The Corporate Scrum Certification Complex

After a first article about the negative sides of Agile certifications from the Agile practitioners’ perspective, Mark Haynes explores, again with a facetious bias, certifications in an organizational context. Author: Mark Haynes, https://dmarkhaynesconsulting.godaddysites.com/ Does it sometimes feel like those who are pushing Scrum certifications the hardest, benefit the most by supplying them? The principles of agility are well-established and fairly easy to learn. Let’s consider how this works. After agile was introduced and gained a bit of popularity folks began to wonder how can we cash in on this gravy train. They set up blogs, wrote books, and sold their high-priced services. That worked well with the first adopters. Then people wondered how could they market themselves as a Scrum expert. The certification industry was born to satisfy that need. What is the first piece of career advice that you get? Go to the marketplace young man and get thee a certification. The Scarecrow received a Certificate of Thinkology from The Wizard of Oz. He was the intellectual after all. “I could wile away the hours Conferrin’ with the flowers Consultin’ with the rain. And my head I’d be scratchin’. While my thoughts were busy hatchin’. If I only had a brain.” Ho, Ho, Ho, now he has a certification. Does it stop there? Oh, no Grasshopper! So how do you cash in on this certification gravy train? What you need to do is set up an Institution that provides certifications. That is where the money is. Are you done yet? Not so fast, [...]