If you are into software development, you’d have heard of Agile. But for a lot of us who are new to the domain, agile is something unheard of.

For starters, Agile is a set of values and principles that let teams manage a project by breaking it into smaller chunks, delivering value incrementally and continuously collaborating with the stakeholders. It also involves continuous learning through feedback loops.

The Agile way of working starts with the client defining what the end product is and what problems the product intends to solve. This provides guidance to the development team about the client’s expectations.

Once this is done, the work commences through a chain of planning, executing, and evaluating. Since there is constant collaboration between the team and stakeholders, the final output is more certain to meet client expectations.

Why Agile Certification?

All right, since you now know what Agile is, let’s learn how you can become proficient in it.

  • Do you know the best way?
  • Any guesses?
  • If you said Agile certification, pat yourself on the back.
  • “But why should I pursue Agile Certification?”
    Because an Agile Certification is not only a stepping stone towards a better career prospect & a higher salary but also equips you with the skills to deal with complex projects.

As an individual, the benefits of agile certification are many:-

  • High reliability
  • Keep abreast of the latest market trends
  • Increase knowledge
  • Develop entrepreneurial skills

As for an organization, adopting agile will prove to be a boon in the longer run.

According to the 13th Annual State of Agile Report, organizations who adopted Agile reported the following improvements-

  • Increase in team morale by 64%
  • Increased team productivity by 61%
  • A Decrease in project risk by 50%
  • Improvement in software quality by 47%
  • Reduction in project cost by 28%
  • Readiness to handle priorities by 69%
  • Increment in project visibility by 65%
  • Increase in project delivery speed to market by 63%

When these are the benefits of adopting agile, why should any organization be deprived of this?

That’s it for the benefits. Let’s now take a look at the top agile certifications.

Top Agile Certifications

  1. Professional Scrum Master (PSM)

    Professional Scrum Master or PSM I is a beginner certification course that covers the fundamentals of Scrum and other subjects like Scrum Frameworks and roles of Scrum Master.
    This is a 2-day course that fuses team-based exercises with instructions, concentrating on team dynamics, team motivation, conflict resolution, and enhanced planning and estimation. The objectives of this course are as follows-

    • Increase the effectiveness of Scrum
    • A clear understanding of Scrum through factual application
    • Play the role of Scrum Master for Scrum teams and stakeholders

    Who can pursue this certification?

    • Anyone who wants to pursue
    • Product Owners and Software Developers
    • Firms adopting scrum methodology
    • Scrum team managers

    Accreditation body: Scrum.org

    Prerequisites

    Anyone can attend the PSM I certification. There are no prerequisites. It is a complete beginner course.

  2. Product Owner Training (PSPO)

    Professional Scrum Product Owner or PSPO is a 2-day course that teaches you the aspects of product management. It will teach you how to drive value from products. This course is for all the product owners, agile product managers, and everyone vested with a product’s success in the market. During this certification, participants will learn to become product owners through instruction and team-based exercises.
    You will learn the nuances of being a product owner through an agile perspective. Standard metrics are used to track the creation of value and the successful delivery of products to the marketplace. You’ll learn the following as a part of PSPO-

    • Product Maturity
    • Product adoption in the customer space
    • Learn how product owner fits into Scrum
    • Measuring the value of the product in the marketplace
    • Develop an understanding of Scrum
    • Work with scrum team and stakeholders
    • Manage the product backlog and increase the value of the product

    Accreditation body: Scrum.org

    Who can pursue this certification?

    • Scrum team developers and product owners
    • Scrum Managers
    • Firms adopting Scrum
    • Leadership Team
    • Product Managers
    • Business Analysts
    • Anyone who wants to learn scrum and become a product owner

    Prerequisites

    There are no prerequisites to pursue the PSPO certification. However, please go through the scrum guide before you proceed.

  3. The Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)

    The Agile Certified Practitioner or PMI-ACP helps you in identifying your knowledge of agile principles and proficiency in agile techniques. The PMI-ACP includes many agile methodologies such as scrum, kanban, lean, extreme programming (XP), and test-driven development (TDD). This will increase your flexibility in working on different projects.

