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A Guide to Agile Certification - By Sunil Agrawala,PMP,SMC

A Guide to Agile Certification Bodies 

Compiled by Sunil Agrawala,SMC,PMP - Nirmalya Labs

In our series of articles on Agile Methdodology, we now present a guide to Agile Certification. This will provide you with a quick reckoner on various international bodies who provide Agile Certification and various levels of Agile Certification available.

As discussed earlier, Agile has really gained great momentum and adoption in the software industry, specially for new product and application development. Even other industries also are seeing this with an open mind and trying to figure out how the same can be used in their respective project developments. Development communities are really reaping the benefits of Agile Methodology in this VUCA world (Volatile Uncertainty Complexity and Ambiguity). Hence many of the companies are seeking more and more developers and managers to become certified in Agile Methodology.

Agile philosophy was first published as a menifesto at http://agilemanifesto.org/

Some of the leading Agile Certification Bodies include the following:

  1. Scrum Alliance ( https://www.scrumalliance.org/
  2. Scrum.org         ( https://www.scrum.org/ )
  3. Scrum Study     ( https://www.scrumstudy.com/ )
  4. PMI-ACP           ( https://www.pmi.org/certifications/types/agile-acp )
  5. Agile Certification Institute ( http://agilecertifications.org/ )
  6. Scaled Agile Academy ( http://www.scaledagileframework.com/ )
  7. International Consortium for Agile (ICAgile) ( http://www.icagile.com/ )
  8. APMG International ( http://www.apmg-international.com/en/qualifications/agile-pm/agile-pm.aspx )

All of the above mentioned bodies/organizations provide certifications on Agile. They have their own approved training programs, trainers to provide the initial training on the subject and later the certification exam.

Out of the above, Scrum Alliance (CSM), PMI (ACP), Scaled Agile (SAFe), ScrumStudy (SMC) are some of the most popular Agile certifications.

Find below some details about the certification levels and hierarchies of some of these popular bodies.

  1. Scrum Alliance provides verious levels of Agile Certification. It includes CSM (Certified Scrum Master), CSPO (Certified Scrum Product Owner), CSP (Certified Scrum Professional), CSD (Certified Scrum Developer) and many more. You can find the details of all certification at https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/certifications2017 . Most popular and valued among all these are CSM (Certified Scrum Master) certification.
  2. Project Management Institute also provides one of the most popular and most adopted Agile certification. It is known as PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Professional). 
  3. Scrum Study provides certification with various levels depending upon the role one will be playing in overall Scrum implementation. Their certfication hierarchy can be seen at https://www.scrumstudy.com/certification . But the most popular among all is the SMC (Scrum Master Certified)'
  4. Scrum.org offers one of the most popular certification named PSM (Professional Scrum Master), which many professionals swear by as one of the best out of the many choices on Scrum certification. There are 3 levels to PSM certification which one can achieve. You can see more details at https://www.scrum.org/professional-scrum-certifications/professional-scrum-master-assessments
    19-07-2017         12 : 53 PM

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