Over the Easter break I decided to take the certification exam on scrum.org for Professional Agile Leadership. This is my review of exam and reading material.
Reading Material / Resources
The reading material is quite an easy read. It consists of bite sized chunks of information and concepts.
There is a significant focus on scrum/agile values. In my opinion it seems geared toward convincing managers to embrace new concepts. Ie. If the person is a micromanager or doesn't allow their staff much freedom to think, then this course helps convince them to be more supportive rather than authoritarian.
My only issue with the reading material is that it seems splattered among many articles, blogs, and disparate videos. I wish it was better structured. I would have preferred something more resembling a textbook.
Practice Exam
I actually found this very easy as I had previously done the Professional Scrum Master Certification. The questions were short and easy to comprehend. I was able to get 100% very comfortably. This gave me a sense of confidence that I would do fine with the actual exam. I was wrong...The Actual Exam
The exam was 36 questions in 60 minutes. The pass mark was 85%. This meant that I needed 31 to pass. In comparison, the Professional Scrum Master exam had 80 questions in 60 minutes with the same 85% passing grade. With this in mind I entered the exam thinking that it should be easier to obtain as it was less than half of the questions. I was wrong.
The actual exam far more difficult than the practice exam. The questions where heavy in text, with most them setting up scenarios over a paragraph. It wasn't simple, so it was very much an exercise in English comprehension to understand the depicted scenarios.
I did actually pass (here's proof!), but there were times during the exam where I was questioning whether I actually understood the scenario. Be prepared to be caught out by wording if you are not careful.
Summary
The course material is a pleasure to read. Everything is in bite sized chunks which is easy to understand. The practice exam is way too trivial compared to the real exam, and will give you a false sense of confidence. The actual exam is heavy in text, and hence your English comprehension skills will be flexed.
Definitely a worthwhile certification to have, and it did open my eyes to how I can become a better leader.
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