Object Mentor Blog: The R.E.A.L.I.T.Y. principles of Agile Software Certification.

The R.E.A.L.I.T.Y. principles of Agile Software Certification.

Uncle Bob — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 05:29:00 -0500

As you are probably aware the Scrum Alliance is planning to offer a Certified Scrum Developer program. You can read about it here.

Interestingly enough Microsoft, in collaboration with Ken Schwaber, is offering a Professional Scrum Developer program. You can read about that here (look carefully at the url).

The scrum alliance program seems to be about agile skills. The Microsoft program seems to be about Visual Studio. So all is right with the world.

Is there anything wrong with this? Is this somehow immoral or bad? Not at all. This is just people doing what people do: Selling services and making money. I’m all for it. I expect the courses to be of a quality that you’d expect from professionals; and I’m sure that students will learn useful information. Indeed, from time to time, even I have offered CSM courses taught by people I trust and respect.

There are, however, some claims that need to be dealt with. The most important is that these programs shorten the recruiting process.

I’ve been thinking about offering a Certified Recruiter for Agile Professionals course. This fifty-two week course will teach, and reteach, a number of principles of Agile Software Certification. I call this repertoire of principles: R.E.A.L.I.T.Y.

The first principle is the Redaction of Certification Principle (RCP). The principle states:

Certifications generally certify nothing whatever about experience, knowledge, or skill. Generally they certify that the certificate holder has attended (or at least paid to attend) a course. Perhaps they took (and maybe even passed) an exam based on that course.

Based on this principle, any recruiter taking my Certified Recruiter for Agile Professionals course will not be allowed to complete the course or receive their certification until they have taken the following oath.

As a Cerftified Recruiter for Agile Professionals I solemnly swear before Knuth and all here present:

That before I read a resume, I will find every use of the word “certified” on that document and redact it with whiteout.

That if a candidate uses the word “certified” in an interview, I will ask the candidate to repeat him- or herself without using that word.

That I will pay no attention whatever to any implications of that word, nor will that word in any way influence my opinions regarding that candidate.

This oath is an exemplar of the Certification Nullification Principle (CNP), which is another of the R.E.A.L.I.T.Y. principles of common sense and moderately competent thinking. The principle states:

The word “certified”, when used in the context of Agile Software Development, is a filler word that has no bearing on anything salient or interesting about individuals, skills, knowledge, or anything else. It is a marketing word similar to “new”, “improved”, “natural” and “organic”. It can safely be removed from all documents and discussions without changing their meaning.

This principle leads to the well known Certification Uncertainty Principle (CUP), yet another of the R.E.A.L.I.T.Y. principles. This principle states:

Any acronym that includes the letter ‘C’ standing for the word “Certification” can be safely changed into a similar acronym that eliminates the letter ‘C’ and puts a ’?’ at the end. This transformation of the acronym vastly improves the meaning of the orginal.

That last sentence probably requires some justification. After all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary substantiation. So lets try a few experiments:

Statement                    Ac'nm   CUP  Resulting Statement 
---------------------------- -----   ---- ---------------------
Certified Scrum Master        CSM    SM?  Scrum Master?
Certified Scrum Developer     CSD    SD?  Scrum Developer?
Certified Scrum Trainer       CST    ST?  Scrum Trainer?
Certified Scrum Professional  CSP    SP?  Scrum Professional?
Certified Scrum Product Owner CSPO   SPO? Scrum Product Owner?
Certified Scrum Coach         CSC    SC?  Scrum Coach?

As we can see, the meanings of the statements are indeed clarified. In my course the Certified Recruiter for Agile Professionals is taught that the question mark is the most significant aspect of each of the resultant statements.

In recent weeks we have uncovered a potentially profound new principle which we may find necessary to include in the R.E.A.L.I.T.Y. repertoire. This is the so-called Scrum Exclusion Principle (SEP) which tentatively states:

Wherever the word SCRUM appears in any statement, or is represented within any acronym, it can be safely excluded without changing any meaning.

The following table show just how profound the effects of this principle are:

Statement                    Ac'nm   CUP  SEP   Resulting Statement 
---------------------------- -----   ---- ----  ---------------------
Certified Scrum Master        CSM    SM?  M?    Master?
Certified Scrum Developer     CSD    SD?  D?    Developer?
Certified Scrum Trainer       CST    ST?  T?    Trainer?
Certified Scrum Professional  CSP    SP?  P?    Professional?
Certified Scrum Product Owner CSPO   SPO? PO?   Product Owner?
Certified Scrum Coach         CSC    SC?  C?    Coach?

We are not yet willing to say that these transformation are a reliable feature of nature. We can only say that, at this point, there are very troubling implications that support it.

Our final advice to Certified Recruiters for Agile Professionals is based on one final principle: The Smoke and Mirrors principle, (SAM) which states:

Well… You know what it states.

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