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Why the Pragmatic Kanban Certification
Kanban and the use of visual boards can be seen as a broader and more practical introduction to the Agile way of working, but it can also be applied to different parts of the organization. Kanban can be used for IT Development, IT Operations, business development, business operations, HR, marketing, control, purchasing, sales, and also at an executive or managerial level.
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The Pragmatic Kanban Foundation Certificate
You will receive your results as soon as you’ve finished the exam. If you passed the exam, you will gain immediate access to your certificate.
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Enable your Kanban adoption
Acquire the Agile/Kanban mindset. Become flexible, value transparency, respect the Kanban way of working.
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Benefit from Lean and Agile
Benefit from the best practises of both lean and Agile ways of working with Kanban.
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Work the Pragmatic way
Pragmatic Kanban is focused on pragmatic usage of Kanban, Agile, and Lean ways of working – simple and efficient for everyone to apply!
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Certify to Inspire
The Kanban certification is based on the ‘certify to inspire’ program from the Agile Consortium
More on Pragmatic Kanban
See more about the journey of Pragmatic Kanban. Check out how they got started and where they are headed in the future.
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FAQ About the Kanban exam
The Pragmatic Kanban Foundation certificate is intended for those who are familiar with the basic concept of “Agile” and “Lean”. Though would like to discover what Kanban exactly entails and would like to effectively implement Kanban in their teams through the use of visualization and the application of lean and agile principles.
The idea of the exam is that you are serious about delving into the theory of Lean and Agile in general – and Kanban in specific. How you decide to do that will be up to you. You can read books, articles, or blogs. You can also watch videos, listen to podcasts, attend events, or observe others who are working with Kanban in practice. Or another possibility is to follow the Practical Kanban Foundation course.
Even though we talk about this being a “Foundation” exam, it does not mean that the exam will be easy. Being Lean and Agile and understanding Kanban is often challenging. So prepare well!
Naturally, a genuine interest in the subject helps if you want to pass the Practical Kanban Foundation exam. This exam will help you to determine if you are going to be able to stand your ground when effectively implementing Kanban.
A certificate is useful when submitting a job application or doing an interview. We firmly believe that the knowledge gained during your preparation for the exam is, however, what will truly make a difference. The next step in your continuous learning journey is further growth with Lean and/or Agile certification. A great place to start is with the Agile Foundation, Practitioner, or Master Exam from the Certify to Inspire program of the Agile Consortium, for example.
Click here for more information: www.certifytoinspire.com
Kanban is for you if one or more of the following statements are true:
- The team has more work than time (overloaded).
- It is not always clear who is working on what.
- The team always receives feedback late or unpredictably.
- A need for more cooperation and knowledge sharing (many islands with a lot of knowledge) exists.
- A lot is being worked on, but little is actually being achieved due to constantly changing priorities.
- It is unclear which activities are contributing to the organizational goals
- Poorly planned, highly urgent work.
- The same team is doing multiple projects with many stakeholders.
Parts of the organization that typically implement Kanban practices:
IT teams who do more than just new product development
Marketing, HR, Business Operations, Finance, Control, Legal, Sales
DevOps, IT Operation teams, Security, Architecture and BI teams (high level of expert knowledge)
The pragmatic Kanban certification is perfect as a basis for further growth with Lean and Agile and certification. Preparation for the Agile Foundation Exam from the Agile Consortium can be added to this training as an option as well as the certification Exam itself.
Subject include;
After the course candidates:
- understand foundational Lean/Agile principles on which Kanban was developed.
- can work in a team that has adopted Kanban as a method for work delivery.
- can visualize their process and work using a Kanban board.
- are able to leverage Kanban to manage priorities, conflicts and opportunities in their work delivery process.
- understand role-based scenarios when practicing Kanban.
- understand how Kanban principles and practices can be applied with other lean – and/or agile methods like Scrum.
- understand how to predictably forecast work and manage stakeholder expectations.
- can identify opportunities for improvement in their process.
- can identify opportunities for radically improving time to market.
- can analyse and interpret data generated by their process and take action accordingly in order to improve delivery.
You must pass a multiple-choice exam in which your knowledge of Kanban will be tested to obtain a Kanban Foundation certificate.
All exam candidates will get access to the online exam environment and will need to answer 60 multiple-choice questions within 60 minutes.
You must answer 70% of the questions correctly (or at least 42 of the 60 questions) to pass. Each question has exactly four possible answers where only one is the best answer.
You will receive the result immediately after the exam. (Digital) Access to your certificate will be given once you have passed.
Register for the exam can be done by purchasing a participation certificate at www.vhls.global.
Number of questions: 60
Time (minutes) for the exam: 60 minutes
% minimal passing grade 70%
Open/closed book: Closed
Language: English.
Click on www.vhls.global for other available languages.
Exam format: Online. Written exams can only be taken upon request.
Type of questions: The exam consists exclusively of multiple-choice questions with four possible answers. (one is the best answer)
Are there also negative questions included in the exam?
(For example: “Which of the following is NOT a principle in the Agile Manifesto?”)
So, yes -candidates are advised to read the questions carefully.
During your exam preparation, you will familiarize yourself with the concepts of Lean and Agile thinking in general, and Kanban in specific. There are ongoing publications about Kanban, Agile, and Lean. So, it should be easy to find books, articles, blogs, vlogs, or videos about different aspects. We want to encourage you to look into these and discover your way around the world of Kanban.
The exam is related to the Pragmatic Kanban Foundation Courseware. Additional recommended literature to study:
- Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business
Author: David J Anderson
ISBN: 9780984521401 - Kanban from the Inside
Author: Mike Burrows
ISBN: 9780985305192 - Personal Kanban Mapping Work – Navigating Life
Author: Tonianne Demaria Barry
ISBN: 9781453802267 - Practical Kanban From team Focus To Creating Value
Author: Klaus Leopold
ISBN: 9783903205390
The following will also be provided to help you prepare for the exam:
- An indication of how each module weighs on the exam.
- A practice exam is available online after purchasing an exam. The practice exam contains questions at the same level as the questions in the actual exam. The number of questions may differ from the actual exam. The actual exam contains 60 questions for which you get 60 minutes.
- Attempting the certification exam is a sure way of consolidating the participants’ Agile Foundation knowledge and to make sure the learning gaps are effectively addressed.
- Certification is the only way to ascertain the participants understood the concepts and ready to embark on implementation work. Otherwise, there is no quantifiable way to measure their effectiveness knowledge transfer.
- Certification is an indication that the participants attained proficiency in Agile and acknowledged by an independent international body
- From an educational point of view, it is a big morale booster and motivates participants to engage confidently in real-life implementation and collaborative in the project environment.
About Pragmatic Learning
The Pragmatic Kanban Foundation exam is generic and is intended for everyone who works in, or will work in or with, an organization and is interested in reaping the benefits of using Kanban. Scrum is often misguidedly mistaken as the primary introduction to the Agile way of working. Scrum is not sufficient if teams are working on “run”, or both issues at the same time. A clear example is an IT Development team who is working on “change” while an IT Operations team is working on “run”, or an IT DevOps team who is working on both. Or a Business Operation team is combining work on the call center, analyzing, reporting etcetera.
Prepare for the certification
