Today, the Scrum Alliance has announced its “intent to transition the Certified ScrumMaster post-course test from pass-only to pass/fail on September 1, 2012.”
The rest of the announcement follows below:
After monitoring the results of the current pass-only test over the past several weeks, we are confident in our decision to transition to the pass/fail test. Students who pass the test will receive a list of all missed questions and a list of possible answers with the correct answer highlighted.
Students who do not pass the test on the first attempt will also receive a list of missed questions and possible answers but the correct answer will not be highlighted. These students may re-take the test once more at no additional charge. Students who do not pass the exam a second time will be required to pay $25 USD for each additional attempt until they achieve a passing score of 24 out of 35 questions.
For those interested in the certification, you will now likely see a spike in interest in completing the training and exam in the next month or so. After that point, there will be the added new stress of having to pass an exam to earn the certification.
However, there will be an equal stress for scrum trainers. In the past, a Scrum trainer’s primary concern was to educate students how to use the Scrum framework effectively. Now, there will be added expectation that the class will also equip students to pass the exam, in order to earn the certification.
What are your thoughts? Does this training-based certification mean more if both the Trainer AND the Student have been evaluated?
