Overview of Disciplined Agile

• 78% of students have their PMP certifications
• 22% of students did not have any certification at all
• 31% of the students have, in addition to PMP, other agile certifications such as Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, SAFe, and PMI (PMI-ACP)
• 5% of students only had Scrum Alliance or Scrum.org certs.

Yes, the majority of them said they intend to take the exam.

They struggle most with situational questions. Since this is an open book and open notes exam, straightforward questions are fairly easy to answer. When a question is situational and asks what would be the best answer, that is where some people can get tripped up. The DASM exam is pretty straightforward. On the other hand, the DASSM exam is much more difficult and has more situational questions. The questions force you to think deeply about the best answer and most students say they have to choose between two possible correct answers.

DASM exam is much easier than the DASSM so many students pass the DASM exam on their first or second attempt. It is dependent on how much the student was focused during the training and comprehended the information and/or studied before the exam. That said, approximately 80% of students that took the DASM course have passed the exam. There were some who were busy with work and other things that missed the 30-day window and weren’t able to even attempt their first try at the exam.

A great thing right now is that PMI is currently providing up to 3 attempts to pass the exam. That takes the pressure off a little and will make it easier to pass the exam. I tell my students to take their first exam attempt as soon as possible, within a week, to gauge their level of knowledge and then brush up on areas that they lacked based on their exam experience and try to take the exam again.

We provide a complimentary online DASM or DASSM exam prep session after the training, usually scheduled one week from class completion. In that session, we go over key focus areas. We also provide sample exam questions for students to take and get a feel for the type of questions they can expect on the exam. So far we have received a lot of great feedback on our exam prep sessions from students. They’ve said it really helped them in their preparation, confidence, and ultimately in passing the exam.

For those who are experienced agilists and have been actively practicing agile ways of working for two or more years, I recommend that they skip the DASM and go directly to the DASSM course. But before you do that, it is highly recommended that you, at a minimum, read the first 107 pages of the Choose Your WoW book by Scott Ambler and Mark Lines. PMI Members can download this book for free from the PMI site.

Those that are new to agile should start with the DASM course and then work toward the DASSM. Or if they have taken some other agile training before but haven’t really practiced agile ways of working, then start with the DASM. This will provide a solid Disciplined Agile foundation to start building agile skills.

After taking the DASM, they should take the DASSM soon after even if they don’t have the agile experience. That way they are aware and learn the advanced skills that are taught in the DASSM course. The DASSM course not only dives into more complex scenarios but also covers how to build high-performance teams, emotional intelligence, conflict management, and other useful skills that team leads need to have in their toolbox.

Disciplined Agile is a great tool kit to learn and establish your base of understanding as you get engaged in the agile way of working. DA really helps you better understand what “being agile” really means and helps you to get your mindset in the right place before you start engaging in “doing agile” work. We all need to continuously learn and grow our knowledge to stay relevant in this fast-evolving environment we live in these days. As Albert Einstein once said, “Once you stop learning, you start dying”

Students whose company is paying for the training tend to prefer weekday training. Those paying out of their own pocket and working during the week tend to prefer the full-day weekend training. Students don’t want to consume their vacation time if the company doesn’t pay for it or if they are independent consultants and don’t want to lose billable hours.