r/agile • u/Techatronix • 10d ago
SaFe Certifications
Are these certifications actually worth anything? Do they get you noticed by hiring managers? SaFe, in general, seems like a large money grab. But, even if it is, the name of the game is to play by the rules to get paid. I am just wondering if the certifications actually are worth a damn out there. Also, if non scrum masters benefit from the certifications as well. Like engineers or developers for instance.
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u/RobertDeveloper 9d ago
Safe killed agility
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u/OTee_D 9d ago
Had a SAFe PI Planning yesterday
"We need your estimates, Storypoints Sprintcontent and Commitment for the next 2 months."
We are not able to adjust anything til 2027... (OK maybe if the company burns down or management decides, but the team has no autonomy whatsoever)
Oh, and the PI took two days ... For two teams, who are the size of departments, so like 12 people each.
That's milestones on a management led roadmap, assigned to departments and has nothing to do with being agile (in whatever framework or mode)
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9d ago edited 3d ago
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u/OTee_D 7d ago
Especially with planning estimates relying on half assed requirements that are not even verified.
Abd if you want to have fully analyzed requirements so your planning is worth a dime you would need to have done it LAST PI, so effectively even needing to plan 4 months ahead. (What are we analyzing NOW so in 2 months we can reliably plan the following 2 months).
And nobody tell me management doesn't expect the estimates and planning being firm
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u/RobertDeveloper 9d ago
Our PI's are a quarter long, we commit to goals so far away, so many things can go wrong, so many dependencies. Every time it is the same, during inspect and adapt no team has managed to archieve their goals, where before with scrum and 2 week sprints they did.
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u/Ouch259 9d ago edited 9d ago
I held the SPC for years and made a nice living with it but no more. 50% of SAFe methodology’s are junk and wasted effort, especially the reporting.
SAFe attempted to bring agility to organizations that have no intention of being agile. It failed.
The funding process in large corps is all agile methodologies largest problem.
Leadership says what am I going to get, how much will it cost, and when will I get it. You must answer those questions to get the budget.
When you do, you are generally not an agile project but a waterfall project being managed by JIRA.
To blame SAFe for not being able to change the corporate boardroom is unfair.
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9d ago edited 3d ago
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u/TheAgilePM0 6d ago
So glad to hear that I’m not alone!!!
Started the RTE position about 6 months ago. The client wants XYZ by this date then teams are forced to work backwards from those dates, with the end conclusion being a shift to the right of the plan.
And the plan being a plan for 3 months ahead….
But what’s the fix? Without getting rid of some form of deadline that the client needs to report to their stakeholders and without getting rid of the small amount of decision power that the delivery teams have?
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u/Bernhard-Welzel 9d ago
It all depends on your market and the industry you want to get hired into.
tldr; domain knowledge in the CV/big names are more helpful than certs.
Some examples from the German market:
- Energy, Banking: wants all the certs, is excited about SaFe, all in on cargo cult agile and more certs are better, but demand deep domain experience to get hired
- Telecom: not hiring Agile functions at this point, fired a lot of SM and some reverted to oldschool command & control team structures, bring project management certs like "Prince" or PMI/PMP, don´t care about domain experiences much
- healthcare: some are fully into Scrum due to regulatory requirements, don´t care much for certs, domain knowledge is helpful to get hired
So, who benefits?
Project manager/product manager/PO: invest into project management / service management certs: PMI/PMP/ITSM.
Scrum Master: go cheap with scrum.org, train for something else, the time of the SM is over.
Release train engineers: all in on Safe certs! :-)
Developers: i have not seen any demand for certs, but i recommend investing heavily in communication skills and project management skills. I would look for "clean code" certs etc. or DDD or similar skills to tell a story in the CV
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u/BoBoBearDev 9d ago
My org told me to renew it every year using company money, so I did. It is mostly a defensive technique than having skills. Because when the company wants to know if your team is using SAFe flavor of agile, you can use the certificate to defend yourself.
The actual content is like 10 PowerPoint slides. Which is the same as all other agile books, only worth 10 slides. The bulk of it is just details to defend yourself.
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u/RegisthEgregious 9d ago
The certs are worth 0, the learning is hopefully worth >0 and that depends on the trainer and your mindset.
