What is required for my Organization to start offering the DASA DevOps Product Owner?
In order to deliver the DASA DevOps Product Owner, your organization needs to be a DASA DevOps Training Partner.
If you already are a DASA Training Partner, for example, because you are delivering DASA DevOps Fundamentals, there is nothing extra you need to do.
In case your organizations is not yet a DASA Training Partner, you can sign up to become a Training Partner through a DASA Courseware Partner
What are the Prerequisites for the DASA DevOps Product Owner certification?
There are no prerequisites for this program.
DASA recommends that participants have completed the DASA DevOps Fundamentals prior to joining the course but this is not a requirement
How does this Program relate to other Product Owner certifications in the market?
Typically Product Owner Certifications have a strong focus on Agile and Scrum and the software development lifecycle. When software development teams started working with the Scrum model, the Product Owner role became an important and influential role in a development team.
With DevOps, the scope is expanding, and Ops becomes part of the scope. The DevOps Product Owner is now in charge of not just developing new features, but also for incidents that come in and regular operations work that needs to be performed. The number of stakeholders is expanding, and product lifecycle management becomes more important.
Why would a Certified Product Owner want to take the DASA DevOps Product Owner Certification – what is the Compelling Reason?
An existing certified Product Owner is not the immediate target audience for the DASA DevOps Product Owner certification program. The reason being that there is an overlap with the program they may have taken in the past. DASA covers the role of the product owner in the context of DevOps. This includes also elements that a typical product owner operating in a Scrum team would also do.
The scope of the DASA DevOps Product Owner program is broader, and that is a compelling reason for a product owner to take this course. A small refresher on a number of elements key to a product owner in a dev team, now extended through with a broader set of responsibilities, a full product lifecycle management view, and more stakeholders.
What are the requirements for trainers to deliver the DASA DevOps Product Owner?
The requirements are the same as for other DASA DevOps programs – this means trainers need to have passed the exam with a 10% higher pass percentage than the required pass percentage – in this case, 75% instead of 65%. Trainers are also required to participate in a Train the Trainer program organized by their DASA Courseware Partner.
There are no requirements for trainers to be registered, or accredited. DASA does not issue certificates to trainers as proof of being a registered or certified trainer, it is the responsibility of the Training Partner to ensure trainers meet these requirements.
Why has DASA decided to build role-based Certifications?
DASA has introduced three certifications in a leadership level in the most recent update of the scheme. The reason for this is that there are specific roles in an organization with a unique set of leadership abilities. DASA recognizes these and has created a specific set of certifications for this. There may be others in the future, but we have identified the three most relevant ones now.
This does not change the approach DASA embraces around teams and the ability of teams to take an end-end responsibility, and operate within the team as T-shaped Professionals. The Professional certification level addresses this, and helps to build the capabilities to operate well within a cross-functional team. Each of the three programs at this level help to develop practical skills that help team members understand what tools are available in their toolbox, and how to use them.
The Leadership level does not cover these tools, but focuses on leading and enabling. It helps the individuals in these roles navigate within their organization and drive the best decisions forward.
If Everyone will be a DevOps Professional Specify & Verify, Create and Deliver, Enable and Scale where are the Certifications for the Ops People?
All three certifications are also relevant for Ops people, as much as they are for Dev people. DASA looks at the skills individuals have, and helps the individuals that make up a team excel by providing a certification scheme for them that works. Anyone who is traditionally from the Ops, or Dev, or even business side can use the DASA Team Competence Model and approach to build the right set of skills needed for the team.
Please Explain what Foundational means in terms of Fundamentals? Please explain Professional, Leader and Coach.
The team-based Competence Model has not changed, and the levels are still applicable. The three professional certifications help bring team members up to level 3- proficient for each of the 4 skill and 8 knowledge areas covered by the individual certifications..
