What Are The Different Types Of ICAgile Certified Professional Certifications?

A successful Lean-Agile software and product development approach heavily depends on an organization’s knowledge of Agile principles, methodologies, and tools. For this reason, a wide range of organizations and institutions have developed certification programs to provide teams with comprehensive, industry-recognized Agile training.

The International Consortium for Agile (ICAgile) has created Agile certification programs for companies who want to train their employees on Lean-Agile concepts.

This blog post will discuss the different Agile certification tracks that ICAgile offers.

It is important to note that, technically speaking, you become an ICAgile Certified Professional (ICP) the moment you obtain any ICAgile certification, including the foundational ones.

A starting point

Before you embark on the journey of specialized learning for becoming an ICAgile Certified Professional, it’s important that you become acquainted with the Agile mindset.

Having a good understanding of Lean-Agile concepts and principles is necessary to complete the foundational certification training required for any ICAgile learning path.

The two foundational certifications offered by ICAgile are:

• Agile Fundamentals (ICP) – Aimed at professionals who work in software development and delivery, this certification gives individuals a solid knowledge to work with teams who are early in their Agile adoption.
• Business Agility Foundations (ICP-BAF) – Professionals who work outside of the software development space (such as marketing, finance, or HR specialists) can gain elementary knowledge of Agile principles and methodologies through this business agility foundation course.

All ICAgile participants begin their training with (at least) one of these two foundational certifications.

After completing the required course material and achieving the learning objectives, individuals can then choose to specialize in one or more of the following tracks:

• Agility in Leadership
• Agile Marketing
• Agile Finance
• Agile HR
• Agile Testing
• DevOps
• Agile Engineering
• Product Strategy
• Delivery Management
• Product Ownership
• Agile Team Coaching
• Enterprise Coaching

Let’s take a closer look at each of these twelve tracks and the sort of learning objectives they entail.

Agility in Leadership

The Agility in Leadership path consists of four certifications, three of which are ICP-level certs. It is best suited for leaders and emerging leaders at all levels who want to embrace and implement Lean-Agile methodology and practices throughout their organization.

The order of certifications in this track is as follows:

• Business Agility Foundations (ICP-BAF)
• Leading with Agility (ICP-LEA)
• People Development (ICP-PDV)
• Expert in Agility in Leadership (ICE-AL)

Once you complete your foundational ICP-BAF training, you will move on to ICP-LEA and ICP-PDV, where you will focus on leadership styles, organizational agility, how to hire and develop people, how to cultivate a culture of learning, and similar topics.

Becoming an ICAgile certified expert in Agility in Leadership (ICE-AL) is the culminating certification for this track and will demonstrate your comprehensive understanding of Agile leadership methods.

Agile Marketing

Agile Marketing promotes a “marketing to serve” philosophy that focuses on the needs of customers and prospects. It is a key component in any successful Lean-Agile transformation, great for marketing managers, leaders, and marketing professionals of all kinds.

Agile Marketing has three certifications in total, all of which are ICP:

• Business Agility Foundations (ICP-BAF)
• Agility in Marketing (ICP-MKG)
• Adaptive Strategy (ICP-STR)

The ICP-MKG and -STR courses teach you about adaptive marketing that is centered around the customer, short iterations in marketing, and delivering marketing value in a cross-functional setting.

Agile Finance

Mitigating financial risk and driving business results should be a top priority for all organizations. This learning track is meant for procurement professionals, accountants, sales professionals, finance professionals, business managers, and executives.

Similarly to the Agile Marketing path, Agile Finance also has three ICP certifications:

• Business Agility Foundations (ICP-BAF)
• Agility in Finance (ICP-FIN)
• Lean Portfolio Management (ICP-LPM)

The ICP-FIN and -LPM courses teach you to use Agile principles and practices in financial reporting, budgeting and cost management, and portfolio management.

Agile HR

The main goal of Agile HR is to help HR managers and professionals create a human-centered organization. By the end of the certification, you should possess an in-depth understanding of Agile HR practices and how to implement them.

There are currently three ICP certifications in the Agile HR track:

• Business Agility Foundations (ICP-BAF)
• Agility in HR (ICP-AHR)
• Adaptive Org Design (ICP-ORG)

This learning path gives participants the chance to become highly knowledgeable about improving human resources processes, designing an organization for agility, and obtaining skills necessary to empower employees in a cross-functional team environment.

Agile Testing

Moving into the software development space for a bit, Agile Testing is focused on continuous testing and quality. The target audience for this certification path are agile testers, test engineers, technical leads, and developers.

