The need to acquire an Agile certification

So have you heard the latest buzzword in Project management? If not then it is “agile”.  This catchword has become popular lately in the Project management circle. This methodology is being rapidly adapted from small to large enterprises the world over. And now is the time to know more about it and to understand the need to acquire an agile certification. 

 

Agile History:

 

As SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) becomes all pervasive, it is essential for enterprises to leverage this opportunity quickly. One essential tool which enterprises are increasingly finding useful in making this transformation is the application of agile methodology.

 

Agile Software Development is not a new concept it has been around since late 1950s. However it has only been since the early 1990s that several agile development methods evolved. In 2001 the agile manifesto summarized the agile approach to replace the documentation driven process heavy traditional waterfall methodology. Lately several of these agile methods have matured and are being implemented in a large scale enterprise scenario. Thus enabling enterprises reap the benefits of scale. It is commonplace now to see enterprises implementing agile in 50+ team member sizes. 

 

The need for agile skills: 

 

Enterprises have realized that the customers now want features quickly and the company which is faster to market has a better chance of higher market share and repeat business. Further an agile enterprise is a nimble enterprise being able to quickly align itself with changing market conditions. 

 

The traditional waterfall methods do not work, being process heavy and time consuming before the consumer can get any consumption ready feature. Agile helps specifically address this issue by having time boxed iterations with consumable feature delivery at the end of the iteration. 

 

With such an indispensable industry requirement of moving to agile methodology, there is a demand of professionals who have the knowledge and the skills to implement agile methodology. On the other hand it is apparent that there is a complete paradigm shift. It is not an easy to unlearn the previous waterfall methodology and embark on a new learning journey. 

 

Having the requisite knowledge and skills is imperative as implementing Agile is a complete transformative endeavor for an enterprise. An agile certification is one way to get the knowledge in a short span of time and to able to demonstrate that one has been met the requirements of gaining the certification. As agile calls for a totally different set of working skills, several trainings and workshops are increasingly filing this void.  

 

It is relevant to note that certifications, training or workshops will set one on the right track but it is the real hands on work and which provides the necessary correction path. 

 

Global Market:

 

The analytics from global marketplace talent search has shown that positions demanding agile skills are increasing on job boards. Further the agile vacancies rank at 82 on a scale of 100 to be the most difficult to fill.

 

In such a scenario having an industry accepted agile certification has opened a lot of opportunities for certified professionals. 

 

To make the situation complex, enterprises now demand candidates not only have the technical skills but whose attitude matches with the principles of agile with qualities of collaboration, self-organization, open to change, respecting time boxed iterations, ability to thrive in cross functional teams and knowledge sharing. So the trainings and workshops accompanying the certification path help professionals hone these skills which are difficult to acquire in isolation.