Certified (woah!) Scrum(only?) Master (are you sure?)
Certifications are above and first of all money making machines. Given a coexistence of interest between a professional and/or a scientific and/or a technical community, potentional employers and individual professionals, emerges room for an enterprise that conducts and sells these certifications and a bunch of supporting relevant services.
The individual wants or needs something cool written on their resumee, the companies want not to be fooled by some completely false reference on someone’s cv and the community of those practicing the profession need a friendly environment to breathe and exchange information within.
So, what are certifications after all? Well, one thing is for sure: there is very little that they can declare or assure about the real professional value of the persons that have them. Their existence states that the owner had some sort of training, maybe passed a test and that (maybe the most valuable of all) keeps contact with a community of practitioners that share knowledge and experience.
Some will argue that in most cases that’s more than enough. And, you know something? They are right!
The problem begins when someone pretends there is more to it than mentioned above.
Of course there are different types of certifications. Let’s take the PMI’s PMP for example. For all that matters, it has some prequisities (academical courses or proven experience are two of them). Then, there is a body of knowledge, a set of specific and documented guidelines and processes that provide the core material for a fairly difficult test.
Think about it for a while. Even if we conclude that there is a point in certifications for agile methodologies (even as a proof of mastering one -or some- of the many items in our toolbox), which of these characteristics apply to the CS[x] certifications?
