons respondents cited for adopting agile were to ac-
munity for a long time. Industry associations like the Project Man-
celerate time to market, increase productivity, and to more easily
agement Institute (PMI) and corporations such as Microsoft and
manage changing priorities. Oracle all support certification of software professionals. The re-
cent trend towards certification of skills in the Agile community is a
and natural extension of the growth of the community and the desire to
differentiate oneself from other potential candidates.
75% of respondents felt that agile projects were the same or faster
A Brief History Of Agile Certifications
to completion than previous non-agile ones.
and finally, The Scrum community have been the primary force behind Agile
certification. Ken Schwaber introduced the first Certified Scrum
Master course in 2003. Certification at this time indicated atten-
Prior to adoption, respondents said productivity and time to market
dance. James Grenning, one of the authors of the Agile manifesto,
ranked as their top reasons to adopt agile. But experienced agile
has a photo of the participants in the very first Certified Scrum Mas-
users said actual benefits were primarily project visibility (77%)
ter course held in 2003:
and the ability to manage changing priorities (84%).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwgrenning/5434399988/in/set-721576
25996795339/
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If you look closely, you’ll notice a number of famous faces in the What Is The Value Of Certification?
crowd including Mike Cohn, the current chairman of the board of
the Scrum Alliance. Since that time, the meaning of certification
has changed to include the requirement of achieving a passing It’s difficult to put monetary value on a certification and Agile certifi-
grade (at the very least) on an exam before you can claim to be cations are relatively new for discernible results from academic
certified. A more detailed look at how each of the different Scrum studies. The only indicative data existing are blog posts and infor-
communities treats certification is given in Chapters 2 and 3. mal surveys. These, however, provide an indication of where the
market might be heading.
Certification within the Agile community has proven to be as popular as in
other communities invoking great debate about whether it benefits the commu- The online jobs website, Indeed.com provides simple charts and
nity. Regardless of the arguments around certification, it cannot be denied a reports lending insight. This is the graph for the percentage growth
strong market demand exists. Already, there are five major certifying bodies
of job postings containing the phrase “Agile software”. The last six
and a number of minor bodies. [2
years have seen a massive 1750% growth in the number of Ag-
ile jobs advertised on the site.
Demand for certification has steadily increased over the years
and, at this point, is likely to continue to increase.
The grow in jobs containing the term ‘Agile Software’ from 2005. (Image used with permission from
indeed.com)
The Agile community is wrestling with a question many other com-
munities have dealt with in the past, if certificates are here to stay,
how do we create meaningful certifications? This ebook is intended
to help you make a meaningful decision.
What Is The Validity Of Certification?
Certificates tend to derive validity from what the participant learns
while achieving the certification but also from how certification is
viewed in the marketplace.
This has always been problematic because it’s difficult to say pos-
session of a certificate conveys any level of competence. Not only
that, certifications from well-established or reputable organizations
are often perceived as more ‘valid’ than certifications from lesser
known organizations.
A more interesting question is, What is the value of certification?
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As you would expect, the growth in demand for experienced and 1. Any survey is open to criticism regarding how it was constructed, the
qualified Agile practitioners leads to more competitive salaries. At types of questions asked, and the natural biases of the respondents. I
recommend the reader maintain a healthy cynicism of the data pre-
the time of writing (late 2012), the US national average salary for
sented - as they would of any such survey - and be aware statistical
the job description ‘Agile coach ScrumMaster’ was US$121,000.
data can be interpreted in different ways.
2. Minor certifications include certifications offered by small private compa-
Average salary for the job description of ‘Agile caoch ScrumMAster’ from 2010. (Image used with per-
nies or individuals. Many of these private companies and individuals
mission from indeed.com)
are experienced and professional offering certifications of real merit.
However, they often lack market penetration. In this ebook I have fo-
cused on the dominate certification providers.
3. Here is the query that I used to generate the growth of agile software
development graph:
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=agile+software&l=&relative=1
4. Here is the query that I used to generate the average salary for a
Scrum Master or Agile coach:
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Agile+Coach+Scrummaster
As the community continues to grow and the remuneration for
these roles inflates, so does the desire for Agile professionals to
differentiate themselves in a competitive job market.
One way to do that is to acquire certifications.
Notes And References
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The Scrum Alliance
3