    Accreditation body: Project Management Institute (PMI)

    Who can pursue this certification?

    If your firm is adopting agile practices, then this is a certification you must pursue. This certification will verify your skills through hands-on experience in an agile team.

    Prerequisites

    • You need to have a secondary degree
    • 21 contact hours of training in agile methodology
    • 1 year of extensive project experience within the last 5 years. A present PMP or PgMP certification will meet this requirement but is not required to apply for PMI-ACP
    • 8 months of work experience in an agile project within the last 3 years
  4. Certified Agile Coach (ICP-ACC)

    The foundation of ICP-ACC is based on the mindset, roles, and responsibilities of an agile coach.
    On successful completion of this certification, the participant will be able to make a distinction between mentoring, facilitating, professional coaching, and teaching.
    They will also acquire the skills necessary to create an ideal environment for valuable collaboration and successful conflict resolution within an agile team. An agile coach will be a mentor and guide agile teams in implementing the best agile practices so that a project is completed within the specified time.

    Accreditation body: ICAgile

    Who can pursue this certification?

    • Present or aspiring agile coaches
    • Product Owners
    • Program Managers
    • Agile Consultants
    • Anyone who wants to build an agile team

    Prerequisites

    There are no prerequisites for this course. However, a basic understanding of agile and some experience working in an agile team is good to have.

  5. SAFe® Agilist

    This is a 2-day certification course where participants will grasp business agility to bloom in a digital age and gain knowledge. This will help them lead a Lean-Agile organization by optimizing the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).
    The course will deeply examine the principles of SAFe obtained from Lean product development, Agile Development, DevOps, and Systems thinking. The course further covers technical agility and establishing teams. Next, it teaches participants the importance of embracing a customer-centric mindset and the application of design thinking as a part of Agile Product Delivery.
    The second half of the course will focus on delivering insights and giving recommendations to build a continuous delivery pipeline. Apart from that, it will also teach you to build a DevOps culture. Ultimately, participants will learn about Lean Portfolio Management and implement the same in an organization.

    Accreditation body: Scaled Agile

    Who can pursue this course?

    • CEO
    • Program or Project Manager
    • Scrum Master
    • Team Lead
    • Release Train Engineer
    • Business Analyst
    • Agile Coach
    • CIO
    • Portfolio Manager
    • Consultant
    • Engineer
    • Product Manager
    • Product Owner
    • Change Agent
    • Solutions or Systems Architect

    Prerequisites

    There are two prerequisites for this course-

    • You need to have experience in Scrum
    • You also need to possess 5+ years of experience in software development, testing, business analysis, product, or project management.
  6. Advanced Scrum Master

    Advanced Professional Scrum Master™ training is for anyone who has a good understanding of Scrum and is playing the role of Agile Coach, Scrum Master, Change Agent or Change Leader within the organization.
    The 2-day advanced scrum master training by scrum.org is about developing new skills and enhancing the existing ones. It is particularly beneficial for those people with at least a year of Scrum Master experience.

    Who can pursue this course?

    Scrum Masters with at least 1 year of experience

    Prerequisites

    There are no prerequisites to attend the Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training and or to take up the exam. However, it is always recommended that you go through the Scrum Guide very well.

  7. IIBA® Agile Analysis Certification (IIBA®-AAC)

    The IIBA Agile Analysis Certification or IIBA-AAC is for business analysts who want to demonstrate the skills and expertise to work as a BA in an agile team. You will learn the following in the course-

    • Agile Business Analysis
    • Agile Business Analysis Techniques
    • Deliver value through strategic planning with the help of Agile Business Analysis
    • How to apply business analysis techniques in an agile project

    Accreditation body: International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA)

    Who can pursue this certification?

    • Business Analysts who want to work in an agile environment
    • People who wish to increase their knowledge in business analysis

    Prerequisites

    As per IIBA recommendation, you need to be a Business Analyst or an agile practitioner with 2-5 years of experience.

  8. Professional Scrum Development

    Applying Professional Scrum™ for Software Development (APS-SD) with PSD I Training Certification is a 3-day hands-on course where students experience how to deliver quality software using Scrum with Agile and DevOps practices.
    Participants work in Scrum Teams over a series of Sprints, creating code on a realistic software system to learn Scrum while using Scrum.

