Scrum Certifications and Tool

The PMI-ACP is a professional certification that is offered by a selected few institutes to individuals. PMI (Project Management Institute) is known to offer professional certification for agile practitioners known as PMI Agile Certified Practitioners (PMI-ACP). The examination for PMI professional certification stands apart from other project management certification examination development practices. The PMI is known to align itself with certification industry best practices, just like the ones that are used in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (Project Management Institute, 2014). In order to get the PMI-ACP certification, one must attain the minimum requirements education and professional experience requirements. One must have a secondary degree, have 12 months of having worked on project teams over the last 5 years, 8 moths of having worked on project teams using the agile methodologies over the last three years and at least 21 contact hours earned in agile practices.
On the other hand, the Scrum Alliance (CSM, CPO) is less rigorous and less time consuming to attain as compared to PMI-ACP. Here, the individual needs to take a CSM course from a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) and demonstrate your progress through online CSM test. However, rather than provide one-time training which is simple in nature, Scrum Alliance has an ongoing education which has a more meaningful training that helps people to stay current with best practices. This training focuses more on the team building aspect and cohesive approach to project management, while the PMI-ACP program focuses more on the international standards and how to meet them in the process of project management (Scrum Alliance, 2016).
There is also the SAFe Agilist certification program which is mostly formatted for the managers, the executives as well as the Agile change agents who are entrusted with the change initiatives within a large software enterprise. This SAFe certification validates the knowledge of these individuals as mentioned in lean thinking, applying the scaled agile framework and product development flow principles within the context of an enterprise in order for them to lead in the adoption of the Scaled Agile Framework. In order for one to qualify to be taken in for the SAFe certification program, he needs one to have a five year experience in software development, testing, business analysis, product or project management (Agilocity, 2017).
In a nutshell, the PMI-ACP focuses more on the higher internationally acceptable standards of project management, while the Scrum alliance is more concerned with developing a team approach to the change initiatives within organizations, while the SAFe focuses more on the use of software in the change implementation within organizations that predominantly rely on software.
Agile tools for Scrum
There are various tools that are relevant to the management of projects by the project managers. Some of those tools include;
Burndown charts- this is a graphical representation of the work pending to be done versus the time remaining. It indicates the total effort against the amount of work we deliver each iteration. It is worth noting that the chart can never be s straight line since the team never moves in a fixed velocity (Rasmusson J., 2017). This helps the project manager see where there are laxities, the strong points that need to be emphasized and the projection of the remaining time needed in order to appropriately budget with the time.
Backlog management – this is a high-level list of everything that needs to be worked on by the team. It is what needs to be done, sorted by level of importance. This backlog often comes in handy for the managers when doing release and iteration planning as a source of work to draw from and plan completion within the time period. It can also be used in project planning and progress tracking (Target Process Inc., 2017).
Release planning – the primary purpose of the release planning is to see into it that the team commits to a plan for delivering and increment of product value. This planning involves scrum master who will facilitate the meeting meant to chart out the planning, product owner who is supposed to present a general view of the product backlog, the delivery or agile team who are supposed to give the technical feasibilities and dependencies, and lastly the stakeholders who are seen as the trusted advisors as the decisions are passed on the release plan (CA Technologies, 2017). This planning is very central for the Agile project manager as it helps in ensuring the priority issues are highlighted and the best technical approach is given to the project.
Scrumwise- this is a scrum management tool that aids the businesses to manage their projects in product development online. It has several features such as team management and tracking, release and sprint planning, backlog management, task boards, kenban, burndown charts and time tracking (Reggie, 2015). These are features that are useful to the agile project manager in ensuring the online projects that they are implementing are significantly executed and safely so to the desired end.
References
Agilocity, (2017). Leading SAFe 4.5 Course. Retrieved October 1, 2017 from http://www.agilocity.co.za/safe-agilist-course/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsP35n4fQ1gIVzcqyCh1giggcEAAYASAAEgJelPD_BwE
CA Technologies, (2017). Release Planning. Retrieved October 1, 2017 from https://help.rallydev.com/release-planning
Project Management Institute, (2014). PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) Examination Content Outline. Retrieved October 1, 2017 from https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/certifications/agile-certified-exam-outline.pdf
Rasmusson J., (2017). Burndown Charts. Retrieved October 1, 2017 from http://www.agilenutshell.com/burndown
Reggie, (2015). The Right Tool: Scrumwise vs Jira. Retrieved October 1, 2017 from http://www.b2cloud.com.au/general-thoughts/the-right-tool-scrumwise-vs-jira/
Scrum Alliance, (2016). Certified ScrumMaster (CSM). Retrieved October 1, 2017 from https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/practitioners/certified-scrummaster-csm
Target Process Inc., (2017). Backlog Planning and Management. Retrieved October 1, 2017 from https://www.targetprocess.com/guide/solutions/work-management/project-management/