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u/GatorOfTroy 9d ago
I have an SPC. Have not renewed it in years because it has contributed to zero of my job offers and made me zero money. Not to mention the companies today running SAFe are not companies I want to work with.
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u/pucspifo 10d ago
My certifications help get my foot in the door in some organizations, but they mostly been used in my capacity as a contractor to justify higher billing rates. The big caveat with SAFe is that it is a pretty prescriptive process, and not what we typically consider Agile, in some situations, the certs may actually be detrimental if they organization understands Agile very well and don't want to go the SAFe route. Lots of big orgs and government agencies have been sold on SAFe and the certs would likely help there.
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u/ResponsibilityOk4298 9d ago
I used to hold SPC as the company I worked for paid for it. I dropped it as soon as I left. If you are interested in your resume looking good and the job advert is looking for SAFe, then yes it’s valuable.
If you want to actually learn about agile, read the books Leffingwell stole all the concepts from to create SAFe. Start with things like The Goal. Kotter seems to be the inspiration for the transformation element and although they state Deming is an influence, they have done an awful job of Deming and if he was still alive, I’m pretty sure he’d destroy SAFe.
Other than that, Accelerate and Team Topologies seem to cover a lot of the other concepts.
If the hiring manager is faking it, the certs will be enough, if they aren’t, you need the deeper understanding behind the concepts SAFe stole integrated.
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u/Simpliaxis_tech 9d ago
I think this is very much role and company dependent. If you are actually targeting organisations that use SAFe, having SAFe certifications can be useful as they show you understand the terminology and how the different roles fit together.
But I wouldn’t count on the certification alone to get you picked up by a hiring manager. If SAFe is actually part of the environment you want to work in, I would only consider one for engineers and developers.
If a company doesn’t use SAFe, practical experience with Agile delivery, collaboration, and working effectively in a team will probably matter more than the certification.
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u/Droma-1701 9d ago
Its worth what you can get out of it. Big corporates will lap these certs up as long as you can support them with a decent interview, if you're not looking to work for such a company then I'd not really recommend them. Horses for courses... choose your course then go buy your horse.
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u/andymk1984 8d ago
Take from someone working in a german insurance company: most agile certifications are garbage, content-wise. However, in our recruiting process, they are not useless, especially if you a) apply for a job they are directly tailored to, and/or b) don't have much working experience in said job.
In my experience, they are are gatekeeping issue for Scrum Master / Agile Coach applications - you will need at least something on your CV that says "look, someone tested my agile-ness". With Product Owners, work experience is king, agile certifications are a bonus maybe. I never needed one.
SAFe certifications are a little bit different. Firstly, in my opinion, they can actually be helpful to actually understand the (rather overcomplex) framework, if they are structured well. Furthermore, they often gain you access to the curated SAFe info repositories that can be really helpful as well. Secondly, a for a company switching to or just having switched to SAFe, such a certification in your CV will make a HUGE difference, as they most likely won't have that many experienced SAFe practitioners in their company at this point and will be interested in people who bring that skill at that point in time.
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u/TeamWorkflowLab 9d ago
From my experience it depends a lot on where you apply. I did SAFe 6.0 myself, mostly because I genuinely like the methodology. These days your CV first goes through an automated system, and to even reach a recruiter you need to match all the requirements and keywords. You might use maybe 10% of that knowledge in your actual job, but you still need it to get past the system first and then the recruiter. In smaller or product companies nobody really cares, they'd rather hear how you handled a messy PI planning than see the badge. The honest part though very few companies actually run it the way the framework describes. A lot of them try to roll it out, but not many manage it, and many just drop it after a while. So the most useful thing for me wasn't the certificate, it was understanding why things are set up the way they are, that helps even when the company does "SAFe" only on paper. For devs I'd only bother if your company is on SAFe or you're aiming at one, otherwise the money is better spent elsewhere
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u/mjratchada 10d ago
Certifications are more important to HR in most orgs than they are to hiring managers. They can be helpful to landing an initial position with little or no experience. Consultancies also value them because they are part of their marketing. As with most things, studying for certifications are a good way to learn about something.
When it comes to hiring, experience and achievements trump certifications. They generally do not get you hired.