Taking a course and putting it on the resume is an invitation for a conversation.

Certifications, though, are created precisely to obviate the necessity of a conversation. If you are a Certified Professional Accountant or a Certified Financial Analyst or a member of the State Bar of California or a Fellow of the Society of Hospitalist Medicine, then this is a promise backed by an institution that you meet certain minimum standards. The exact goal of certification is to make it easy for non-experts to tell something about the holder.

It’s true that misnomers exist, but that is not an excuse for creating more of them. It is especially not an excuse for knowingly creating a misnomer that financially benefits the creator. Saying that somebody is a “Certified Scrum Developer” when all they did is write a check and take a course strikes me as, frankly, disingenuous at best.

>> Regardless of the posturing of individual practitioners, one thing has remained consistent: if any profession fails to adequately police itself in the interest of public safety (e.g., ADA, AMA, NASD, MPAA, etc.), eventually the government will (FAA, SEC, EPA, ATF, FDA, etc.).

This point resonates with me. I don’t think that software can be viewed as a “public safety” issue, but it does have a massive impact on public prosperity :)

Following the debate on certification, I think there is an American centric perspective that tends to hold sway.

Speaking as a Brit, I think the best thing that could happen to the Software Industry is government regulation. Why not? It worked out fantastically for the telecoms industry. The reason that you can use your mobile phone anywhere in the world today is largely down to ETSI, the European Union and Government licenses in Europe.

Now that the Americans have a regulated health insurance market, the next on Obama’s list is hopefully regulating software too :)

I’m partially joking, but markets left to their own devices don’t always deliver. I’ve heard people argue against a professional body for software developers because “unions” don’t work! Well try explaining that to Doctors or Lawyers who have effectively used professional bodies to maintain high ethical and professional standards across the board!

Oh, again the problem here could be local. If we are talking about US Doctors and Lawyers then perhaps their professional bodies are more like unions that grant a license to print money :)

I guess my point is to remember that there is a wide world out there were different regions have different values. Not everywhere in the world is the right to make money valued more then everything else.

Regards,

Paul.

a) He blended Lean/Kanban aspects into the training
b) I still periodically review his CSM material from years ago and learn from it.

In short, I feel as though the ROI on CSM is very acceptable in both knowledge and $$$ earned.

Actually the SA does specify what needs to be in the course. They specify the five areas that must be included with several bullets under each category. The categories are Architecture & Design, Test Driven Development, Continuous Integration, Collaboration and Refactoring. This is just for the three day course. There are other requirements that must be met in order to earn the certification.

People that pay for these certificates themselves tend to remember the trainer, and indeed would have done a fair bit of research beforehand to determine the best trainer. They also retain more of what they have learned. Trouble is, so many who do the CSM are sent there by managers/HR folk and have little interest in it in the first place. The value of the certificate seems to be for the organization, not the individual.

I value certification when an individual cares to receive it, and treats it (and moreso the study that led to it) as a personal accomplishment. I value it not at all when a company demands it for some kind of weird compliance reason.

Oh, and about the Agile Skills Inventory. Join the yahoogroup and bring up the skills that came to mind. I can’t imagine the list ever being complete in any fashion, but it’s that community involvement thing.

So some percentage of the “quick weight loss” seekers will go to a diploma mill and get a certificate for their money. That’s going to happen anyway, so I’ve decided not to worry about them.

But some percentage is going to go for a certificate, and find something ever so much more valuable. A short class doesn’t replace mentoring and deeper community involvement, but it can be a door to enter that community. And that makes it easier.

What occurs to me is that the attraction of certification is the same as the attraction of a pill to lose weight. We want a quick fix to a problem that *cannot* have a quick fix (at least not without side effects). just like losing weight, we should eat right and exercise more. To be a ‘good’ developer/team member you have competent tech skills (test, design, coding whatever) , know how to communicate at a very deep level, be empathetic, self confident without arrogance and a whole list of other things that are developed over years (sometime a lifetime).

The side effects of starting them off in a 3-5 day course is that *they* think they are at the end of their journey, not the beginning. And they have the paper to say so.

Mentoring and deeper community involvement (peer review groups, hacker meets, design jams, sleepovers, open conferences etc) are the *right* way to nurture the type of things we want to see. But it takes time and requires more people to care more. Not so easy.

sorry about the splurge, I had a moment.

Mike

My current views on the certification angle (as opposed to the education angle) can be summed up in what I said above: “since the number of available certifications cannot be held to zero, I think the best way to get people to give such consideration is by having the number of available certifications greater than one.”