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The Agile Developer Certification


There has been a resurgence of Agile Developer Certification noise over the internet these last few weeks. Most of this resonating from Ron Jeffries and Chet Hendrickson‘s Agile Developer Skills Google Group. To put things into perspective, August 2009 had a total of 5 messages whereas September 2009 has 635 messages so far.

What have all those messages been about? Well you’ll have to join the group to see for yourself, but to say it has been a polarized debate would be putting in kindly. The good news is that there does seem to be some legitimate progress here, and here is an excerpt from the 2nd proposal:

We have found that in order to achieve excellence a technical member of a Agile team one must obtain experience and knowledge in seven areas:

* Product
* Collaboration
* Business Value
* Supportive Culture
* Confidence
* Technical Excellence
* Self-Improvement

While each technical role will demonstrate these values in a different way, they represent a common path to achieving a level of craftsmanship that is far beyond basic competency. The demonstration of this sort of craftsmanship is the key to creating a certification that will be embraced by the developer community.

As someone who’s been both a Software Engineer and Project Manager, I have to say it’ll be difficult to pull this off successfully. I’m not convinced quite yet that employers will value a Certified Agile Developer the same way they would a Certified Scrum Master / Practitioner. Developers are a rather pessimistic bunch, and highly skeptical of any sort of certification. To some extent though it really does depend on your experience, and the certification alone does not mean someone is going to hand you the keys to their Agile Kingdom.

So while I remain cautiously optimistic, I’m curious as to what our readers have to say about this new certification.

Do you think an Agile Developer Certification would add value to the cause?

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This entry was posted on September 20, 2009, 9:28 pm and is filed under agile, certification. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • David, my understanding of the Agile Skills Project is somewhat different. As best I can tell, the Project is not a certification initiative. Its focus is on identifying and creating common language about skills needed by agile developers. From the website: "...establish a common baseline of the skills an Agile developer needs to have, including a shared vocabulary and understanding of fundamental practices..." By the same token, the Project is seeking to create: "...a stable and independent Skills Inventory, against which any proposed certification can be assessed..." A key phrase there, in my mind, is "any proposed certification". It holds the Project in contrast to certifications as something other than a certification.

    I have also seen, as you mentioned, how skeptical developers tend to be toward the idea of agile certification. What excites me about the Project is that it aims to do something useful and needed now, i.e. identify skills and levels of proficiency, while deferring the question of whether certification is useful, all the while maintaining a stance that [should it turn out to be useful] "... certification should be skills-based, and hard to attain."
  • Jeff, thanks for your perspective. When the spike in activity went up, it seemed to me to radiate from Ron's posts about the SA approaching him about the certification.
  • davidkoontz
    David, I'm writing a proposal on testing Agility. Could you give me info on the quote - who, when, original source.

    "We have found that in order to achieve excellence a technical member of a Agile team one must ..."

    Thanks
  • It is the 2nd proposal written by Chet Hendrickson for the Agile Developer Certification: http://groups.google.com/group/agile-developer-...

    I imagine it'll go through more revisions as this evolves.
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