After the public announcement last night, that PMI intends to create an agile project management certification, I heard REM playing in the back of my head. "It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine". Though I will admit I was a bit nervous when I learned PMI was going to do an Agile certification, back in October (2010), I made my peace with it. I came into the picture toward the tail end of the PMI Agile Project Professional (APP) process. As Mike Cottmeyer stated on his blog,
We’ve had a ton of really smart people involved, people you’d know and respect in the agile community.
Those people worked really heard and I applaud them for their efforts. As an independent reviewer of the competencies, techniques/tools, knowledge and skills, I can personally assure members of the Agile community that PMI is not trying to rewrite Agile as they know it. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty damn good version 1.0!
For those who were not at the PMI North American Congress back in October (2010), there was strong representation by the Agile Community of Practice and a lot of curiosity, and might I add ignorance, by the average Congress attendee. I didn't find it surprising, considering there is a complete omission of the word “Agile” in PMI’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) version 4.0.
It is my hope that this new certification will provide that baseline understanding of Agile for many. I do believe this is a step in the right direction.
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