This Presentation discusses some of the professional certificates found in the labor market in the field of Agile and made some comparisons between them.
Then It refers to the PMI-Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) and how it could be achieved, and the benefits that the examiner has for him and I compared her with other professional certificates related to Agile.
Lastly, It talks about the PMI Agile Practice Guide issued by the PMI.
Agile certificates, PMI -ACP and Agile practice guide
1. The Big 3 Agile Certifications,
PMI-ACP Certification and
Agile practice guide
Abdelrahman Elsheikh Seedahmed
M.sc, PMOC,CBAP, PMP, RMP, ACP, PMI-SP,EVM,
CPRE, MCITP, MCTS, OCP, OCA, ITIL v3, CTFL,
ISO20000, ISO27002
2. Agenda
• The Big 3 Agile Certifications
• PMI-ACP Certification
• Agile practice guide
3.
4. The Big 3 Agile Certifications
• There are 3 major certification bodies
today, and a growing number of smaller
ones.
5. #1 Scrum Alliance - Certified Scrum Master
(CSM)
• The Scrum Alliance is one of the oldest
and most popular certifications in Scrum.
• Founded in 2002, they have nearly a half
million current certificate holders for the
Certified Scrum Master or CSM
designation.
6. #1 Scrum Alliance - Certified Scrum
Master (CSM)
• Achieving the CSM is really easy, you simply need
to take a 2 or 3 day class from someone that has
been qualified as a Certified Scrum Trainer
(CST) by the Scrum Alliance.
• CSM training courses run on average between
$1,000 and $1,500 per person.
• After the class there is a 35 question, online test
that is pretty easy to pass.
• So the CSM is pretty easy to get and many people
have done exactly that.
7. #2 - Scrum.org - Professional Scrum Master
(PSM)
• Scrum.org was founded in 2009 by Ken
Schwaber, one of the co-creators of
Scrum and a co-founder of the Scrum
Alliance.
• Rather than simply requiring people to
take training, Scrum.org focuses on
testing people to make sure that they
have the knowledge.
8. #2 - Scrum.org - Professional Scrum Master
(PSM)
• By testing, I mean standard assessments of knowledge of
Scrum and the application of that.
• The assessment for the Professional Scrum Master or PSM
designation is 80 questions.
• The assessment costs $150 and allows you one attempt.
• To pass, you need to get a score of 85% or higher within 60
minutes.
• So technically it is an open book assessment but practically
speaking you need to master the material in order to pass.
9. #3 - Project Management Institute - Agile Certified
Practitioner (PMI-ACP)
• The Project Management Institute is no
stranger to the recurring revenue streams
created by certifications, with over 760,000
project management professional (PMPs).
• In 2012, PMI introduced the PMI Agile
Certified Professional (PMI-ACP) certification
and as of earlier this year, there were over
16,000 people holding the PMI-ACP
credential.
10. #3 - Project Management Institute - Agile Certified
Practitioner (PMI-ACP)
• The PMI-ACP is slightly different from the
previous Scrum certifications in that it
covers all of Agile, rather than being only
focused on Scrum.
• So you will be expected to know Kanban,
EXtreme Programming and Lean
Software Development in addition to
Scrum.
11. Agenda
• The Big 3 Agile Certifications
• PMI-ACP Certification
• Agile practice guide
12. Why the PMI-ACP Certification Is
Important
• First, it comes from PMI, an entity that is
well known and trusted by organizations
and their hiring managers for their
credential standards.
13. Why the PMI-ACP Certification Is
Important
• Second, the PMI-ACP exam is created by
agile experts for agile practitioners, and it
is not tied to a single agile methodology.
14. Why the PMI-ACP Certification Is
Important
• As a result, the PMI-ACP certification is well
positioned to become the new standard
for agile professionals.
19. Exam Content
• Tools and Techniques (6 Categories):
– These are things you should be able to do.
– As a result, the exam attempts to test your ability
to apply them, mostly through situational
questions.
– Questions about tools and techniques make up
50 percent of the exam.
26. Exam Content and Domain
Breakdown
• As noted earlier, 50 percent of the marks
on the exam are awarded for tools and
techniques questions and 50 percent are
awarded for knowledge and skills
questions.
27. Exam Content
• Knowledge and Skills (3 Levels):
– These are things you should know.
– Therefore, the exam attempts to test your
recall of them.
– Questions about knowledge and skills make
up the remaining 50 percent of the exam.
28. The knowledge and skills
Breakdown
• The knowledge and skills section is further broken
down into three tiers:
• Level 1:
– There are 18 knowledge and skills in level 1.
– These are deemed the most important to know.
– Therefore, 33 percent of the overall exam questions
will test you on these topics.
29. The knowledge and skills
Breakdown
• Level 2:
– There are 12 knowledge and skills in level 2.
– Questions about these knowledge and skills
make up 12 percent of the exam.
30. The knowledge and skills
Breakdown
• Level 3:
– There are 13 knowledge and skills in level 3.
– These are given the least amount of emphasis
on the exam, making up just 5 percent of the
total exam questions.
34. Exam Content
• Domains (7 Groups):
– The exam content outline defines Seven groupings or
clusters of tools and techniques and knowledge and
skills.
– While you will not be specifically tested on the
domains, these groupings define how PMI intends the
topics to be understood and taught.
– The domains are useful uniting bonds.
35.
36. Domain 1— Agile Principles and
Mindset
• This domain focuses on Explore, embrace,
and apply agile principles and mindset
within the context of the project team and
organization.
