Agile Certifications: What’s Out There?

Mike Griffiths is an experienced project manager, author and consultant who works for PMI as a subject matter expert. Before joining PMI, Mike consulted and managed innovation and technology projects throughout Europe, North and South America for 30+ years. He was co-lead for the PMBOK Guide—Seventh Edition, lead for the Agile Practice Guide, and contributor to the PMI-ACP and PMP exam content outlines. Outside of PMI, Mike maintains the websites www.LeadingAnswers.com about leading teams and www.PMillustrated.com, which teaches project management for visual learners.

  Agile   Career Development   Using PMI Standards  

Many people believe agile methods and certifications are like oil and water. One is a context-sensitive, adaptive framework; the other is a prescriptive, rigor-based measurement model. Certifying agile methods is like trying to bar-code clouds--a misapplication of quantification in a domain that resists it.

Yet if the research organizations are to be believed (like Gartner’s predictions of agile being used in 80 percent of software projects), there are a large group of people doing it. Whenever an in-demand skill exists in the workforce, a few things happen:

• Hiring managers and recruiters want a way to screen and identify potential skilled applicants
• Individuals want certifications to recognize their skills and knowledge within a domain (both to promote themselves for career opportunities and for personal development)
• Organizations want roadmaps for employee growth and career development

Certifications help address these needs. Of course certifications do not guarantee competency, job suitability, experience or even knowledge. They are not substitutes for interviews, background checks or references, but they are a tool frequently used to pre-screen candidates before these activities occur.

Most people realize that certifications are neither evil nor silver bullets; they are instead an inevitable side effect of a maturing integration of…

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