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Why the Scrum Master Certification Exam is a Positive Step Towards Credibility of the Scrum Master

Industries have models. For the most part those models are good. They become a brand in and of themselves. Sure there is always the opportunity to break a model in an industry and forge a new model (aka be a disruption and gain considerable market share), but that happens very rarely. The normal product development process is to gain an understanding of the industry, follow the industry model, and make your new product fit the model. You differentiate your product by providing something that is needed and not currently available, or by providing something already in existence but offering it better and cheaper.

In the business-to-business for profit training industry, certifications are still very much the rage. They provide employers with a tool to help in recruiting efforts and to help in retention efforts. Employees love them because they help classify their skill set, making it easier to get an interview, and command a higher salary. The certification portion of the business-to-business training industry has been around for over 15 years. It started on the product training side with Novell; Microsoft learned it for Novell, and Cisco took it from Microsoft. These three product vendors learned quickly that training and certification sold product.

Why? Employees feel a bond to the vendor that gave them a “leg up” and help them become a “stickier” user of the technology. Employers see the certification market and give the product higher credibility because of the size and structure of the certification food chain.

The Scrum Alliance has done for Scrum what Red Hat did for Linux. It productized an “open” solution. It gave something that could be difficult to understand and grasp, meaning and understanding. The Scrum Alliance took Scrum, and for that matter Agile, and put them into an understandable “box.” A potential user of Agile can now find “certified” people to employ, they can find expert consultants to hire, and they can find “tons” of information on the process quickly and easily.

This was a powerful first step for the growth of Agile, both in users and legitimacy. The Linux market had a similar incubation phase to what Agile is having now. Linux was a hot concept, was powerful, but also a bit of an enigma. A lot of fear and uncertainly surrounded it. Linux was like black magic to some people in IT. Agile is the same way, there is a TON of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) surrounding it right now, and a large majority of the SDLC community still sees it as heresy or black magic. This makes Agile cool for the people in the cult, but for the mainstream it makes Agile look risky and illegitimate.

Moving the Scrum Master certification from a class participation certification to both class participation and examination is a strong next step in legitimacy. In the business-to-business training industry, exam-based certifications are the standard. Certificates without at least an exam associated with them are seen as lower quality and much less legitimate. The Scrum Alliance wants to focus on the class participation portion because it ties back to one of the basic premise of Scrum, people and interactions over processes and tools. That is very understandable to the “cult,” but not to the greater market of certification buyers and takers.

A much healthier way for the Scrum Alliance to get the people/interactions portion into the certification would be to make part of the certification a practicum and part of it an exam. Do it on the back end instead of the front end, but that is a topic for another discussion.

Just like in Agile, you need to take small and steady steps towards a goal. It is very good for the legitimacy of the Scrum certification that the exam is coming. It fits the industry model and reduces the skepticism that the certification is only in place to drive training revenue. I amvery hopeful that just like in an Agile project, more iterations are on the way. I would love to see the burn down chart for the Scrum Master Certification.

Marketing CBAP and the BABOK 2.0 to Employers

The roll out of the BABOK 2.0 has been a Herculean project for the IIBA. 2.0 is a major change from 1.6 and is the commutations of a lot of leg work by the IIBA to wrangle in the ideas of requirements “gurus” into the framework of the 1.6 to come out with something the professional side of the industry can embrace. They did a fantastic job. Though the effort left a huge void for the IIBA. It is really a question that has been dealt with throughout business. Does a great product sell itself or must you sell something?

It has been difficult for me to find business leaders and IT leaders who know about either the IIBA or the CBAP certification. I hope the IIBA sees this as a concern and I that this is a major focus for them for the rest of 2009.

Marketing a certification to employers is tricky. You don’t want the employers to think you are certifying their staff so that those staff members ultimately ask for more money or they move on to “greener” pastures. At the same time you want employers to think about what they are missing if they don’t hire CBAP certified professionals, and how less effective their system will be if they don’t use consultants with CBAP credentials.

The first step in this process is the professionals should educate their leaders. The IIBA President is doing a great job of being available to any organization interested in hearing more about the IIBA and the Certification. Recently, she was in Raleigh-Durham speaking with executives at BCBS of NC. Professionals can take their manager to a local IIBA chapter meeting, have the Chapter President come speak at a lunch, or even learn at the office. Nothing in the world beats grass roots and internal marketing.

On the flip side the IIBA needs to hit the conference circuit and begin keynote and session presentations discussing why CBAPs provide value to a business. A good start at this would be for the IIBA to develop metrics that measure the impact of BA work on an organization.

No matter how great your product is, if no one knows about it or doesn’t understand its value, it is worthless. I am very hopeful a great product like the CBAP certification and the BABOK doesn’t become worthless.

