Category: Agile Practitioner

By Mr.Nitin Choudhary

CSCP Faculty

Resilience is defined as the ability of a person, system or organization to recover to normal when subjected to external force or disruption. The same definition extends to Supply Chains.

It’s the capability of a Supply chain to achieve its intended goals even in the face of changes & disruptions. In theory, a total resilient supply chain will absorb most of the impact and recover to reach its target. But hardly any organization relies on a totally resilient supply chain because usually these impacts come at a cost (sometimes which even results in loss of business). Inherent in the definition itself, resilient supply chains contradict the lean philosophies.

On the other hand, an agile supply chain is defined as a supply chain which is quick to adapt to the external changes. Instead of absorbing the risk like a resilient supply chain, an agile supply chain steers around the risks quickly. But it’s also a fact that all this steering around the risks comes at a cost to the supply chain. An agile supply chain to be truly agile has to let go of the benefits coming from the economies of scale to maintain its agility for risk avoidance.

Now most organizations settle for a trade off between the level of resilience and agility in their supply chains depending on the product, market, criticality and some other business factors.

As a general thumb-rule, agile approach solves more of external disruptions and resilience in the supply chain focuses more on internal disruptions.

As represented in the figure below, diagram “A” shows Agility handling Opportunities and disruptions through threats and resilience handling internal disruptions.

In diagram “B”, this is what most supply chains strive to be. In this case resilience is defined as something which integrates agility into it & handles both external & internal disruptions.

Agile development process came into view as an alternative to established ‘plan-driven’ Waterfall model of project management methodology in the early 1990s. This approach works well for small projects with a limited scope of work and a few variables. Looking at the rate of implementation of Agile and the growing popularity of it, it is pretty evident as to why you should go for PMI-ACP®. Here are more reasons which validate your decision to go for it. The number of reasons here is staggering and provides you the fact to go ahead and learn PMI-ACP®.

Competitive Advantage over Your Peers:
An Agile Certified Professional gets trained in principles and practices that alter the performance of a team. When training in Agile, one learns to combine the best Agile methodologies to ensure superior delivery of the finished project. Being a certified professional, guarantees a quick response and thereby empowers him with a competitive advantage and helps him stay ahead of his peers. This helps you out in your career as there are organizations looking for the most capable and knowledgeable professional to lead their projects.

Increased Adoption of Agile:
According to the recent report by the Standish group, organizations have started seeing more success in adopting Agile methodologies.

Agile Better than Traditional Waterfall Approach:
It is understandable that the Waterfall approach or other similar methodologies will be suitable for some business types, but there is evidence now that these organizations are looking out for other methodologies as well and Agile seems to be in the forefront. According to a survey, 65.8% of Waterfall users associate Agile with increased profits and only 13.2% of users believe that a pure Waterfall will lead to increased profits.
In an annual survey conducted by the State of Agile, 73% of the respondents felt that Agile helped them to complete faster, 33% felt that Agile accelerated the time to market, 92% said that it improved their ability to manage priorities and 87% reported increased productivity. About 23% of the respondents agree that Agile did help them to align IT and Business better. Reports show that the popularity of Agile is increasing and captivating the hearts of Waterfall users. As a result, there is an increase in Agile users and more and more users are clubbing Agile methodologies with a Waterfall approach.

Strong Career Opportunities:
The Agile environment is creating strong career opportunities for IT Project Managers, Testers and QA professionals, who can move into specialist positions such as ‘Agile Mentor’ or ‘Agile Scrum Master’, ‘Technical Business Analyst’ and ‘Agile Coach’. Numerous organizations around the world are looking for professionals with strong knowledge of Agile. With the help of a certification, it becomes easy for these professionals to move the authoritative positions, as certification is proof that one has theoretical knowledge of how to deal with challenging projects.

