The PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner) is a new credential offered by the PMI for people working in Agile project management environments. The PMI-ACP carries a high level of professional standing and credibility as it requires the combination of Agile education, experience and examination. If you use Agile practices in your projects, or your organization is adopting Agile approaches to project management, this 3 day session and the PMI-ACP certification may be right for you. The PMI-ACP recognizes knowledge of Agile principles, practices and techniques across Agile methodologies.
This 3 day session targets new and seasoned Agile practitioners to explore what it takes to successfully apply Agile methods to their teams, projects and programs. In addition to providing the full spectrum of Agile principles, practices and techniques, this material is designed to cover all the areas needed to successfully pass the PMI-ACP Exam.
Developed by Dimitri Ponomareff, an experienced Agile coach with many happy Agile clients and a master facilitator of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, this interactive format filled with actual Agile experiences truly provides you with direct access to what it takes to be highly effective with Agile. As a certified PMI-ACP, PMP, CSM and CSP, he knows what it takes to get certified in the project management world. Don’t hesitate to read all the testimonials about his positive impact over the years as both an Agile coach and trainer.
To help you prepare for the PMI-ACP Exam and to provide overall structure for Agile as a body of knowledge, here are the specific objectives covered during this 3 day session:
Introduction
- What is Agile?
- Why Agile?
- Agile Manifesto
- Prescriptive vs. Adaptive
- Sequential vs. Overlapping
Agile methodologies – in depth overview from a coach with actual experience implementing these successfully.
- Scrum
- Extreme Programing (XP)
- Kanban
What you need to know about the PMI-ACP
- Who should apply
- Eligibility requirements
- Exam overview
- Tips for studying
- Tips during the exam
- Reference materials
- Agileexams.com (included in your course)
Agile tools and techniques – 50% of total PMI-ACP Exam questions
- Communications
- Including but not limited to: information radiator, team space, agile tooling, osmotic communications for collocated and or distributed teams, daily stand-ups
- Planning, monitoring and adapting
- Including but not limited to: retrospectives, task/kanban boards, time-boxing, Iteration and release planning, WIP limits, burn down/up charts, cumulative flow diagrams, process tailoring
- Agile estimation
- Including but not limited to: relative sizing/story points, wide band Delphi/planning poker, affinity estimating, ideal time
- Agile analysis and design
- Including but not limited to: product road map, user stories/backing, story maps, progressive elaboration, wire-frames, chartering, persona, agile modeling
- Product quality
- Including but not limited to: frequent verification and validation, test-driven development/test first development, definition of done, continuous integration
- Soft skills negotiation
- Including but not limited to: emotional intelligence, collaboration, adaptive leadership, negotiation, conflict resolution, servant leadership
- Value-based prioritization
- Including but not limited to: return on investment (ROI)/net present value (NPV)/internal rate of return (IRR), compliance, customer-valued prioritization, minimally marketable feature (MMF), relative prioritization/ranking
- Risk management
- Including but not limited to: risk-adjusted backlog, risk burn down graphs, risk-based spike
- Metrics
- Including but not limited to: velocity, cycle time, earned value management (EVM) for agile projects, escaped defects
- Value stream analysis
- Including but not limited to: value stream mapping
Agile knowledge and skills – 50% of total PMI-ACP Exam questions
- Level 1 (33% of total exam questions)
- Active listening
- Agile Manifesto value and principles
- Assessing and incorporating community and stakeholder values
- Brainstorming techniques
- Building empowered teams
- Coaching and mentoring within teams
- Communications management
- Feedback techniques for product (e.g. prototyping, simulation, demonstrations, evaluations)
- Incremental delivery
- Knowledge sharing
- Leadership tools and techniques
- Prioritization
- Problem-solving strategies, tools, and techniques
- Project and quality standards for Agile projects
- Stakeholder management
- Team motivation
- Time, budge, and cost estimation
- Value-based decomposition and prioritization
- Level 2 (12% of total exam questions)
- Agile frameworks and terminology
- Building high-performance teams
- Business case development
- Co-location (geographic proximity)/distributed teams
- Continuous improvement processes
- Elements of a project charter for an Agile project
- Facilitation methods
- Participatory decision models (e.g., input-based. Shared collaboration, command)
- PMI’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
- Process analysis techniques
- Self assessment
- Value-based analysis
- Level 3 (5% of total exam questions)
- Agile contracting methods
- Agile project accounting principles
- Applying new Agile practices
- Compliance (organization)
- Control limits for Agile projects
- Failure modes and alternatives
- Globalization, culture, and team diversity
- Innovation games
- Principles of systems thinking (e.g. complex adaptive, chaos)
- Regulatory compliance
- Variance and trend analysis
- Variations in Agile methods and approaches
- Vendor management
Teach To Learn – a great technique also used when facilitating “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”.
- According to William Glasser, we Learn:
- 10% of what we READ
- 20% of what we HEAR
- 30% of what we SEE
- 50% of what we SEE and HEAR
- 70% of what is DISCUSSED with OTHERS
- 80% of what is EXPERIENCED PERSONALLY
- 95% of what we TEACH TO SOMEONE ELSE
- Each section includes a Teach To Learn session for participants to truly retain the learning
- Many questions to be expected in the PMI-ACP exam are included within each sections
Additional Information on the PMI-ACPSM Certification
PMI-ACPSM Handbook – How to register and prepare for the exam
PMI-ACPSM Exam Specification – The outline of what you need to know to pass the exam