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For many, the decision to outsource has resulted in resource reductions, infrastructure reformulation, and a new operating model being deployed. Today’s events have prompted many to reconsider their offshore/nearshore ventures and have seen subtle reductions in return on investment (ROI) benefits.

In one of our current White Papers, Mr. Durant discusses what he calls “retrosourcing”. Retrosourcing is the process of reversion control for outsource engagements. Jerry compares retrosourcing to the ejection seat on a plane flying at full speed. According to Mr. Durant, Retrosourcing is comprised of 6 stages including: Pre-Ejection, Ejection Alert, Ejection Sequence, Eject-Eject-Eject, Engage Recovery, Root-Cause-Analysis, and Return-to-Operations. These stages are discussed in detail and followed up with a section on how to apply retrosourcing. It is important for any size company to consider their position in the global market because social and economic factors are constantly changing and the decision to outsource may not always be the most efficient means of doing business. Retrosourcing is simply one measure to always leave the door-open to ever changing conditions in the outsourcing arena.

Jerry E. Durant is Chairman Emeritus/Founder of The International Institute for Outsource Management and Managing Director of Certellus Corporation. He has been actively involved in outsourcing since 1988 and serves as Sr. Technical Advisor to the Outsourcing Institute and The Beijing Association of Sourcing Services (BASS).

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7 Trends in Project Management and Business Analysis to Watch for in 2009

This post is in response to 7 Trends in Project Management and Business Analysis to Watch for in 2009, originally posted on Project Manager Spotlight.

This blog entry is more like a present view of Project Management and Business Analysis in 2009, instead of a future view. If you are a BA or a PM you have always felt the pressure of management concerns that your responsibilities overlap, you have seen the Agile trend coming over the last couple of years, and you saw the economy starting to tank in Q3 2009 and have felt its impact on business travel and education.

On the convergence of PM and BA roles, I think the industry sees that each position has a distinct profile of success. A Project Manager's profile is much like that of a General Manager or Accountant. A Business Analyst's profile is much like that of a Product Manager. This profile distinction limits the capabilities of each position to do the others' work. The rise of the business-side focused BA has a ton to do with the failure of Project Management to build what was needed. Project Managers can build what is specified, they can build it on time & on budget, and what is built can be really good, but the PM position never has never focused around whether what was built was usable.

For the rest of 2009 and beyond, the competitive advantage will be given to CIOs who understand this distinction and maintain the BA/PM solution in SDLC work, and even work to make that relationship strong. They will get relevant and useable product on time, on budget. If they use user feedback and create value metrics, they will be able to show great ROI on projects with both a BA and PM, based on increase productivity of the workers using systems built. This metric will easily trump the cost reduction metric and will provide significant business competitive advantage to the organization in terms of functional business applications.

I do agree with this post that Project Management and Business Analysis have to be seen as skill sets even more so than job positions. This becomes very clear when looking at Agile.

The Agile trend has a high level of potential failure. It is increasing looking more like a cult movement than a legitimate methodology. You are either part of the cult or you are not. PMI and IIBA will have to step up and look at Agile, not as methodology but as a management philosophy, and begin incorporating its basic concepts into their overall structure. Agile demands that human beings treat each other fairly. It demands we see each other as adults. It demands that teams are allowed to manage themselves and solve their own problems. All VERY good ideas in theory, but these basic human tendencies prove very difficult in practice. In the end, Agile is asking too much of management and the workers to be scalable and repeatable.

The trend in 2009 and 2010 will be for PMI first and IIBA second to look at Agile and integrate it within each of their Bodies of Knowledge to provide a vastly improved solution for the practice of Project Management and Business Analysis. This is a much more probable outcome than the continuation of the currently stove piped tactics.

The BABOK 2.0 is exciting, but an updated standard does not legitimize the association or the position. It is nice that professionals are using the standard to perform day-to-day work. The reality though is that workers are interested, but management isn’t. There are approximately 500 CBAPs currently. The certification is not setting the world on fire. The IIBA has not done a good job marketing the BABOK or the certification to Fortune 5000 companies. The BA-doers and their managers know about it, but does the CIO? Does the Application Development Director know about it? If they know about it, have they been told about its value?

The BABOK 2.0 is an exciting improvement in the BA standard, but the IIBA must quickly change its focus to show the VALUE of the skills set to the business side. They need to produce return on investment statistics that show how much faster and more effectively an organization goes to market with a solution or an application when it uses certified Business Analysts. They need to show the competitive advantage provided. Right now the CBAP is a nice to have from the perspective of a business. IIBA must turn it into a need to have.

The IIBA is at a critical junction. They have a solid product now, but little to no mind share with the business world. Without an active and fast attack by the IIBA to market the value of the Business Analyst skill set to the business work, the CBAP trend in 2009 and 2010 will look much like the trends of the CAPM and PgMP certifications from PMI.

