Disciplined Agile^® Certification FAQs

Disciplined Agile Scrum Master (DASM)

PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (ACP)

Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM)

Disciplined Agile Coach (DA Coach)

Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant (DAVSC)

Main targeted audience

• Teams who want to learn together.
• Anyone wanting detailed overview of DA and how to apply it to improve their way of working (WoW). 

• Anyone working on agile teams or working in an organization that is adopting agile practices who wants an understanding of agile.

• Teams who want to learn together.
• Anyone who wants a better understanding of how agile works in practice.
• Anyone who wants to coach teams in improving their WoW. 

• Agile team leads, coaches, and experienced agilists.
• Anyone who wants to coach in DA both within teams and across teams. 

• Experienced professionals who want to help guide improvement of their value stream or organization.

What you will learn

• Grasp the fundamentals of agile and lean, and how to practically use both approaches to produce value for your teams.
• Discover agile project management strategies.
• Explore multiple agile and lean techniques from methods such as Scrum, Kanban, SAFe®, and more.
• Understand how to put these techniques into practice and ensure successful agile implementation.
• Appreciate the DA mindset and its underlying principles, such as pragmatism, the power of choice, and adapting to context.
• Learn how to apply the DA tool kit to discover the most effective WoW for you, and your team in your unique situation. 

• Expand your knowledge of agile principles and grow your skill with agile techniques.
• The PMI-ACP spans many approaches to agile such as Scrum, Kanban, Lean, extreme programming (XP) and test-driven development (TDD).

• Take a deep dive into the DA tool kit to develop a comprehensive understanding of the hundreds of practices and strategies it contains and the trade-offs of applying them.
• Learn how to apply the DA tool kit to guide your teams in choosing and evolving your best WoW in any situation.
• Use the DA tool kit to solve complex challenges commonly encountered in both software and operational business teams.
• Learn how to lead agile teams through key enterprise activities, such as planning, coordinating, and reporting, and be ready to show your improvements in areas where your organization is struggling.
• Understand how to improve value delivery for your customers by empowering others in your organization, nurturing emotional intelligence, and resolving conflicts. 

• How to apply the DA mindset in a variety of coaching scenarios.
• Working with your existing governance/PMO team.
• Identifying challenges and competencies.
• Determining improvement opportunities.
• Working with the improvement backlog.
• Creating a coaching playbook.
• Implementing guided continuous improvement (GCI).
• Visualizing and removing impediments.
• Determining the root cause of issues.
• Supporting diversity in the workplace.
• Guiding teams through the change process.
• Overcoming barriers to decision making.
• Working with external teams – GCI across disparate teams.
• Helping your organization develop needed capacity.

• The role and work of a value stream consultant.
• The idealized value stream.
• Removing delays in the workflow.
• The minimum business increment (MBI).
• The discovery workflow and the development intake process.
• Business increment planning and coordination.
• The importance of cadences.
• Reducing (not accommodating) dependencies.
• Factors for effective value streams.
• Value creation structure.
• Agile budgeting and lean funding.
• Creating visibility across the organization.
• Key team and organizational roles.
• End of increment activities. 

What will you be able to do walking out of the class?

• Be an effective team member on a DA team.
• Be actively involved in your team’s improvement efforts.  

• It will increase your versatility, wherever your projects may take you. 

• Successfully lead one or several agile teams.
• Accelerate your ability to manage high-profile initiatives that are critical to enterprise success.
• Take business agility to the next level by applying agile and lean techniques in a wide range of situations, including non-software teams.
• Use the DA tool kit to optimize how teams work, work with allies within their organization, and solve a variety of advanced problems. 

• Establish credibility with organizational leadership.
• Coach teams on how to apply and optimize their WoW across the enterprise.
• Help teams and organizations choose their WoW and realize true business agility.
• Understand how to align teams with organizational strategies and goals to enable agile transformation.
• Facilitate culture change and transformation.
• Master the DA tool kit and show teams the best WoW in the situation they currently face.
• Accelerate process improvement.

• Help organizations achieve true business agility.
• Accelerate value delivery at scale by moving beyond individual teams and applying DA across your organization.
• Apply techniques to optimize enterprise-wide value stream.
• Learn to determine the best place for an organization to start their improvements.
• Be equipped to tailor an organization’s improvement plan based on their unique needs, while also paying attention to their culture.
• Know how to accelerate the realization of value by your customers at scale.
• Identify the most effective practices for each situation with the help of the DA tool kit—whether it be a new Agile transition or continuing a stagnated SAFe or Spotify approach.
• Be able to train an organization to continue to improve on their own. 

Pre-requisites for acquiring certification

• No agile experience
• Self-paced or two-day course
• Pass DASM exam

• Demonstrate applied experience on an Agile team
• 8 months of agile experience plus
• 1 year general project experience
• 21 hours training
• Pass ACP exam

• 2 years Agile experience
• 2-day training
• Pass DASSM exam

• 3 years Agile coaching experience
• Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master certification
• 2-3 day training
• Pass DA coach exam

• 3 years Agile experience
  Disciplined Agile
• Senior Scrum Master certification
• 2-3 day training
• Pass DAVSC exam

Next steps in your career journey

• Pursue DASSM for more in-depth DA skills and knowledge that will help you tackle more complex situations as a senior Scrum master. 

• Pursue DASM for more in-depth, applicable DA knowledge.
• Pursue DASSM for more in-depth DA skills and knowledge that will help you tackle more complex situations as a senior Scrum master. 

• Pursue DAC to coach teams on how to apply and optimize DA across the enterprise and to understand how to align teams with organizational strategies and goals to enable agile transformation.
• Pursue DAVSC to help organizations achieve true business agility and to accelerate value delivery at scale by moving beyond individual teams and applying DA across your organization to optimize the enterprise-wide value streams. 

• Pursue DAVSC to help organizations achieve true business agility and to accelerate value delivery at scale by moving beyond individual teams and applying DA across your organization to optimize the enterprise-wide value streams.

• Pursue DAC to coach teams on how to apply and optimize DA across the enterprise and to understand how to align teams with organizational strategies and goals to enable agile transformation. 

Disciplined Agile Scrum Master (DASM)

PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (ACP)

Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM)

Disciplined Agile Coach (DA Coach)

Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant (DAVSC)

Experienced Agilists

(2+ years agile experience)

N/A

N/A

Wants to learn about DA to tailor your approach and better lead teams

Wants to coach in DA organization wide for true business agility

Wants to lead transformations to help accelerate value delivery

Experienced Professional (but not agile)

N/A

Wants deeper understanding of agile and lean

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New to Agile

Wants to gain fundamental skills and knowledge of Disciplined Agile

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Next steps

ACP or DASSM

DASSM

DAC or DAVSC

DAVSC

DAC