Agile Qualifications: Don’t Bother

One thing that particularly disappoints me on a number of job specs that come my way is when I see them express a strong preference for candidates who are qualified scrum masters. It’s worrying that our industry values superficial qualifications over substance as I feel there could be a lot of great candidates slipping through the recruitment nets.
One Size Fits One
Anyone who has worked in agile environments at a number of different organisations can attest to one thing: no two organisations have the same interpretation of agile. Whether it’s the way they approach big chunks of work, or even just their sprint naming conventions, every team is unique.
When you think about it, this should be an obvious conclusion to draw. Every organisation will have a different culture, different budget, and team members from different backgrounds and with different skill sets. Even the tooling available and appetite for risk, which is often defined by their industry and the nature of their product/service, help shape what the processes employed by a team look like. Imagine where a team simply doesn’t have budget to hire a product owner or a scrum master, so the lead developer performs those tasks, grooming the backlog etc. This team can still adopt agile behaviours and work in an iterative manner even if it goes against the traditional image of a scrum team, but I know of agile preachers who would say that this team isn’t working in an “agile” way. Remember, agile is about behaviours, not hard and fast rules that must be adhered to.
So are qualifications a complete waste?
Not necessarily. The better courses might teach you some new concepts or processes that you can test out and adapt to your own specific situation. You always have to be open to learning new approaches and the instructors (usually) will be experienced practitioners who can provide plenty of anecdotal lessons.
Additionally, if I’m being pragmatic and looking at things from the individual’s perspective, then the answer becomes a definite no. We have to always consider the current context in which we work, and unfortunately being a qualified scrum master, for example, will look good on your CV and help you get past the initial stages of some job applications.
However, I strongly feel that when it comes to finding what works and what doesn’t in a given environment, experience is of much greater value compared to a qualification.
When it comes to looking at the quality of the courses and what you get out of them, I’ll be blunt: the courses are usually 3–5 days, fairly boring, classroom based and involve a brief test at the end of the course. You’re not going to suddenly become a top agile practitioner after a bit of revision and scoring 70% on a pretty noddy test.
From a recruitment point of view, I wouldn’t consider agile qualifications particularly valuable at all. Lets say I’m a newly qualified scrum master, and I’ve worked on a project that decided to “go agile” 1 month ago, hence the qualification. Will I realistically be more knowledgeable about agile and ultimately work better in agile teams than someone who has spent 2 years working across 4 different agile projects? It’s a fact of life that CVs often get scan read in the first instance. If you’re skipping straight to the Qualifications section and hoping to see “Qualified Agile <insert role>”, you’re doing it wrong. You’ll be planting the idea in your mind that if it’s not there something is missing from the CV and potentially discard a candidate for the wrong reasons.
The ability and willingness for someone to adapt to a different way of doing things in a new team is a much greater indicator of whether they suit working in an agile environment than any qualification. I know plenty of people who work in “agile” teams, and subconsciously resist agile ways of working. You can only work out whether someone really “gets it” from a discussion with them.
Closing Thoughts
Don’t get me wrong, certain IT qualifications do have value, particularly those around security. However, being a qualified scrum master or a qualified enterprise and solution architect doesn’t make me significantly better at my job, it just means I sat on a course for 5 days and passed a trivial exam at the end of it.
NB: If anyone reading has their framed scrum master certification sitting on their mantle piece at home and is feeling a bit offended by this article, spark a discussion in the comments!