Trends are always interesting to debate and concern, this was an alternative look at some “possibilities” for the PM and BA skill sets and positions in 2009-2010.

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What is the CBAP® Certification?

The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA®) has created the Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP®), a designation awarded to candidates who have successfully demonstrated their expertise in the field of Business Analysis. This is done by detailing hands-on work experience through the CBAP® application process, and passing the IIBA® CBAP® examination. If you are working in the role of business analysis, systems analysis, requirements analysis or management, project management, consulting or process improvement, and have an advanced level of knowledge and experience, you will want to consider the many professional benefits of earning the CBAP® designation.

What is the benefit of utilizing The Complete CBAP® Study Guide in your CBAP® preparation?

The Complete CBAP® Study Guide will prepare you with the type of questions you will encounter on the certification exam. The guide contains over 500 practice test questions and tips on studying and sitting for the exam. Using this study guide will allow you to identify and focus on your areas of weakness, thus maximizing your study time. The bank of test questions will be provided in the guide and accompanying CD which will allow you to structure your study.

The suggested course of study:

• Take a pre-assessment exam and score to determine your starting point.
• Proceed through the Knowledge Areas and Underlying Competencies of the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK® v2.0) introductions and practice questions specific to each area.
• Simulate the CBAP® Exam with 150 questions provided using the CBAP® blueprint (Knowledge Areas question weighting).

At each step above you will be reviewing the author’s logic for correct and incorrect answers to familiarize yourself with the BABOK® material and CBAP® exam approach. A total of over 500 test questions

Characteristics of a Successful Culture: Your Main Thing

This post is in response to Stephen Seay's "Characteristics of a Successful Organization."

Stephen does a nice job of explaining culture as a starting point to his blog entry. Also, I would not refute his multiple points on what cultural characteristics make up highly effective enterprises. He includes a great list of traits and characteristics that both management and the worker need to exhibit, but I do believe he is missing something in this blog entry.

We all know that exercise is good for us, but only a few of us actually believe it enough to do it. We all start out with the best intentions of meeting a New Years resolution, but very few of us take those resolutions to heart through the entire year and stick it out. Finally, many of us want to change, but very few of us harness the power to change.

When examining culture, I think an organization has to keep the message simple and easy to understand. The concept I use is from the book Monday Morning Leadership: 8 Mentoring Sessions You Can’t Afford to Miss. The concept is the Main Thing. Every manager of every department in every company should have what the Main Thing is for their organization posted on the wall. The Main Thing is basically the essence of why you are at work. It defines your work purpose, and if the task you are doing does not match that Main Thing concept, you need to stop doing the task. The Main Thing is a very simple and easy way to define work purpose. A culture is basically an organization understanding its work purpose and executing on it together.

Finally, a Main Thing needs to be posted and visable, it needs to be reinforced and the concepts continuously discussed. The goal is to create a corporate mythology. That way, when new employees come into the organization they will hear about your department or company’s mythology and will more easily assimilate into the culture.

The key mistake people make is trying to hire a profile that matches the culture. Doing this leads you to a very homogenous group that will ultimately lack the creativity of a cognitively diverse team.

Cultural concepts should be kept simple, posted, discussed and taught. The concepts should be easily embraced by cognitively diverse employees and can be department focused, as well as company focused.

A large list of should do’s is not going to cut it, a tight purpose statement that incorporates organizational purpose and can be communicated, posted and discussed is going lead to the highest possibility of incorporation.

Agile Culture: Where Should a Newbie Start?

This post stemmed from a post by Joelle Godfrey, Agile Culture: Where Should a Newbie Start?

After reading the article I asked ASPE President David Mantica to give me his thoughts...

There are a number of problems in life, one of the biggest problems is humans' crazy desire to make everything so darn confusing and over complicated. Ayn Rand was so right when she showed true genus tied to John Galt’s one-equation solution to static electricity. We are always trying to over complicate things to show our intelligence, when true genus is being able to take the complicated and make it simple.

Joelle Godfrey's post does a fantastic job of showing the very basic concepts of Agile for a beginner. Agile, in its purest form is one of those KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) solutions of true genus, but as with anything over the years it has gotten more and more complicated. Godfrey likens Agile and the different “flavors” of Agile to a nation and different districts. I liken Agile to an open source methodology and the different flavors as productized variants of the methodology. Much like Linux is the base open source Unix operating system and Red Hat and Suse Linux are different productized variants.

A basic understanding of Agile as a management method is critical before a professional can dig deeper into it to roll out a specific methodology flavor. The Agile Management movement is not for everyone. One of the main concepts that will stop many professionals in their tracks is the concept that co-workers and support staff must be treated like “adults”. When was the last time your manager treated you like an adult. Furthermore, some people can’t even define what an “adult” is. I have been asking that question in a number of presentations and getting some pretty interesting answers.