PMI – ACP Certification – Digital Nova Scotia – Leading Digital Industry

January 14 – February 20, 2025

Valued at $2,999 +HST, FREE for eligible DNS members

Hosted by Brenda Fay, BrenDaniel Productions

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This program is directed to prepare participants for PMI’s Agile Certified Practitioner (ACP) exam. Along the way, participants discuss and review aspects of Agile delivery extensively. With this knowledge, individuals are better able to work with Agile projects and product delivery for their organizations. This program includes 24 hours total of training which includes twelve 2-hour online classes. Participants have email access to the facilitator during and after the program, so they may discuss any Agile topics in preparation for the exam. Participants are required to attend at least 90% of the total 24 hours to get credit for the educational hours as required by PMI for the certification. 

The program includes all materials, training and support required to pass the PMI-ACP exam. When a participant completes the training, one year of PMI membership will be paid. When the participant successfully submits their PMI-ACP application to PMI, their PMI-ACP exam fees will be paid. The PMI-ACP exam application is required to be submitted within three months of the program end date.

Who should take this course?

This course is intended for professionals who want to gain the PMI-ACP certification. PMI has designated requirements which individuals must meet to qualify to write the PMI-ACP exam.

  • You must have:
  • A high school diploma,
  • 21 contact hours of training in Agile practices (which this program provides),
  • 12 months of general project experience within the last 5 years. If you currently have your PMP® or PgMP®, this requirement is covered, and
  • 8 months of Agile project experience within the last 3 years. (Have a look at projects that have been run in an iterative and incremental manner.)
Course Outline

In this first session of the program, we discuss,

  • Why Agile?
  • The value and purpose of this Agile certification
  • What being Agile means
  • An overview of Agile frameworks: Scrum and more
  • The requirements for the Agile certification
  • The materials for the course and a study plan

Agile Principles and Mindset

  • Agile terms
  • PMI’s Agile Domains
  • The history of the Agile Manifesto
  • The Values and Principles of the Agile Manifesto
  • Why the Mindset is so important
  • Agile Leadership

Value-driven Delivery

  • Defining value-driven delivery
  • Evaluating value: metrics, KPI’s, risk and more
  • Prioritizing value
  • Incremental delivery: Minimal Viable Product, Kanban boards, WIP
  • Contracting: DSDM, Fixed Price, Customized
  • Verifying and Validating value

Stakeholder Engagement

  • Principles of Stakeholder Engagement
  • A Shared Vision: Chartering, Definition of Done, Wireframes, Personas
  • How to Communicate with Stakeholders
  • Collaboration
  • Interpersonal Skills

Team Performance

  • Agile Teams: Team roles, generalizing specialists, models, high-performing teams
  • Building collaborative team spaces
  • Tracking team performance: burn charts, velocity

Adaptive Planning 1

  • What makes Agile planning different?
  • Principles of Agile planning
  • Value-based analysis and decomposition
  • Time in planning: Timeboxing, Estimate ranges and Ideal Time
  • Sizing and Estimating: Requirements, User Stories, Backlogs, Methods, Product Roadmap

Adaptive Planning 2

  • Visioning
  • Release Planning
  • Iteration Planning
  • Spikes
  • Daily Stand-Ups
  • Review of Course Topics to-date

Problem Detection and Resolution

  • How Problems affect Projects: Cost of Change, Technical Debt
  • Agile Transformations: Failure Modes and Success Modes
  • Detecting Problems: Lead Time, Cycle Time, Defects, Variance, Analysis, Trend Analysis, Control Limits
  • Risk – Threats and Issues: Risk-adjusted Backlog, Risk Severity, Risk Burndown Graphs
  • Problem Solving

Continuous Improvement (Process, Product, People)

  • Kaizen and Continuous Improvement
  • Process: Tailoring, Analysis, Systems Thinking, Value Stream Mapping, Pre-Mortems
  • Product: Reviews, Feedback Loops and Methods, Learning Cycles, Approved Iterations
  • People: Retrospectives, Team Self-Assessments
  • PMI’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

Review and Wrap-up

  • Review of selected and requested topics
  • Review of Exam Application Status

About the Instructor

Brenda Fay

Requirements

To apply your organization must

If your business is not yet generating revenue from commercial activity, you may be eligible for funding if you are in an LAE identified priority sector (See Section 4.2)

Digital Nova Scotia will facilitate the funding process based on the information provided in the application below. Employees must be receiving full-time compensation while in training to be eligible for WIPSI funding. This may include employees who are full-time seasonal.

Apply Now

Step 1: Fill Out Business Eligibility Form

Download and complete the following form to confirm your eligibility for funding. Please ensure all fields are filled correctly prior to submitting, organizations who participated in the program last year can contact us for their previous forms for reference if needed.

Download Form

Step 2: Submit Paperwork

Complete the application below. If you are applying on behalf of multiple employees at your organization, you must complete a single form per employee.

Step 3: Wait for Eligibility Confirmation

Please give us at least 3 – 5 business days to respond to your email with your eligibility. Should we require any additional information, we will follow up with you. Note, space is limited, and submitting a form does not guarantee you a spot within the program. We encourage all interested organizations to apply as soon as possible.

 

Have Questions?

Please contact Emily van den Hoogen at emily@digitalnovascotia.com.

Course FAQ

[ click on a question to view the answer ]

Why should you take this course?

Agile is the upcoming and current way of product and project delivery – according to PMI’s Pulse of the Profession 2018, 46% of surveyed organizations have used an Agile or hybrid Agile approach over the last 12 months. Knowing how to be Agile and proving your knowledge is critical to success in the future.

Agile is the recognized way to organize product delivery in the software development world. If you work with projects which use Agile principles, whether you use Scrum or another framework, having this certification gives you and your organization confidence in its Agile project and product delivery.

The Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) certification formalizes the recognition of the value of Agile delivery in the project management world. This certification is granted by the International Project Management Institute (PMI®).