There have been a lot of negative comments about the new Scrum Alliance Certified Developer program lately. One web post referrs to the organizers of the program and presmuably the participants as “festering money-grubbers” .
Let me clear a couple of things up about the CSD program. For full disclosure, I’m on staff with the Scrum Alliance helping administer the program.
Firstly, focusing on the CSD is a little short sighted. Certified Scrum Developer is the first training program in the new Scrum Alliance Registered Education Provider program (SA-REP) http://www.scrumalliance.org/SA-REP. The Scrum Alliance is seeking applications from training organizations that have something to offer the Scrum community. There are 10 organizations listed right now and several more are in the final stages of approval, including a branch of a major university. These organizations are screened for experience and demonstrated expertise in developing and administering training programs. The application process also reviews the resume of each course designer and trainer submitted by the applying organization. Lastly each course is reviewed relative to the leaning objectives for the program. Once a new SA-REP is approved and they have approved courses and trainers they are given the ability to list public courses on the Scrum Alliance site.
The SA-REP program is also setting up to assess and review the courses and trainers that deliver training in the program. The details of how this will be administered is still under development, however the goal is to help improve the quality of training and give students they information they need to select training that is valuable to them.
The CSD program is an SA-REP program. Every SA-REP that submits a course and trainers for CSD-Eligible status are reviewed as I described. The program includes Scrum knowledge as well as an aggressive set of technical learning objectives for developers working on Scrum teams. These include the practices of Test-First, Test Driven Development, Continuous Integration, Agile Analysis and Agile Architecture.
So far we have 2 Java based programs approved and one .NET. We have applications currently being reviewed for Ruby and another Java program. There are training opportunities currently available on four continents.
With the massive improvements in Visual Studio 2010 and the new Application Lifecycle Management abilities of the new Microsoft Tools the Scrum Alliance is seeking qualified and experienced trainers on the platform. This why the application asks if the trainer is qualified in this area thought the programs listed. The application process reviews the Scrum training ability and experience of all applicants and if any trainer does not have demonstrated experience in Scrum, the Scrum Alliance will work with the organization to partner with an experienced Scrum trainer to help them with that part of the program.
BTW, I don’t see any “festering money-grubbers” listed as SA-REPs. Who are you referring to? I see qualified, experienced training organizations offering much needed training for developers and other professionals working on Scrum teams.
If you have any other questions about the SA-REP or CSD programs, feel free to contact me directly.
Rod Claar
SA-REP /CSD Program Community Liaison
rclaar@scrumalliance.org