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I'm not sure you can. It's a natural response to people trying to make money selling a process. All processes are succeptible to it. The only real avoidance

I'm not sure you can. It's a natural response to people trying to make money selling a process. All processes are succeptible to it. The only real avoidance technique is to have certification of trainers and organisations, and THEN you're going to run into the prevaling (and mostly accurate) IT wisdom that "Certs are Bullshit".

wpietri 16y ago
Excellent point. Most certs are indeed bullshit, but since most certification-creators have a financial interest in more certified people, that's not surprising. It happened in the Agile world with Scrum. Some certs, though, are actually worthwhile. The Cisco CCIE is very well regarded. CS degrees from certain schools also have value. And a lot of other fields do well. E.g., there's a clear division between real doctors and fake doctors, one that goes well beyond the legal enforcement. So I don't think it's hopeless, even if most of the examples are bunk.
- Dylanlacey 16y ago
  OK, so maybe we need an Agile 'Score'. From 10 as "I eat requirements and shit index cards", to 1 being "We got a guy in with a whiteboard once". The core team who define a concept get to vet the initial applications of the concept and give it a score. They also indicate who they think "Gets" the concept, and when those people are approved, they're publicly listed as "Getting it". Similar to the PGP system... A Trustee of yours is trusted by me. Except competance in lieu of identity. Basically, anyone can say "I give you a 10 out of 10 for hiring me as a coach I MEAN BEING AGILE", but only people elected by the community as a whole's opinions are likely to be respected. If Paul Graham said you were likely to succeed with a stup, that doesn't mean you WILL succeed, nor does it mean that everyone will agree with him, or even then those he doesn't believe in will fail. But if you trust his judgment given a set of parameters, you should be able to trust his recommendation. Maybe a simple rule: What does the certifier gain or lose from incorrectly certifying this entity? If the answer is gains money AND/OR loses credibility, don't trust the cert. This conflicts with the idea of a certification as a business, which kinda sucks because no-one wants to spend their time for free certifying people and businesses. Maybe a group of peers review, freely given and freely used. Everyone wanting a cert throws in a small amount of cash for pizza, you walk through your operations, the community takes note of who's there, then votes.

wpietri 16y ago

Excellent point. Most certs are indeed bullshit, but since most certification-creators have a financial interest in more certified people, that's not surprising. It happened in the Agile world with Scrum. Some certs, though, are actually worthwhile. The Cisco CCIE is very well regarded. CS degrees from certain schools also have value. And a lot of other fields do well. E.g., there's a clear division between real doctors and fake doctors, one that goes well beyond the legal enforcement. So I don't think it's hopeless, even if most of the examples are bunk.

Dylanlacey 16y ago
OK, so maybe we need an Agile 'Score'. From 10 as "I eat requirements and shit index cards", to 1 being "We got a guy in with a whiteboard once". The core team who define a concept get to vet the initial applications of the concept and give it a score. They also indicate who they think "Gets" the concept, and when those people are approved, they're publicly listed as "Getting it". Similar to the PGP system... A Trustee of yours is trusted by me. Except competance in lieu of identity. Basically, anyone can say "I give you a 10 out of 10 for hiring me as a coach I MEAN BEING AGILE", but only people elected by the community as a whole's opinions are likely to be respected. If Paul Graham said you were likely to succeed with a stup, that doesn't mean you WILL succeed, nor does it mean that everyone will agree with him, or even then those he doesn't believe in will fail. But if you trust his judgment given a set of parameters, you should be able to trust his recommendation. Maybe a simple rule: What does the certifier gain or lose from incorrectly certifying this entity? If the answer is gains money AND/OR loses credibility, don't trust the cert. This conflicts with the idea of a certification as a business, which kinda sucks because no-one wants to spend their time for free certifying people and businesses. Maybe a group of peers review, freely given and freely used. Everyone wanting a cert throws in a small amount of cash for pizza, you walk through your operations, the community takes note of who's there, then votes.