    Who can pursue this course?

    • Architects
    • Analysts
    • Programmers
    • database developers
    • Testers
    • Managers
    • IT-Operations

    Prerequisites

    There are no prerequisites to attend the Applying Professional Scrum for Software Development™ Training in Singapore and or to take up the exam. However, it is always recommended that you go through the Scrum Guide very well.

  9. Scrum Alliance Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC)

    The Certified Enterprise Coach or CEC is a certification for those who want to become a master in agile practices and Scrum. A CEC has a deep understanding of the principles and practices of Scrum and practical experience in agile organizational transformation.
    They help organizations cross the impediments while implementing agile and scrum. CECs have extensive experience in leadership coaching, organizational transformation, and best agile practices at the enterprise level.

    Who can pursue this certification?

    • Business leaders like Founders, CEOs, COOs, and President

    Prerequisites

    • Deep understanding of scrum, proven leadership skills, and training skills
    • Certified in CSP-SM, CSP-PO, or CSP certification
    • Training experience in at least 3 firms
    • Work experience in scrum team roles
    • Should have worked as a coach for at least 2000 hours in the past 3 years
  10. Certified Scrum Developer® (CSD) Training

    The Certified Scrum Developer certification is for software developers and programmers who build software in scrum environments. This certification will help them acquire a practical and theoretical understanding of agile and scrum. Along with this, they will also develop agile engineering skills.

    Who should pursue this certification?

    • IT professionals
    • Developers
    • Project or Product Managers
    • Architects
    • QA Testers
    • CSM Credential holders
    • Business Analysts
    • Engineers
    • UI/UX designers

    Prerequisites

    • The first prerequisite is you need to undergo 5 days of formal training by a Scrum Alliance Registered Education Provider (REP) and a Scrum Alliance Authorized Instructor.
    • You can skip the first 2 days of training if you have a CSM certification from Scrum Alliance. Then you can directly attend the 3-day CSD (technical) training
    • Your Scrum Master Certification must be from Scrum Alliance and not any other accreditation body
  11. Agile and Scrum Fundamental Bootcamp

    The Agile and Scrum Fundamental Bootcamp Certification teaches participants to succeed with agile, teams and organizations should focus first on “being agile” as a foundation for success in “doing agile.”
    Agile fundamentals learning objectives delve into key concepts such as adaptive planning, value-driven development, team collaboration and frequent feedback for continuous improvement.
    The course also covers the history of agile, the agile manifesto, the agile principles, and some widely applied frameworks and practices. The workshop will also focus on the most popular Agile Framework, Scrum.

    Who can pursue this course?

    • Project Managers
    • Developers
    • Product Owners
    • Managers-Software development
    • Architects-Software development
    • Product Managers

    Prerequisites

    There are no specific requirements needed to attend this workshop. If you are looking for improvements in the way they work, want to start using Agile at work or levelling up their knowledge, have creative work that requires frequent feedback from the client or user.

  12. Certified LeSS Basics (CLB) Certification Training

    LeSS stands for Large Scale Scrum. It is a framework for scaling agile development to multiple teams. LeSS is built on the principles of Scrum such as transparency, empiricism, and cross-functional teams. It provides guidelines for adopting Scrum in large product development.

    Who can pursue this certification?

    • Seasoned Scrum master and Agile Coaches
    • Internal Agile Coaches and change agents
    • Senior Management, HR, and budgeting
    • Business leaders and developers

    Prerequisites

    Basic Scrum knowledge and hands-on experience of working in Scrum are compulsory.

Closure

Agile and Scrum certifications are in vogue. So, jump on the bandwagon and start upskilling. The 9 certifications mentioned in this blog post are the ones you need to obtain mastery in Agile and Scrum.
So, what are you waiting for? Get started. Happy learning!

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Author's Bio
Agilitics

We strive to provide business professionals with the skills and knowledge necessary to increase work performance and drive greater return on investment for the global customers we support. Agilitics delivers customized technology and management training solutions to large corporations and government agencies around the world.