I’ve already explained, why as a company, during the hiring process, it is not worthwhile to consider the vast majority of entry-level Agile certifications.
Hopefully, over time, most companies are going to listen to my advice;-)
So, after that, does it mean that as an individual you should avoid certification classes..?
Actually, not. Actually, otherwise.
The agile and more general area of new modern management approaches has grown significantly over the last two decades. And the growth continues. Amplified with a snowball of poisoned certifications that altogether led to many new people jumping into this exploding market and offering some kind of education. This dynamic is very well understood and expected. So the number of different training classes on various topics has grown exponentially. If you are an individual looking for a class on some subject, it is likely you can find several happening in a convenient location. So the question is how to choose one, considering you are not an expert in the field and there are potentially many trainers to choose from…
For this challenge, interestingly, certifications could come up in handy. Let me explain how the certification system works. This would be applicable for several World level educational organizations – they work in a similar way. For example, Kanban University, ICAgile, Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, etc. Such an organization primarily develops various programs, which are sets of learning objectives. And certify trainers around the World to teach classes according to those programs. During this accreditation process, an organization would verify a few things about the trainer:
- general training/teaching skills and abilities;
- familiarity with the presented content of the class and the fact that it qualifies for the learning objectives of the class;
- the general level of skills and experience on the topic.
Depending on the organization, the severity of the verification process may vary. In some cases, it could be longer with multiple checkpoints. In some cases, it could be faster. Some may require a substantial financial investment, some would not. But overall, as a result of that process, qualified individuals are allowed to teach classes. That way a learning organization verifies the quality of education. So, overall, this process ensures (with a higher or lower probability depending on the organization) that a certified trainer is actually qualified enough to teach classes on a specific topic.
Therefore, if you are new to all this and you are choosing a trainer, choosing one with a certification (even for non-certification class) looks like a reasonable decision because qualifications have been verified by World level educational institution. This idea could be even further extended – if some trainer represents several such organizations (has been verified by several) – that is better than one. Again, just because the chance to get lousy training from such an individual is far lower than from somebody, you have no info on it.
Interestingly, there is the next level of this logic… Even if you are buying an idea that a certified trainer is less risky than a non-certified one, there is still a challenge of choosing between even certified ones. Buble, I was talking above, led to really a lot of certified trainers. Take a look, at the moment of writing this, there were a little above 250+ trainers from Scrum Alliance (CSTs), also 250+ from Scrum.org (PSTs), and also 250+ from Kanban University. Add here 400+ Management 3.0 facilitators, and 350+ SAFe trainers. So, even if you are choosing within one organization, it is still a fairly challenging choice to make. I have a very simple hint on how to minimize your chances of being upset (considering all other considerations being equal) – choose the one with more courses led so far. Even if a trainer isn’t doing anything specifically for improving, just because of the number of repetitions she would get better. More questions were asked by participants, more challenging situations passed through, and so on. But all good trainers are doing more than that – improving their classes incrementally and gradually by trying different approaches and inspecting what works better to maximize students’ learning. So, it is very very likely that there would be an enormous difference between training #2 and training #10 of the same trainer. The same goes for #10 and #30. Therefore, in a world where customers could make an educated choice, I see no reason to take additional risks. I can illustrate this with some Kanban University stats (which are in public space). As I said, overall there are 250+ trainers (at the moment of writing this). However, only 20+ of them (less than 10%) have trained more than 500 students…
To sum up, these days you may get training from various different providers. It could be a hard choice, as all will look very cool in photos and videos of their classes made from drones and GoPro cameras. The fact that specific trainers provide certification classes from World level organizations (or even better – from few ones) provides higher chances to get an education on a high level. Proven training experience (of a specific class) counts. There is a big difference between class #10 and class #40-50.
So, to avoid disappointment, chose wisely 😉