More People Down on Scrum Certification

Guess since it is April Fool’s Day, people feel like it is time to pile on the Scrum certification.  Both Jim Shore and Scott Ambler (in the form of a joke certification) have added to the fray.  I am not so sure why people get worked up about certifications – the value of a certifications lies in what the recipient puts into it.  That is true for something like a CSM or an undergraduate degree.

I suspect one of the reasons why some people get down on Scrum for their certification programs is because they are successful and lucrative.  If it were not the case, I believe people would not care that much.  I would even go as far to say that the Scrum Alliance has done more to promote Agile than any organization out there.  We should be happy to have this problem, not complain about it.  If it were not for the vast number of newly minted CSM, I doubt that Agile would have pushed across the chasm (note – I guess I am walking away a bit from an earlier post where I said Agile has NOT crossed the chasm).  At least the Scrum Alliance tried to fulfill a need and attempt to stake out some territory in this space before all the vultures swooped in. AFAIK, they trying to inspect-and-adapt their programs and have put in the CST gatekeeper as an attempt to control the quality of their certifications.

I guess what bothers me the most about these posts is it sounds like people are lumping the Scrum Alliance with the vultures. I don’t believe they have the same motivation (might be having the same effect, but that could be debatable).  I have not seen any actions from the Scrum Alliance which shows this to be the case.  If anyone is to blame for this whole thing it would be Jeff & Ken for coming up with the term “ScrumMaster”.  How do they expect us to say with a straight face we are a “ScrumMaster”?