Hi everyone!

Today's Jimmy Brief is all about certs. You know the kind: ECBA, PMI-PBA, CBAP, AAC, CRAP ...

Certification racket

The truth is, the people who care the most about certifications are – unsurprisingly – people who have certifications.

For the most part, employers don't care about certs. Employers simply want to get stuff done and need people to help them get that stuff done. Some employers might mistakenly think that certs identify people who get stuff done, but they'd be wrong.

Believing in the power of certifications is more common at:

1. Places with a big PMO

2. Big established corporations with big communities of practice

3. A place that has "Dave" in a position of power (important context: Dave has a bunch of certifications and he thinks that he, and his certs, are both great!)

If you want to work for Dave, want to be involved in the community of practice at that big established enterprise, or want to be hired by that PMO, then yeah, get some certs! Hell, put the letters after your name on LinkedIn! Go wild!

But please don't actually buy into the idea that certs do anything more than demonstrate your ability to acquire and regurgitate knowledge. Certs only identify people who have studied for and have taken a certified course and whatever test went along with it. The application of that knowledge remains unproven.

And the application (i.e. the ability to actually do stuff) is way more valuable to employers.

Knowledge is necessary, no?

Yes. Continuous learning and deep understanding of business analysis tools and techniques is critical to success as a business analyst (and pretty much all knowledge roles).

But learning is not exclusive to certifications. Certifications are actually some of the most expensive kind of learning

Yeah but you have certs!

Yip! I have Scrum Master certification, along with PRINCE2 Practitioner and PRINCE2 Agile project management certification. And I'm even considering doing a professional Product Owner course.

Here's my justification:

1. The scrum master one was so long ago it was back in the time before all the agile cert madness!

2. I did PRINCE2 was so I could more effectively argue with project managers (note: this has been WAY more effective than I could have ever dreamed possible).

3. And, I'm a Jeff Patton super-fan and if he wants to give me a cert, I'll take it!

In other words, the certs I've gained back up my core value proposition and compliment my experience, but do not define it.

They are also – notably – not business analysis certifications. I've simply never seen the point in paying to prove knowledge and understanding of a ton of techniques and methods when my experience already does that.

So I shouldn’t get a cert?

I'm not telling you what to do, merely sharing my own thinking on the topic. But at the very least, be appropriately suspicious of this logic:

1. Get cert

2. ???

3. Profit!!! 💰

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this (or anything else), so do reply to this email, DM me on LinkedIn, or send me a letter via pigeon. 

I cannot tell you how much I like hearing from y'all!

And until next time, stay excellent! 💖
Hannah