The CSM Integrity Deficit

Posted by Uncle Bob on 09/18/2009

Scott Ambler wrote a blog, and an editorial about the dirty dealings and desperate deception of the Scrum Alliance and their slimy certification scam. He rightly points out that the certification means little more than the applicant’s check didn’t bounce.

He goes on to imply that the entire agile community is guilty of keeping silent while this huge chicanery was foisted upon an innocent industry. He calls this conspiratorial silence: “integrity debt”.

Oh bollux! What an incredible load of Dingoes Kidneys!

Look. I’m not a big fan of CSM. I think it’s a gimmick. I am not a CSM myself, and have no intention of joining their ranks. When I meet someone who proclaims themselves to be a CSM, I’m not particularly impressed. I know what that certification means, and I take it with a grain of salt. To me, the title of CSM is worth little more than a shrug.

We at Object Mentor do a lot of training in things like Test Driven Development, Agile Methods. Object Oriented Principles, Java, C#, etc. etc. At the end of every course we often sign and pass out certificates to the students. Those certificates proclaim that the student attended the course. I see no difference between that certificate (which is a certification after all) and the CSM certificate. I suppose the students who take our TDD course could claim to be Object Mentor Certified TDDers; and they’d be right.

Have we created an “Integrity Debt” by handing out those certificates? Of course not. Everybody knows exactly what they mean. Nobody misrepresents their intent. They are an honest statement of fact. And the same is true of the CSM certificate.

Is it troubling that some HR people are starting to put CSM requirements on Job postings? Not at all! It is perfectly within the rights of any company to decide that they want to hire people who have been appropriately trained. Are there some HR people who overestimate the value of CSM? Probably, but that’s their own fault.

In my humble opinion there is no significant integrity issue here. Oh it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there might have been some back-door deals in the early days of CSM. Perhaps some people were given CST status, or CSM status without careful controls. If that happened, I chalk it up to birthing pains which the Scrum Alliance is striving to correct. I don’t think anybody was out to scam anybody else. I don’t think CSM is a far flung conspiracy to ruin the software industry, and I don’t think the US government flew those jets into the twin towers.

Bottom line. There is no “Integrity Debt” here. What there is is a group of honest and caring folks who are trying to figure out the best ways to get Agile concepts adopted in an industry that sorely needs them.

In that regard I think that the agile movement has enjoyed a significant boost because of the interest generated by the CSM program. There are more companies doing Agile today because of CSM. So if anybody owes a debt here, it may be the Agile community owing a debt to the CSM program.

Maybe, instead of accusing and castigating and pointing the finger of judgement and doom we ought give a salute to Ken Schwaber, and say: “Thanks Ken.”

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