Bewildered by the circus of over 250 Agile and Scrum Certifications on the market today? Wondering which certifications hold the most value? Me too!
In January 2020 I announced my own personal Agile Certification Challenge. My goal for this challenge is to get 52 new Agile and Scrum Certifications this year, or one per week. I already had 8 certifications so this would get me to 60 certifications total by year-end.
There are a lot of certifications to choose from. An overwhelming number of at least 256 related certifications that we were able to verify as you can see in this searchable table.
Looking for the last update on the challenge? You can skip the background and jump right to the latest update here:
Why would I take on the Agile Certification Challenge? Great question! Here are my reasons:
We’ve posted the chart below on our Circus of Agile Certifications blog. We are trying to keep it up to date but that is difficult because new certifications seem to be created all the time.
I would love your feedback and tips related to how to accomplish this challenge. It won’t be trivial to get a certification per week. Certainly, there are some that don’t require much more than paying your money and taking a test, but I don’t want 52 of those.
My considerations for planning this include:
My current plan is to use each month as a sprint. Each sprint will have a theme and the deliverables will be not only learning but the achievement of 4-5 certifications. I will also write a review for each of the certifying bodies.
Here is the high-level plan for the first 6-months of 2020.
January 2020 – ScrumStudy
There are a series of certifications from ScrumStudy and the International Scrum Institute that are achievable without traveling to attend external training classes. I intend to complete 4 of those just to get the ball rolling.
February – Disciplined Agile Delivery
I registered for a Disciplined Agile Training Class in Chicago, the Disciplined Agile Lean Scrum Master Class. I think it may be possible to achieve 3 or 4 DAD certifications with that one class. I am also exploring a one-day Team Kanban Practitioner course in Costa Mesa CA.
Update January 27 – My DAD class in Chicago was canceled so I registered for a course next week in Florida. It will be more cost and time, unfortunately.
March – Scaled Agile Framework
I am going to be in Phoenix Arizona for most of March so I am looking for training opportunities there. There is a SAFE Advanced Scrum Master Class in Phoenix on March 16 & 17.
April – Kanban
I have my eye on a Kanban course being taught by David Anderson called the Change Leadership Masterclass (leading to the AKC credential). At $6,500, it isn’t going to be cheap so I am exploring discounts.
May – TBD
The month of May is TBD at this point. Perhaps I will fill in with some of the easy-to-achieve certifications from the International Scrum Institute.
June – Large Scale Scrum Training with Craig Larman
I had been waiting to hear about Craig Larman’s plans to visit the Midwest. Larman has training scheduled in Minneapolis and Detroit and he has just added a June Chicago LeSS Practitioner Course to his itinerary. So I am going to plan on attending that class.
Woohoo, so far I am on track with the Agile Certifications Challenge for January with 4 completed certifications out of 52! I started with ScrumStudy after getting a free training class offer from them. I used their online training courses and studied their proprietary Scrum Body of Knowledge (SBOK Guide) and was able to pass the following 3 certifications:
You can read my review of ScrumStudy, the SBOK and the three certifications here: The Certifications from ScrumStudy.org
I also signed up for several agile certifications through the International Scrum Institute. The first one seems logical, the Scrum Team Member Accredited Certification. So I took it and handily passed with 49 out of 50 correct responses. Yay!
Here is a summary chart of my cumulative Certifications as of February 1.
February was a productive month. As planned I took the training course for Disciplined Agile and learned more about that framework. You can read all about my Disciplined Agile experience and the resulting certifications here: Checking Out the Certifications from Disciplined Agile
And as predicted, I was able to get 3 certifications from that one training class:
I have applied for a fourth and expect to hear within a week if my Disciplined Agile Lean Scrum Master application was reviewed and accepted. Learn more in my post about the DA Certifications.
Here is an updated summary chart showing the year to date progress:
This month we also quietly launched a site where you can learn more about all 250+ agile and Scrum certifications AND weigh in with your own comments and ratings. We are crowd-sourcing information about all the available certifications and would love your help. Please check out the site and add your feedback: Agile Certification Reviews
Wow was March a real challenge. In addition to some true personal challenges and a near meltdown, we have the COVID-19 pandemic to deal with. Luckily I was able to stay more or less on track with the agile certifications challenge. Though I am not sure how practical it is to continue through 2020.
As anticipated, I received my Disciplined Agile Lean Scrum Master (DALSM) certification. This was based on the February 2020 training course and a quick reference check of my performance on a couple of past agile initiatives where I was the coach/SM.
I also completed 4 certifications from the Scrum Institute. I have yet to write up my experience with the Scrum Institute but I will say this, I was underwhelmed. My disappointment started with the incorrect attribution of the Scrum Framework to Harvard Business School professors Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and went downhill from there. (To be clear, Takeuchi and Nonaka did write the 1986 article The New New Product Development Game that mentioned Scrum (1X) and Rugby (11X) but that was only inspiration to the actual co-creators of the Scrum Framework.)
My certifications from the Scrum Institute included:
Here is an updated summary chart showing the year to date progress:
Ideally, I would be at 13 at the end of March but I can live with 12 :). Coming in April I have signed up for a Certified LeSS Basics (CLB) course but after that, I have a big question mark. With a slowdown in coaching and training, I really need to be opportunistic now with my limited funds. So future progress will depend on the cost and availability of something suitable. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.
Comments welcomed!