CSM Archive

4

Becoming a PMI R.E.P.

By
Derek Huether
– July 19, 2011Posted in: Agile, Project Management

As you may know by now, I left my gig advising a Federal PMO to join LitheSpeed as a Senior Manager. LitheSpeed offers premium Agile software development training, coaching and management consulting services. My relationship with the organization actually started several years ago, when I attended ScrumMaster training to earn my certification. (You can’t be a Certified ScrumMaster through the Scrum Alliance unless you get your training from a Certified Scrum Trainer®.) Well, the world is evolving and so is LitheSpeed.

See, Certified Scrum Trainers (CSTs) play a vital role within the Scrum Alliance. They are the only ones licensed to teach Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) courses. Stringent certification requirements are imposed on CSTs to make certain that only those who are qualified to meet the commitment are entrusted to engage in this role on behalf of the Scrum Alliance.

Well, what about those out there who are members of the Project Management Institute? What about those seeking the upcoming PMI® Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)SM certification? If you want to qualify to sit for the PMI-ACP, you will need 21 training hours in an Agile-specific curriculum. To ensure members of the PMI know LitheSpeed offers quality training that will help satisfy that requirement, we applied to and were approved to be a PMI Registered Education Provider (R.E.P.).

PMI R.E.P.

What does it take to become a PMI R.E.P.? Applicants must complete a 33-page application, which includes a strict quality review of both the trainers and the curriculum. The first class we submitted and got approved was our Certified ScrumMaster course; next will be our Certified Product Owner and PMI-ACP Prep courses. As an R.E.P., LitheSpeed has been approved by PMI to issue Professional Development Units (PDUs) through the PMI website. Our goal is to equip our trainees with tools they can apply on current and future projects, not just help them qualify to take an exam.

I know this post sound a little like a press release.  But, I have to admit, applying to become a PMI R.E.P. is no cakewalk.

If you would be interested in attending one of my upcoming public training sessions or would be interested in me providing a private training session, shoot me an email!

PMI® and the PMI® Registered Education Provider logos are registered trademarks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.
PMI-ACPSMis a service mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

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0

CSM & PMI Agile Certification Eligibility

By
Derek Huether
– April 27, 2011Posted in: Agile, Project Management

Though PMI has published information about what is required to be eligible to take the upcoming PMI Agile Certification exam, I’m getting quite a few emails from people asking about the upcoming exam.  One of the most intriguing was from a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) asking if (his or her) CSM training could be applied toward the required 21 PDUs.

The question: Do Scrum Alliance® Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) courses qualify for the training eligibility requirement?

The answer: Yes, Scrum Alliance® courses qualify for the training eligibility requirements. Only hours in Agile training will meet the certification eligibility requirements. One hour of training equals one contact hour of education eligibility.

 

 

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7

What is in a Name

By
Derek Huether
– February 27, 2011Posted in: Agile, Project Management

Hello my name is Derek HuetherThis weekend, I took the first step of rebranding myself. Some know me as Derek Huether the “PMP”; some as Derek Huether the “CSM”; some even refer to me as The Critical Path blogger or Zombie PM.

With the real risk of the Federal Government shutting down this next week, I’d be an idiot if I didn’t eat my own dogfood and have some kind of Risk Management strategy.  Though I may have to “accept” the risk, I will do what I can to mitigate it.

Because I am NOT a government employee, if there is a shutdown, I will NOT get paid.  When I heard about a possible shutdown, I remembered the similarities between grief and risk.  So, what needs to get done?  I need to get my resume and social links updated.  Wherever my name is, I need to make sure the message I’m sending reflects my current frame of mind.

When I look at LinkedIn profiles, it appears some people really love adding initials after their names.  I saw one fellow had no less than 6 acronyms after his name.  Though people in the industry may understand this alphabet soup, I think many are just annoyed by it.  I did a search on him and he really had nothing to say (publicly).  So, who is this guy?  What I see happening is he’ll be loaded into a database with everyone else and he’ll become nothing more than a keyword search.

Though I admit, that could happen to me as well.  I’ll do what I can not to pander to it.  I think people should be hired because of their personalities or because they are good culture fits.  I wouldn’t want to be hired because a hiring manager needed a body with a PMP or CSM.

I’m not going to turn my back on what I’ve learned over the years.  I will still champion the baseline information the pursuit of these certifications or accreditations exposed me to.  But, I’m not going to continue using them in my name.  It’s just not who I am.

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9

Zombie Elephant

By
Derek Huether
– February 17, 2011Posted in: Agile, Project Management

I read a REALLY compelling post by Philippe Kruchten, who among others, was at the 10 years agile celebration meeting in Snowbird, UT, organized by Alistair Cockburn on February 12.