37. Domain 2—Value-Driven Delivery
• This domain focuses on maximizing
business value through prioritization,
iterative delivery, and risk management.
39. Domain 4—Boosting Team
Performance Practices
• This domain links team-related topics,
including forming teams, empowering
them, building team commitment, and
promoting collaboration.
40. Domain 5—Adaptive Planning
• This domain deals with estimating,
different levels of plans, getting feedback
on progress, and updating plans.
41. Domain 6—Problem Detection and
Resolution
• This domain is concerned with
encouraging whole team tracking and
resolution of risks.
45. The PMI-ACP® Exam Prep,
Second Edition
• The PMI-ACP® Exam Prep, Second Edition:
• A Course in a Book for Passing the PMI
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP®)
Exam by Mike Griffiths is considered by
many PMI-ACP® Exam takers as the
“official textbook of PMI-ACP® Exam”.
46. The PMI-ACP® Exam Prep,
Second Edition
• Mike Griffiths is the author who has the most profound
knowledge of the PMI-ACP® Exam unfound on the
market.
• In fact, he was one of the member of the PMI-ACP®
Steering Committee (the body that conceived and laid
out the structure and format of the PMI-ACP® Exam!).
• You will be assured of learning some first-hand “insider’s”
information on the PMI-ACP® Exam. Currently, he is also
a PMI-ACP® himself.
47. Agenda
• The Big 3 Agile Certifications
• PMI-ACP Certification
• Agile practice guide
49. Agile practice guide
• On 6th September 2017, PMI has release
Agile Practice Guide.
• Though the book does not cover all the exam
contents, gives a good starting point for the
PMI-ACP exam.
• Following are the sections of the book:
51. An Introduction to Agile
• When and why we need to apply adaptive life cycle.
• It also talks about Agile Mind set (Agile Manifesto
mindset, values, and principles).
• It also covers the concepts of definable and high-
uncertainty work.
• It shows the correlation between lean, the Kanban
Method, and agile approaches.
52. Life Cycle Selection
• It explores the factors in selecting project life
cycle.
• It discusses various Life Cycles like Adaptive
Predictive, Incremental, Iterative, and Hybrid.
• This section also addresses suitability filters,
tailoring guidelines, and common
combinations of approaches.
53. Implementing Agile: Creating an
Agile Environment
• It primarily talks about how project manager role
gets changes in the Agile environment.
• The primary emphasis is on servant leadership and
team composition.
• It also discusses facilitator role, cross-functional
team, need of 'T' shaped professionals.
54. Implementing Agile: Delivering an
Agile environment
• It introduces many topics in summary form
like the retrospective, backlog refinement,
Sprint Review Demos, etc.
• This section includes information on how
to organize teams and common practices
that teams can use to deliver value on a
regular basis.
55. Organizational Considerations for
Project Agility
• It touches upon how we change the culture to support
Agility.
• This chapter also talks about contracts and procurements.
• It also focuses on various scaling frameworks.
• This chapter gives good detail of Agile PMO.
• This section explores key organizational factors that impact
the use of agile approaches, such as culture, readiness,
business practices, and the role of a PMO.
56. Call for Action and Appendixes
• It gives you an invite to raise your
feedbacks.
• The call to action requests input for
continuous improvement of this practice
guide.
57. In summary
• This guide does not provide in-depth
knowledge of Agile.
• But, yes, it gives a fair idea about how a
Project Manager can move towards
Agility.
58. Good Things in the Agile Practice Guide
• Overall, it is good to see a document that
begins to attempt to wrap it's arm around
Agile.
• It is great that it covers not only Scrum,
but XP, Kanban, Lean and other
frameworks
59. Good Things in the Agile Practice Guide
• There is a focus on the Agile Principles, in addition to the
Values of the Agile Manifesto that are commonly mentioned.
• The idea of the Agile Mindset.
• Servant Leadership is a big and important topic in Agile
circles.
• In the appendix, Annex A3, the document includes an
overview of Agile and Lean Frameworks which was helpful.
• The Glossary of Terms is pretty comprehensive
60. Not Good Things in the Agile Practice Guide
• Earned value in Agile projects - PMI seems
to have some weird fascination with
Earned Value and they've included it in
this Agile Guide.
• I completely disagree, and I wish those EV
proponents would just drop it.
61. Not Good Things in the Agile Practice Guide
• Incremental and Iterative Development -
This is a minor point but I don't think
anyone treats these as separate
development approaches anymore.
• I know they are different, but most people
just do both together and don't talk about
it.
62. Not Good Things in the Agile Practice Guide
• Hybrid approaches - The description of
hybrid was confusing, as was the mixing
and matching of hybrid approaches.
• And personally, I don't think hybrid
approaches are effective and I wish people
would stop using them .
63. Not Good Things in the Agile Practice Guide
• Agile described as a subset of Lean - This is
a minor point, but, there is a diagram in
this book that shows Agile as being a
subset of Lean,
• with Scrum as a subset of Agile - I always
thought of Agile as the child or offspring
of Lean, not necessarily a subset.
64. Not Good Things in the Agile Practice Guide
• Project-Centric Focus: The idea that
everything is a project may not always be
helpful.
65. Not Good Things in the Agile Practice Guide
• Number of pages - This document is pretty big for the amount
of material it is covering.
• It only looks thin when compared to the PMBOK.
• I would encourage PMI to try to keep this document as lean as
possible (perhaps removing Earned Value and some of the
other things I mention above).
• The Scrum guide is a terse 17 pages and describes the Scrum
framework in it's entirety! Let's not create another 800 page
PMBOK - that wouldn't be very Agile.