In the old certification scheme the certs are mapped to the Competence Model. ie: 1 Novice, 2 Competent, 3. Proficient 4 Expert 5 Master – now with the new scheme they do not – why have you not adopted the same scheme as there appears to be a disconnect between the competence model and the certification scheme?
The levels in the Competence Model are included in the model to guide and challenge professionals in a DevOps environment. The certification scheme of Fundamentals and the Professional certificates provide DevOps professionals with the content (plus exercises) to become proficient at working in a DevOps team and environment. The development to Master and Expert must happen based on practical experience.
In the previous model, these 3 certifications were positioned up to level 4, but feedback from the market showed that this was too high, and the market was looking for more practical certification programs that helped people to learn practical skills that were applicable.
The levels were removed from the certification scheme, as they were causing confusion. When getting certified for example for the DASA DevOps Fundamentals, the individual is deemed to be ‘competent’ in each of the 12 knowledge and skill areas. For this reason we are not mentioning the levels anymore when showing the certification program.
What is the difference between the DASA DevOps Certified Professional (Specify & Verify) and the DASA DevOps Product Owner courses? Do they overlap, is there a sequential relationship?
The Professional course focuses on the specific skills and knowledge areas needed for all team members, including the Product Owner. These can be carried out by the PO, but also by any other team member involved in analysis, acceptance testing, etc. The PO course concentrates on the specific organizational context and role of the PO, not only the skills and knowledge areas, but also instruments, stakeholders, practical exercises, ownership & leadership responsibilities, etc.
When will the other certifications be available?
The DevOps Professional Specify and Verify, DevOps Professional Create and Deliver, and DevOps Coach are in development at the moment by DASA. Development is managed by volunteer working groups, and we welcome all DASA members to join the development initiatives and contribute to the process. As soon as dates for exposure or release become available we will share them.
Will the program be available in an eLearning format and if so, when?
DASA will determine per program if the program is suitable for eLearning delivery or not. It may be for example that for Coach or Leader live interactive discussions are required that are difficult to manage online. All programs that are available today are also catered to elearning delivery. It is up to DASA Courseware Partners to develop courseware for these programs.
What are the prerequisites for the leadership certifications?
That will become clear when the syllabi are published for these programs. For each syllabus, DASA will evaluate the specific prerequisites. It may be that for some it is essential to have completed specific DASA programs, while for others it may be much more relevant to be able to demonstrate specific experience. For the DASA DevOps Product Owner, there are no prerequisitees.
Why are there no prerequisites for the DASA DevOps Product Owner certification?
The Product Owner program does not build on the DASA DevOps Fundamentals course like the Professional courses build on the Fundamentals program. The three Professional level programs develop a professional from level 2 in the competence model to level 3. The Leadership programs discuss specific management abilities, and are more around leading and enabling. We also expect a large group of candidates to come from an Agile/Scrum environment, and they have a solid enough understanding of the Agile process to be able to manage the PO role.
For these reasons DASA decided not to make the existing programs a prerequisite, but Fundamentals is highly recommended.
When will other languages be available?
DASA applies a proactive strategy towards languages. This means if Members are interested, and willing to support a translation, DASA will support it also.
How does the Professional level relate to the Practitioner certification?
The DASA Professional Enable and Scale certification replaces the existing DASA DevOps Practitioner program.
What happens to DASA DevOps Practitioner?
The DASA Professional Enable and Scale certification replaces the existing DASA DevOps Practitioner program.
Organizations are able to deliver the Practitioner until 31/12/2018. After this date only the Professional Enable and Scale is available.
What does the exam process look like?
The way you want to take the exam needs to be discussed with your training provider. They are able to offer you webcam proctored exams or live exams. The webcam proctored exams can be taken at home. For the live proctored exams a proctor needs to be appointed and available.
Can Practitioner certificate holders convert to Professional?
Yes, everyone with a Practitioner certificate will receive a replacement certificate. This is expected to take place at the beginning of 2019.