Philippe stated on his blog post, after covering the walls with a couple of hundred issues cards, David Anderson noted that there was “an elephant in the room”. [read Philippe's post to find out what it was]  …A small group identified a few other such “elephants in the room”, i.e., other topics that the agile community is not really willing to tackle for a variety of reasons. They ended up with a long list of about 12 such “undiscussable” topics (or at least not discussable in the open).

The elephant that jumped out at me was number eleven.

11. Certification (the “zombie elephant”)
This massive elephant was reported dead a few times, but seems to reappear…

Now, I don’t want to beat this proverbial dead horse but I do think it’s important to talk about this.  The idea of “Agile” Project Management certification seems to drive some people super crazy.  There are arguments against certifications (in general), saying they are just a way to make money; that they don’t offer any real value.  Like it or not, certifications ARE out there and they ARE here to stay.  This argument is not unique to the Agile Community.  There are almost daily debates in the blogosphere on the subject of certification value.  There is a distinct difference between wisdom and knowledge and I think the Agile community has a lot of wisdom to offer the “traditional” project management community.  If you don’t have the wisdom, you need some basic foundation of education in order to help projects (and people) reach their goals.

The ongoing problem I see is some people outside our project teams perceive those with certifications as experts.  It’s either that or the Hiring Managers are so damn lazy that they go looking for certifications rather than actual people who will make good culture fits.  Either way, we have the same results.  People who don’t know the first thing about project management or leadership, with certifications, get hired.  This is not an issue with the certification itself.  It’s a marketing issue.  The message is being controlled by the wrong people.  The communities as a whole need to be more vocal and shape the correct message.

In my post for Agile Scout, about the State of Agile, I called it mastery-based learning and the paradox of the certification.  What is the goal?  Are we trying to discover better ways to deliver value to our customers or are we just trying to get a piece of paper and a few extra letters after our names?  Some only care about getting a passing score on a certification exam versus being a good manager or leader.  I would argue that certifications do offer some value but we may need to do away with terms like “Master” or “Professional”, in order to help control the message.

So, why certification and not traditional higher education?  In preparation for writing another blog post, I was reading a University of Maryland textbook on Systems Analysis. The section on Agile & Scrum were flat out wrong!  In addition, this college textbook used Wikipedia as its reference source.

I would argue, the respective communities introduce themselves to the elephant in the room and get to work on better ways to educate people and measure proficiency.  You better do it soon, before that elephant becomes an 800 pound gorilla.

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8

Failing The Exam

By
Derek Huether
– November 4, 2010Posted in: Agile, Project Management

Here comes the rant

One of the things people know about me is I’m always willing to help them out.  I’ve been in the business of Project Management for 15 years.  I’ve lived the life as a Project Management Professional (PMP) and as a Certified Scrum Master (CSM).  These days, either certification will get you either praise or disdain. It just depends on the company you keep.  Some out there have heard me rant about people who I don’t believe deserve to say they have a certification, based on their motivations.  You should get a CSM or a PMP as proof of a minimum level of competency; that you support what they represent.  I see them as mere indicators of where you are on the path of mastering your craft.  Some have also heard me rant about certification boot camps that will guarantee a certification or your money back.  Ask yourself, why do/did you want that certification?  My holier-than-though attitude kicks in when the response is/was “because it looks good on a resume“.

Where am I going with this

I was approached a while back by someone looking for assistance in prepping for his PMP.  He is not a project manager (never was; never will be) and does not want to be.  But, his company told him to get the certification.  He got his membership with PMI, which his company paid for.  He then hit a wall when completing his exam application.  He didn’t have the experience.  There are ways around that, right?  Just get someone to agree with your stories or pray like hell that you don’t get audited (or both).  When he approached me, the first thing I asked was “what’s your goal?”  His response was “to not get audited“.  Um, ok.  Let’s try this again.  ”What’s your long term goal?”  His response was ” to get Corporate off my back.”  I felt betrayed by PMI, the day I found out he registered for the exam and was not going to be audited.

The update

After attending a week-long (he needed the 35 hours of project management education) money-back-guaranteed PMP bootcamp last week, he sat for the exam.  He failed.  He failed badly.  Now, I’m not going to be mean.  I feel bad for the guy.  He now has to explain this to those who were paying him to take the exam.  I am relieved, however, that there is one less unquantified PMP out there.  But, when I asked him if he thought the exam was hard he gave me a very good answer.  He admitted he didn’t even understand half of the terminology or formulas, let alone when and why he would use them.

And that is the broader lesson I want people to understand.

You need to understand when and why you do things.

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