Essay Sample on Certification and Tools in the Agile Scrum Environment

Introduction

Several certifications and tools are both important and useful in the agile Scrum environment. Depending on the complexity, expectations, and goals of a project, the project team ought to select the most relevant and applicable certification and tools. All the available certifications and tools have their advantages and disadvantages. They also are similar in several ways while still holding their unique differences.

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Describing and Comparing PMI-ACP and Scrum Alliance (CSM, CPO)

Agile certified practitioner (ACP) is a certificate that is offered by Project Institute (PMI). The ACP certification has high levels of professional honors, and it usually combines agile work training on agile projects and its examining tools and fundamentals (Flahiff, 2019). ACP is a certificate known globally while the Scrum Alliance is a body that offers CSM and CPO courses. On education, PMI requires one to have several qualifications. Such requirements include; sitting exams, a secondary degree, a high school diploma, or associate degree. However, with the Scrum Alliance, no level of education is needed. The PMI can be done both in the classroom sessions and online training. This arrangement makes it flexible and diversifies the places one can do it from; thus, it is less expensive compared to CMS. CMS requires in-person room training, which can be costly for some, and it involves a lot of traveling (Flahiff, 2019). PMI offers various courses in agile practices. PMI is contrary to Scrum CMS that only provides agile methodology, which hinders one's exposure to other agile practices.

Additionally, the PMI certificate brings both theoretical and practical project management experience in agile projects. On the contrary, CSM gives a test on flavors of agile that is the base only and no practical experience. Training for PMI certificate takes 21-hours, and one can choose from a variety of courses. Scrum Alliance takes 16 hours or two days. This period is a mandatory requirement allowed for a sing course, and getting a suitable course is sometimes very challenging (Flahiff, 2019). The PMI ACP is for everybody in an organization whereas Scrum Alliance gives different certificates for various roles.

Comparison Between Scrum.org and SAFe

The difference is brought about by how they manage or handle work. SAFe deals with the whole organization while Scrum is basically for managing and organizing their work for small teams. SAFe usually manages to contain many missed important aspects by the Scrum in the job done. For instance, Scrum often bases on a small group of people in an organization framework while SAFe involves the whole company. The SAFe entirely focuses on portfolio management, team management, and program management, it also emphasizes on retrospect and planning to make an improvement, which Scrum in some way lacks (Aston, 2019).

SAFe has a more structured approach to scale than compared to Scrum of scrums. For Scrum, the underlying construct is the Scrum team and for SAFe is Agile Release Train (ART). With Scrum, the middle management usually has no say or role to play as contrary to SAFe that deals only with portfolio and program management. SAFe is typically designed in a way to accommodate DevOps, as a more stable agile for companies as opposed to Scrum.

Comparing the Agile Tools for Scrum and the Relationship to the Agile Project Manager

Several tools that are both important and useful in the agile Scrum environment. Depending on the complexity, expectations, and goals of a project, the SrumMaster and the team selects the most relevant and applicable Agile Tool to use. All the available tools have their advantages and disadvantages. They also are similar in several ways while holding their own unique differences topics like VersionOne, Rally, Atlassian, and Pivotal Tracker.

Backlog Management

In Rally, backlog management involves the addition of backlog items, editing the backlogs, looking at the status column, and customization of the backlog page. Scrummage allows the creation of a story on the dashboard then dragging and dropping it in the backlog list. However, in Atlassian, the display of backlogs is on the dashboard. Therefore, to move these items to sprint, specific sprints are assigned to particular backlog items by clicking then assigning. Finally, managing backlogs in VersionOne involves advanced importing, filter, search, and sorting of the items.

Burndown Charts

The Rally burndown chart contains a blue bar showing the task hours that remain and a green bar showing the complete story points. The chart also has a black line that shows the standard burndown rate. Scrummage only shows the real burndown rate, the burnup, and a burndown chart. On the other hand, Atlassian' burndown chart allows customization. It provides a line chart that has two lines indicating the real and ideal burndown. The difference between these two lines is the variance of the story points of the project. The burndown chart in VersionOne bases its line graph on the pending story points, and when they are dated. The blue line shows the idea while the red line indicates the sprint.

Release Planning

In Rally, release planning is time box oriented and starts with a collaborative meeting between the Scrum Master, Product Owner, the delivery team, and the stakeholders as advisors. This meeting discusses release matters such as product vision, theme, name, architectural state, release estimation velocity, schedule, and iterations, updates and, backlog items. After that, there is the creation of iterations, editing releases, management of milestones, and scheduling the release work. Atlassian release involves four steps. The steps are; a collection of ideas, sketching a plan for the release to know who to engage and when to involve them, translation of the ideas into an actual action plan and then the actual release. In VersionOne, release planning can be done using two methods. The tactical planning which takes place at the backlog stage or the strategic planning that happens at the feature stage. Finally, Scrummage a high-level plan is made for several sprints. The plan is depended on project type, whether it is date or feature-based. If it is feature-based, we divide the total of features by anticipated velocity. If date-driven, a multiplication of the velocity and sprints are done.

Sprints

Atlassian has several predefined and customized reports that allow project performance tracking. VersionOne focuses on connection with other members of the team, customers, external and external involved parties. In scrummage the scrum is equalized to the iteration.

References

Aston, B. (2019). Quickly Compare The 10 Best Agile Tools For Managing Projects - The Digital Project Manager. Retrieved 27 July 2019, from https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com/agile-tools/

Flahiff, J. (2019). A comparison of the PMI-ACP and the Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Professional. Retrieved 27 July 2019, from http://www.whitewaterprojects.com/2012/01/03/a-comparison-of-the-pmi-acpsm-and-the-certified-scrum-master/

Johnson, E. (2019). SAFe or Scrum at Scale - Which Framework is Best for You?. Retrieved 27 July 2019, from https://content.intland.com/blog/agile/safe/safe-or-scrum-at-scale-which-framework-is-best-for-you