Test professionals can become ICAgile Certified Professionals by getting any (or all) of the following certifications:

• Agile Fundamentals (ICP)
• Agile Testing (ICP-TST)
• Agile Test Automation (ICP-ATA)

This learning path teaches participants the skills necessary to test for product quality using Agile processes, implement an efficient test automation strategy, and understand how to cultivate an environment of continuous integration.

DevOps

There is no doubt that DevOps is one of the most sought-after mindsets right now. This certification path focuses on the combination of testing, development, and operations to improve software quality and delivery time by using automation, monitoring, and collaboration practices.

There are three certifications in the DevOps learning path:

• Agile Fundamentals (ICP)
• Foundations of DevOps (ICP-FDO)
• Implementing DevOps (ICP-IDO)

The DevOps learning track is tailored for individuals who want to get involved in continuous integration, continuous deployment, and continuous development of software.

Once you complete the ICP-FDO course, you will be able to perform the necessary analysis of organizational culture and processes that are required for successful DevOps implementation. Thereafter, ICP-IDO teaches all about implementing DevOps in an organization.

Agile Engineering

The Agile Engineering learning path has three certifications meant for software development professionals such as application developers, system designers, technical architects, and more, 

• Agile Fundamentals (ICP)
• Agile Programming (ICP-PRG)
• Agile Software Design (ICP-ASD)

The end goal of this path is to provide the knowledge of Agile principles and practices that are necessary for iterative, adaptive, and inclusive software design and development. The learning objectives include understanding how to build high-quality products sustainably with shorter development cycles and utilizing methodologies such as collaborative and test-driven development.

Product Strategy

Developing a winning product or service can be done by learning how to apply the right resources, time, and support. There are three certifications in the Product Strategy track:

• Business Agility Foundations (ICP-BAF)
• Product Management (ICP-PDM)
• Lean Portfolio Management (ICP-LPM)

Product managers can learn how to introduce Agile principles and practices in the product development lifecycle, manage cross-functional teams utilizing agile processes, and implement an effective portfolio management strategy using these skills.

Delivery Management

Value-driven delivery is at the core of Agile, and this learning path has three certifications:

• Agile Fundamentals (ICP)
• Agile Project and Delivery Management (ICP-APM)
• Delivery at Scale (ICP-DAS)

This track offers delivery managers and delivery team-leads the skills necessary to manage Agile project teams. You will learn how to implement a sustainable Agile value delivery model through value streams and align value delivery at scale with the business strategy.

Product Ownership

Product owners, business analysts, and product managers can take up this learning path and learn how to make decisions that maximize the product’s value.

The Product Ownership learning path has three certifications:

• Agile Fundamentals (ICP)
• Agile Product Ownership (ICP-APO)
• Enterprise Product Ownership (ICP-EPO)

This track provides the knowledge necessary to successfully take on a product owner role, understand how to balance project portfolio investments with customer investment, and understand how to apply agile principles in large-scale organizations.

Agile Team Coaching

This learning track is ideal for future scrum masters, agile managers, agile coaches, project managers, and similar roles. There are four certifications available in the Agile Team Coaching track:

• Agile Fundamentals (ICP)
• Agile Team Facilitation (ICP-ATF)
• Agile Coaching (ICP-ACC)
• Expert in Agile Coaching (ICE-AC)

Individuals who complete this path will have a thorough understanding of agile principles and methodologies, how to facilitate productive agile meetings and workshops, how to coach teams on improving their performance through agile practices, and finally, master advanced coaching skills.

At the very end of the learning track, there’s another agile coaching certification that can be obtained.

The Expert in Agile Coaching (ICE-AC) certification makes a person an expert in Agile coaching and teaching who is adept at applying professional coaching practices to teams and facilitating agile workshops.

Enterprise Coaching

Agile coaches at any level can use their skills to help others transition from a traditional waterfall approach to an agile mindset. There are four certifications available in this learning track:

• Business Agility Foundations (ICP-BAF)
• Agility in the Enterprise (ICP-ENT)
• Coaching Agile Transitions (ICP-CAT)
• Expert in Enterprise Coaching (ICE-EC)

By completing this path, individuals can learn to understand systems and complexity theory, how to extend agility to an enterprise, and how to understand and work with executive teams, among other skills.

The ICE-EC cert makes an individual a certified expert in Enterprise coaching and teaching, ready for enterprise agility leadership.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many different tracks of ICAgile certifications. By becoming an ICAgile Certified Professional, individuals can gain expertise in many aspects of the product development lifecycle. While some courses are geared towards agile software design and development, others are created to help different types of professionals transition into an agile mindset, independently of software development.

If you are interested in becoming an ICAgile Certified Professional, feel free to check out our list of upcoming training events and contact us if you want to learn more!