Stacey, thanks for offering your thoughts. Your frustration is real; I get it. Let me offer another perspective which may help relax some of those concerns.
1.PMI never embraced Scrum. Didn’t happen; won’t happen. Your article title seems based on a false premise. PMI-ACP was an attempt to surf a wave that had already beached; it failed.
As of January, PMI embraces Disciplined Agile and FLEX, offering a handful of new certifications which require knowledge far beyond Scrum. I’ve followed Ambler & Lines develop DA from a spreadsheet to a living system. It’s probably the most realistic approach to agility at the present time. The PMI integration is on-going and seems effective to date. I don’t care for the profusion of certifications this engenders, but trust they will work it out.
2. Projects still need to be managed, even for an agile team. Where do backlogs come from and who decides whether to fund (or keep funding) the work? I worked as Sr PM for several years — not my cup of tea, but we need projects to be managed, regardless of how the work is organized. Project managers have one key role: manage risk to the investment. They used to manage work as part of that; in an agile environment, that’s no longer necessary, but someone has to manage costs vs value and report how the money gets invested — what agilists refer to as a team doesn’t have that role.
3. Great project managers (and I’ve known several) have always been skilled at the same thing which makes scrum masters/team leads/RTEs great: communicating effectively with people who function in other disciplines to keep everyone focused on the whys of the work while deferring to specialists on the hows.
So while I share some of your frustration with PMI’s early attempts and current fishtailing with respect to their new ways of working in a world going agile, I hold great respect for the people doing these things — well, except for whoever edited that poorly constructed ACP test. For context I hold certifications for RUP, PSM-I, PMI-ACP, CDA, and CEAC. Completed (without seeking certification) work last year onthe Agile Fluency Project (which ties agility goals to practical direction). Working this year on DALSM, ICF-ACC, and probably CAC as professional growth goals. [Note the absence of PMP] But none of those letters mean a thing unless we can work effectively with others. (And once upon a time I wrote commercial software, although you really wouldn’t like me to touch your code today.)
The truth of being practically agile is that we create continuous learning microcosms, a la Peter Senge’s work. And that learning continues here, in Medium. — Peace
