2021 Update On PMI Disciplined Agile Certi Cations

5/11/2021 2021 Update on PMI Disciplined Agile Certifications - Business 2 Community
 BUSINESS & FINANCE ⟩ STRATEGY
2021 Update on PMI Disciplined Agile

Certi cations
Anthony Mersino — March 18, 2021
If you have been following this blog you know that I’ve been keeping an eye on the Project
Management Institute (PMI) and what they are doing in the agile space. In this article, I want to share
some recently released statistics about the popularity of the Disciplined Agile Certi cations. I also
have included some details about a recent salary survey that includes data on agile certi cations. And
nally, I am including a brief interview with Jonathan Lee who has been teaching the Disciplined Agile
Scrum Master (DASM) and Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) ever since they were
released last year.
Disclaimer: Vitality Chicago provides Disciplined Agile Training and Certi cation to our clients, just as
we provide Scrum certi cation training from Scrum.org and Scrum Alliance. You could say we are
agnostic and pragmatic and we believe in providing what ts the client’s context.
Some Background on PMI and Agile Certi cations

Before we describe the current developments, a little history may be helpful. PMI rst got into the
agile certi cations market in 2012 with the introduction of the PMI Agile Certi ed Practitioner (PMI-
ACP). In 2017 they published the Agile Practice Guide in collaboration with the Agile Alliance. But it
wasn’t until 2019 when PMI really made the push into agile and particularly Scrum certi cations.
In 2019 PMI really made a splash by purchasing Disciplined Agile and NetObjectives. With this
purchase, PMI acquired the agile equivalent of the PMBOK in Disciplined Agile along with a handful of
existing Disciplined Agile certi cations. You can read more in PMI Goes all in with Disciplined Agile
and Flex.
Back in mid-2020, I complained about the lack of visibility to what was happening with the existing
Disciplined Agile certi cations which I found confusing. And I made some guesses about where PMI
was heading. I was wrong of course. It has taken PMI some time but it looks like they are nally making
sense of what they bought back in 2019.
https://www.business2community.com/strategy/2021-update-on-pmi-disciplined-agile-certifications-02392730 1/10
In September of 2020, PMI announced that they were retiring some of the existing DA certi cations
and introducing some new ones. This provided some clarity as to where PMI was heading. The diagram
below shows the 5 agile certi cations that PMI will offer moving forward.
Your 2021 Update on the Disciplined Agile

Certi cations from PMI
I was really happy to see that starting in January 2021 PMI began publishing statistics on their
available certi cations. This comes in the form of the PMI FACT FILE. The fact le contains details on
membership and certi cations and was always included in the PMI Today publication. Since PMI Today
is being retired, PMI is now going to post the PMI FACT FILE here on the ProjectManagement.com site
on the Critical Path blog.
So what you say? Well, this is the rst that PMI has published data on the Disciplined Agile
Certi cations. Granted, the counter is reset because the DASM and DASSM were just introduced last
fall and so not many people have them. But at least now there will be some transparency on just how
many people are taking the Disciplined Agile training courses and getting certi ed.
As I noted in my writings last year, PMI needs these agile certi cations. Agile is where the growth is at.
So it will be interesting to see how these new certi cations perform.
We took the PMI data and created a quick chart to show total number of certi cations, and percent
growth since the last data was published. Obviously the PMP and CAPM are the cash cows. It will be
interesting to see though if the Disciplined Agile certi cations grow more or less quickly than the PMI-
ACP to become the source of revenue that PMI is hoping for.
Another Data Point on Agile Certi cations

For another data point on agile certi cations, I was surprised by a Salary Survey published by DICE and
a summary article written by Nick Kolakowski. In his article, Kolakowski showed the relationship
between salary and certi cation.
Excerpted from his article were the three salary statistics highlighted in the chart below, which I found
a little surprising. What this is saying is that the Scrum Master certi cation is currently slightly more
valuable than the PMP. Wow, perhaps that is why PMI decided to use the Scrum Master title for their
new Disciplined Agile Scrum Master and Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master training and
certi cation courses?
For completeness, I’ve included the entire list of technical certi cations from Kolakowski’s article
about the DICE Salary Survey below. I just sorted the certi cations by value.
What We Are Learning from our Disciplined Agile

