More Agile Certification Talk

I wrote some on this topic, but it is still very popular on the various lists. A blog post I liked was Derick's on the Los Techies Blog. I thought he was very thoughtful and like his comparison with the Master's and PhD thesis defense. That is one thing I was curious about when I submitted my Certified Scrum Practitioner application- would there be follow up and some justification or defense of my answers? Or, would it be rubber stamped? I'm not sure how extensive the review process actually was, but I do know I was never contacted for follow up, just notified of approval.

So, should I feel bad about having my CSP? And mentioning it on my resume? According to Scott Ambler, I should. In his mind, I am ethically liable for the sins committed under the umbrella of a certification program that I don't completely agree with (as I stated in the earlier post). Note- Scott is not against certifications, as this Dr. Dobbs article makes clear, he just has severe issues with certifying "Master's" after a couple of days. While I noted the same concern, I haven't taken the moral position he has. The requirements for each level of certification are publicly available - the Scrum Alliance wasn't perpetrating a hoax on the public or potential employers. HR departments or hiring managers that require a particular certification without understanding the rigor of the certification process are the ones liable for the candidates they hire. Just like I wouldn't blame Microsoft if someone hired an MCAD without validating that they could actually develop applications and hadn't just memorized test answers. Maybe I can gain absolution since I cite the more stringent CSP designation and not just CSM? In Scott's eyes, I doubt it since I'm guessing the self-reported actions on the application are not validated by anyone for quality or effectiveness.

Writing this post, I had multiple tabs open in Firefox that I'd opened over the last couple of days as I saw links in Twitter on the topic. I frequently do this until I have time to go back and actually read the posts. The last tab on this subject was Uncle Bob's reply to Scott's post. I didn't read it yet since I wanted to write out my own thoughts in this post before reading his. I'm happy to see him cite some of the same points I did- the process is transparent and understanding it is the hiring companies responsibility. It is nice when you agree with someone you respect and think highly of!

Finally, here is the Google group where folks are discussing the Agile Developer certification.

Thoughts on Certifying Scrum Developers

Responding to Ron Jefferies request (via Twitter) for thoughts on a Scrum Alliance Certified Developer, I put together these ideas. I'm sure many of these thoughts have already been covered in Alliance conversations and the exhausting threads covering this on various lists, but it helps me organize my thoughts. First, allow me to start with a bit of my background, in case that helps set the context I'm coming from, with regards to certifications. I was a charter member of Microsoft's Certified Application Developer (.Net) certification, a Certified Scrum Master and a Certified Scrum Practitioner.

The interested parties in certifications are the people wanting to be certified, the people hiring them and the Alliance as the certifying authority. Are the interests of all three equally weighted? I thought of another interested group the training/testing delivery people.

Looking at my experiences for why I pursued certifications, one primary reason, especially for my MCAD and CSP ones, was to differentiate myself in the eyes of potential future employers. A secondary interest for the MCAD cert and a primary one for CSM was to learn more in those areas. Differentiation and education are pretty common for others I know that have pursued certification, usually pretty heavily weighted to the former. As such the pursuer of certification wants the certification to be difficult enough to provide real differentiation but still achievable in a reasonable amount of time and at a reasonable cost.

Looking at what I have liked and disliked about each, I feel that the CSM certification is too easy to obtain, an opinion I expressed to Mike Cohn after he delivered my course. Some of that is an unfortunate side effect of the title Certified Scrum Master. I'm being certified as a Master of something after a couple of days of training? Really? And then that is the most recognizable title in the field? I wish the toothpaste could be put back in and the initial certification was as a Practitioner (or Apprentice), the later one as Master. I liked the extensive application process for CSP. That felt more substantive. Unfortunately, I have not discerned much talk int he community of the importance of being a CSP or any difference in interest from potential employers. This is a current interest since Borland was acquired by Micro Focus a month ago. :) For the MCAD, I liked the Core + Elective set up so that you could focus on areas of interest or relevance. I did not like that it was a developer certification based on multiple choice tests.

Turning a bit to the hiring company side, I wrote here about some things I look for when interviewing candidates and I've been thinking about this conversation on the Software Craftmanship list about selecting for the wrong things in the interview process and this post on weeding out gross incompetence. I'd like to see the certification be tiered, just not with 'Master' at the first tier. When meeting someone with the first tier of certification, I'd know that they had a base level of understanding of the Scrum methods having been in a course for a couple of days. When meeting someone with the higher tier, I'd know that they had been on Scrum projects for some amount of time and had to go through an application and review process to be approved. An unanswered question in my mind is related to the Craftmanship discussion - how do I know they were effective as part of a team delivering software? It is probably too subjective to be answered in the certification process. The quality control aspects of both the course (material and delivery) and the approval/review process being under the purview of the Scrum Alliance are also important to the certification retaining value for the certified developer and the companies.

Going from the starting point Ron specified- that there will be a Scrum Certified Developer what would like to see it entail?