Report from the first PMI-ACP Exam

By Peter Gleeson

PMI offered a new qualification - Agile Certified Professional from 31st January this year.
As a PMP who had worked on some agile projects and had a basic agile qualification (Certified Scrum Master), I was interested in this - but I wanted to know what separated it from other agile qualifications that were out there.

My research on that led to two primary differentiators:
1. It was experienced based – you needed to have:
    a. 2000 hours project management experience
    b. 1500 hours Agile project experience within the last 2 years (on an agile team, not necessarily as a project manager)
2. It was methodology agnostic – all the other qualifications out there were for one particular “flavor” of Agile. This qualification encompassed most of them including Scrum, XP, Lean, Kanban, and DSDM, as well as other concepts that were common across many of them such as test driven delivery

That decided for me that this was the right qualification for me – having this would demonstrate not only a broad range of knowledge of agile processes tools and techniques, it also shows that you have applied in these in real life. As in many aspects of project management, no amount of examinations or training can replace the experience you get from actually running agile projects.

Unlike PMP and CAPM, ACP (Agile Certified Professional) does not have a body of knowledge as a primary reference. Instead, PMI provides an Examination Content Outline that documents many of the tools/techniques and knowledge/skills that will be tested in the exam. It also provides a basic framework of domains of practice and tasks an agile project.

In the handbook for the ACP exam, PMI provides a recommended reading list of 11 different Agile books. I read through 10 of these as preparation for the exam (and after passing the exam have since purchased and read the other one). This I found a lot more valuable than just reading a study guide aimed at getting you to pass the exam, as the detail within those books contained tools and techniques that I could apply in my day to day job, even on non-agile projects.

The exam itself was a typical PMI type exam. The time you have is fairly generous – 3 hours to answer 120 questions (100 of which are marked, and 20 are unscored). 50% of the exam is on tools and techniques, and 50% is Agile knowledge and skills. In both of these areas, there are many situational questions that provide you with a scenario within a project, and ask you to choose the correct response. These really test your real world application of agile, and allow you to demonstrate your actual agile project experience.
In summary, I believe over the next few years this qualification will take on increasing importance in the marketplace. In Agile projects, not one size fits all, and the broad range of knowledge you must demonstrate to pass this exam shows you have a wide range of skills and techniques in your toolkit that you can apply to various project situations.

A recent posting by Joeseph Flahiff, CEO of Whitewater Projects Inc. summed it up better than I can:

“The high standards of qualification and the rigorous development of the exam ensure that the PMI- ACP Agile certification carries the highest possible credibility. Any hiring managing seeing it can be assured the applicant has proven expertise. CIOs, HR professionals and IT manager should be on the lookout for the PMI-ACP certification. It says a lot about the person who is qualified to use those letters.”

Peter Gleeson is the Secretary of the Northern Branch of PMINZ, and one of the first in New Zealand to take the first PMI-ACP exam.