Certifications: “If I Were You…”
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Considerations for Individuals — My Advice
When people ask me about training and certification, the conversation often goes like this:
- “I’ve become really interested in (Scrum | Kanban | TDD | Coaching)”
- “And I really want to work in an Agile team.”
- “How can I find a new opportunity?”
My advice is often…
“If I were you, I would…”
- attend conferences and get involved in the community;
- pursue opportunities to work with excellent teams;
- pursue opportunities to learn directly from credible experts;
- read a lot (ask your network which books they’d recommend);
- assess the return-on-investment of a certification before spending the time and effort;
- carefully assess the credibility of the certifying organization;
- and would not want to pay renewal fees.
To be clear, I am an advocate of training and certification.
I advise my clients to involve experts in various ways (e.g. as coaches, consultants, mentors, trainers). But, in particular, I believe training offers the best opportunity for rapid growth/change in skill. The training setting can produce profound experiences that disconfirm what a person thinks they know and can sets an person on a new path fueled by curiosity (the best of all intrinsic motivators).
For those reasons, I created a blog series about training and certifications. These articles may help you create your own learning paths that involve training, coaching, self-study, and so on.
All About Certification — A Blog Series: Table of Contents
This article is one part in a series I started in 2019 to address questions that I frequently receive about training courses and certifications.