Certi cation Training
To round out this article, I reached out to our Certi ed Disciplined Agile Instructor (CDAI) Jonathan
Lee to hear from him about who is taking the Disciplined Agile Training, how it is going and common
questions he gets about the Disciplined Agile certi cations. Jonathan has been teaching the DALSM,
DASM and DASSM courses starting in 2020. Here is what Jonathan had to say about the students:
Anthony: So Jonathan, what types of students are joining courses? Are they coming from a Scrum
background, PMI background or a mix?
Jonathan: Here is what we can tell so far:
78% of students have their PMP certi cations
22% of students did not have any certi cation at all
31% of the students have, in addition to PMP, other agile certi cations such as Scrum Alliance,
Scrum.org, SAFe, and PMI (PMI-ACP)
5% of students only had Scrum Alliance or Scrum.org certs.
Anthony: Do most of the students who take the class plan to take the certi cation after for either the DASM
or DASSM?
Jonathan: Yes, the majority of them said they intend to take the exam.
Anthony: What areas of the training do participants tend to have the most dif culty?
Jonathan: They struggle most with situational questions. Since this is an open book and open notes
exam, straightforward questions are fairly easy to answer. When a question is situational and asks
what would be the best answer, that is where some people can get tripped up. My students tell me that
the DASM exam is pretty straightforward. On the other hand, the DASSM exam is much more dif cult
and has more situational questions. The questions force you to think deeply about the best answer and
most students say they have to choose between two possible correct answers.
Anthony: How often do you think participants pass the exam on the rst attempt?
Jonathan: That’s a good question. I think the DASM exam is much easier than the DASSM so I think
many students pass the DASM exam on their rst or second attempt. It is dependent on how much the
student was focused during the training and comprehended the information and/or studied before the
exam. That said, approximately 80% of students that took the DASM course have passed the exam.
There were some who were busy with work and other things that missed the 30-day window and
weren’t able to even attempt their rst try at the exam.
As for the DASSM, it is a lot harder than the DASM and I am still gathering data so will have to wait on
stats but I can tell you that a number of students are failing the exam multiple times and have to retest
because questions are more dif cult and challenging.
A great thing right now is that PMI is currently providing up to 3 attempts to pass the exam. That takes
the pressure off a little and will make it easier to pass the exam. I tell my students to take their rst
exam attempt as soon as possible, within a week, to gauge their level of knowledge and then brush up
on areas that they lacked based on their exam experience and try to take the exam again.
Anthony: What are you doing now to help participants achieve the certi cation?
Jonathan: We provide a complimentary online DASM/DASSM exam prep session after the training,
usually scheduled one week from class completion. In that session we go over key focus areas. We also
provide sample exam questions for students to take and get a feel for the type of questions they can
expect on the exam. So far we have received a lot of great feedback on our exam prep sessions from
students. They’ve said it really helped them in their preparation, con dence and ultimately in passing
the exam.
Anthony: Should participants start with DASM or go directly to DASSM?
Jonathan: For those who are experienced agilist and have been actively practicing agile ways of
working for two or more years, I recommend that they skip the DASM and go directly to the DASSM
course. But before you do that, it is highly recommended that you, at a minimum, read the rst 107
pages of the Choose Your WoW book by Scott Ambler and Mark Lines. PMI Members can download this
book for free from the PMI site.
Those that are new to agile should start with the DASM course and then work toward the DASSM. Or
if they have taken some other agile training before but haven’t really practiced agile ways of working,
then start with the DASM. This will provide a solid Disciplined Agile foundation to start building agile
skills.
After taking the DASM, they should take the DASSM soon after even if they don’t have the agile
experience. That way they are aware and learn the advanced skills that are taught in the DASSM
course. The DASSM course not only dives into more complex scenarios but also covers how to build
high-performance teams, emotional intelligence, con ict management and other useful skills that
team leads need to have in their toolbox.
Anthony: What advice would you give people considering taking the DA training?
Jonathan: Disciplined Agile is a great tool kit to learn and establish your base of understanding as you
get engaged in agile way of working. DA really helps you better understand what “being agile” really
means and helps you to get your mindset in the right place before you start engaging in “doing agile”
work. We all need to continuously learn and grow our knowledge to stay relevant in this fast-evolving
environment we live in these days. As Albert Einstein once said, “Once you stop learning, you start
dying”
Anthony: Last question – which format for training seems to be most popular, weekends, evenings,
mornings, full-day vs half day?
Jonathan: Great question. I have to say “it depends” and let me elaborate. Student’s whose company is
paying for the training tend to prefer weekday training. Those paying out of their own pocket and
working during the week tend to prefer the full-day weekend training. Students don’t want to consume
their vacation time if the company doesn’t pay for it or if they are independent consultants and don’t
want to lose billable hours.
With that said, sitting in on the online training for two full days of 8 hours is a lot, especially back-to-
back days. We do take frequent breaks but I think it is a lot to absorb for students and sit in front of
Zoom meetings all day for two days straight. So we are offering other options as well. For example, we
offer a 3-day training option for the DASM with classes running from 8am to 1pm. We also offer a 4-
day option for the DASM with classes running from 8am to Noon. These formats allow students to take
the class in the morning and get back to work during the afternoon. Or they can use the afternoons to
study up on the materials learned that morning and be better prepared for the following day’s learning
so that they can take the exam shortly after the course completion.
Another option we offer is two consecutive Saturdays for both the DASM and DASSM. This option
does not consume the entire weekend for those that have social/family responsibilities or need to
attend to other things during a weekend. We are also going to test out the weeknight option. We just
created this one so will have to see what the demand looks like.
At this time I can’t say one approach is clearly better than the other. Time will tell and I can provide an
update later this year.
This article originally appeared here and has been republished with permission
 This article was written for Business 2 Community by Anthony Mersino.

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5/11/2021 2021 Update on PMI Disciplined Agile Certifications - Business 2 Community

 BUSINESS & FINANCE ⟩ STRATEGY

2021 Update on PMI Disciplined Agile

Some Background on PMI and Agile Certi cations

Your 2021 Update on the Disciplined Agile

Another Data Point on Agile Certi cations

What We Are Learning from our Disciplined Agile

Jonathan: Here is what we can tell so far:

78% of students have their PMP certi cations

22% of students did not have any certi cation at all

5% of students only had Scrum Alliance or Scrum.org certs.

Anthony: Should participants start with DASM or go directly to DASSM?

 This article was written for Business 2 Community by Anthony Mersino.

Author: Anthony Mersino

More by this author:

© Business 2 Community. All Rights Reserved.

Privacy & Terms of Use

 Webinars & Free Online Learning

 Industry Research & White Papers

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