As a practicing agile professional and a holder of both the PMI-ACP and Certified ScrumMaster certifications, I will share my insights on how such agile certifications compare in order to help you decide which one is better for you.
The PMI Agile Certified Practitioner certification or PMI-ACP is issued by the Project Management Institute. I wrote a post about preparing for the PMI-ACP exam here.
There are several ScrumMaster certifications. I hold the Certified ScrumMaster certification from Scrum Alliance. Another agile certification with which I am familiar is the Professional Scrum Master I certification from Scrum.org.
Following is a high-level overview of each of these certifications.
PMI-ACP issued by PMI
- Difficulty and time commitment: High (substantial study time required)
- Cost: Medium-High (the choice is yours what trainings you attend and at what cost)
- Scope: Covers all aspects of agile, including Scrum, Lean and Kanban as well as organizational aspects of agile project management
- Requirements: Prior experience on agile projects, contact hours in agile project management training
PMI-ACP gives you a broad understanding of agile principles and how agile fits into the organizational aspects of project management. It is by far the most comprehensive of the mentioned agile certifications. However, if you are looking only to work in a Scrum team, this certification might be overkill and you might want to take either of the ScrumMaster certifications as a starting point.
Certified ScrumMaster issued by Scrum Alliance
- Difficulty and time commitment: Low (no additional study time required after attending training)
- Cost: High (training is mandatory)
- Scope: Covers only Scrum
- Requirements: Mandatory 2-day training course offered by certified Scrum Alliance trainer
The Certified ScrumMaster certification from ScrumAlliance has often been criticized in that it requires only a financial commitment in the form of mandatory attendance at a certified Scrum Alliance training. After the training, there is a very simple exam which everyone who has paid attention during the training should pass, no additional study time is required.
Professional Scrum Master I issued by Scrum.org
- Difficulty and time commitment: Medium (some study time required)
- Cost: Low-Medium (training is not mandatory)
- Scope: Covers only Scrum
- Requirements: None
The Professional Scrum Master I certification has been offered recently by Scrum.org as an alternative to Certified ScrumMaster in that there is no requirement for mandatory training. The exam by Scrum.org is more rigorous than the exam by Scrum Alliance and some study time is required in order to pass the exam.
Summary
Although Scrum Alliance is criticized for making the Certified ScrumMaster certification expensive, there is value in attending the live training. Especially in agile/Scrum environments, it is difficult to learn agile principles from books and training materials. Being there in person and doing actual group exercises is invaluable before starting an agile project. As an alternative, Scrum.org started offering the Professional Scrum Master certifications with a completely different viewpoint. There is no mandatory training, but the exam is more comprehensive, requiring the candidates to have a better knowledge of agile principles while not expecting them to make a huge financial commitment.
PMI-ACP is probably the best of all worlds. There is a moderate financial commitment, in fact, only the exam fee is mandatory. However, due to the training requirement, the candidate must have taken some form of training which ensures that they have some live classroom experience. The scope of the exam requires substantial study time, particularly in areas that are less known, such as Lean and Kanban. Knowledge of PMBOK is also helpful since PMBOK has recently started including more agile and hybrid approaches as I have previously written here. The knowledge gained by the PMI-ACP certification is applicable to agile projects in any organization, not limited only to Scrum teams.
In my experience, both PMI-ACP and Certified ScrumMaster certifications are valuable. Actually, Certified ScrumMaster may be considered as a subset of the PMI-ACP certification because the training and Scrum content achieved by the Certified ScrumMaster certification may be considered as a requirement for applying for the PMI-ACP exam.