Increased Productivity:
Numerous surveys are clearly indicating that organizations implementing Agile methodologies are proving to be much more productive than other methodologies, in terms of accelerated time to market, managing changing priorities, taking lesser time to complete, completing project within the budget and time frame. Agile methodologies have proved itself when it comes to bringing down the cost and increasing efficiency.
Agile methodologies boost team performance and create an amicable environment for joint decision making, learning and resolving impending issues within the team and thereby increasing the productivity of the team as well as each and every member of the team.

Certification = Instant Validation:
Being certified is almost synonymous (this is evident from the demand for certified PM professional) to proof of your knowledge and dedication to increase the standards and performance of projects using Agile methodologies. Because of this very reason, organizations trust a certified Agile professional to efficiently plan and execute a project when compared to a non-certified professional. The certification instantaneously gives you an edge when recruiters are looking for the project management professional. Being certified automatically increases the chances of having a successful career.

Better Remuneration:
According to a recent survey by the Project Management Institute, the median salary for project management professionals in the United States, Switzerland, Australia, UAE, Germany, and the Netherlands is more than $100,000. And the average salary of a certified PMI-ACP® is about $123,000 per annum. The difference in salary of a certified and non-certified PMI-ACP is about 28%, with the former getting the higher pay.

The PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) is a professional certification for Agile practitioners offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI). Project management practitioners are increasingly embracing the Agile techniques for successful management of the projects. As the Agile community is growing and organizations have begun to exceedingly implement the Agile methodology to execute their projects in dynamic environment, the PMI-ACP is becoming a popular and a fast growing certification. The PMI-ACP certification will provide you an edge over your peers by formally recognizing your knowledge of Agile principles and your expertise with Agile tools and techniques. The PMI-ACP certification is a combination of Agile training, working experience in Agile environment and an evaluation of Agile principles and practices. The organizations often rely on project practitioners for application of diversified methods to the project management and PMI-ACP is one such global certification that enables professionals to support that need.
Benefits:-
1. High Demand
All over the world there is a high demand for proficient project managers in industries. Apart from academic background, a valid certification will prove your expertise on the project management skills. With the industries largely implementing Agile techniques, there is a shortage of professionals who can understand and implement the Agile methodology in the current project management sense. So for the professionals who already have experience working in Agile environment as developers and project managers, a PMI-ACP certification will provide a platform to boast their credentials.
2. Wide scope
PMI-ACP is not limited to a single method but covers a broad range of Agile methodologies like Scrum, XP, FDD, DSDM, Kanban, Crystal etc. The purpose of this certification developed by PMI is being able to screen the professionals practicing the Agile approaches, tools and techniques in their work. It showcases the employers that the professional has hands-on experience working in Agile environment. It is becoming a popular and much sought-after certification from the PMI. Within a year, it has surpassed the Risk, Scheduling and Program Management certifications.
3. Professional growth
Obtaining the PMI-ACP certification plays a vital role in your professional growth. It demonstrates to the employers your level of professionalism in Agile practices needed in the project management, increases your professional versatility in project management tools and techniques, helps you learn about various Agile methods and improves your adaptability in Agile technologies which ultimately enhances the customer satisfaction and team productivity. The PMI-ACP certification proves that you have necessary experience in Agile, ultimate knowledge on Agile tools and techniques and that you have professional resources to take on any project based on Agile methodology.
4. Makes you marketable
A PMI-ACP certification boosts your resume, gains you recognition in your own organization as well as with other employers and provides you with better job opportunities for career advancement. It proves to be incredibly beneficial to your career in Agile project management. It opens doors to many more project development methodologies, collaborations and more better job prospects. This certification makes you a vendible employee. With increasing demand of professionals working in Agile environment, a certification like PMI-ACP will have employers chasing you, given your competence in project management.
5. Benefits the organisation
Today more and more companies are adopting the Agile approach rather than the traditional waterfall model. The PMI-ACP certification helps discover techniques to actively manage project scope and learn Agile principles and practices that improve the team performance and collaboration that ultimately ensures better delivery.