Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) Certification Eligibility

PMI offers a wide variety of courses today. Although it is widely known for its PMP certification, lately, its agile certifications have become a popular option amongst working professionals. The certifications offered by PMI are considered a hallmark in the field of project management because their curriculums are designed based on comprehensive research to meet the real-world needs of organizations. 

One such certification is the Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) certification. This certification equips you to lead agile teams by making use of the Disciplined Agile Toolkit. This toolkit is an amalgam of proven practices and approaches for situational problems. These approaches aim to optimize the Way of Working (WoW) by tailoring it to what the situation demands. A Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM), thus, brings about Agility in their team and contributes to bringing it about in the entire organization as well.

Check your DASSM Eligibility in the questionnaire given beside.

Difference between Agile and Disciplined Agile

Disciplined Agile was acquired by PMI in July 2019 and launched worldwide in 2020. It has made a significant impact in the project management domain as a concept and has been accepted by top brands such as Barclays and Franklin Templeton, who are using it as their core tool to bring about Agility into their entire organization.

The one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t really work when it comes to business projects, and flexibility is a necessity. Every organization and the projects within that organization cannot function solely on a single framework. Disciplined Agile completely recognizes this aspect of projects and thus has a set of borrowed frameworks to provide the best means for the production of value. Agile is a single framework within this massive set of frameworks. This set includes agile and lean approaches like Scum, Kanban, SAFe, and more. 

Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master Eligibility Criteria

The DASSM certification is intended for individuals who have a fundamental understanding of the DA Toolkit and who hold two years of experience working in an agile team as a Disciplined Agile scrum master, product owner, project manager, or architecture owner. ProThoughts offers PMI-authorized training workshops, which are mandatory to complete prior to taking the exam. The DASSM Certification training course by ProThoughts can be taken as an in-classroom workshop or as a self-paced eLearning course. Aspiring candidates can proceed to take the DASSM certification exam only after the completion of the DASSM course and meeting the DASSM eligibility criteria.

The first step towards obtaining the DASSM certification is to successfully complete an instructor-led DASSM course offered by a PMI Authorized Training Provider (ATP), like ProThoughts or a DASSM eLearning Online Course. Upon completion of the course, candidates may submit an application for the certification exam. 

You can quickly test if you’re ready to take the exam using our DASSM Certification Eligibility Calculator. Fill up the DASSM Eligibility questionnaire, and our team of consultants will reach out to you and assist you in the further procedures for the Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master course.

Application Procedure To Get DASSM Certified

To process your application, you must record your agile experience in it. You will have to use the agile experience section of the online application to record the required three years of experience in chronological order. The application automatically calculates the total months from the start date to the finish and checks if you meet the DASSM eligibility. 

Point to note: The work experience months should be unique and non-overlapping. Overlapping experience entries are not considered as separate entries by PMI. You will be prompted to fill in the details such as the name of the project and the organization you were working in, your primary focus in the project, the size of the team, agile methods used, and an overview of the outcomes you achieved with the work you performed in 200-500 words.

Applications are processed within five business days. The application processing time might differ if your application has been selected for an audit.

Once your DASSM eligibility check is over, and your application is accepted, then comes the most important aspect: The DASSM certification exam. All the questions in the DASSM examination have been written and extensively reviewed by subject matter experts. These questions are mapped to the DASSM ECO to ensure that an appropriate number of questions are taken from each specific domain. 

The DASSM Examination Content Outline looks like this:

• Team Development 
• Emotional intelligence for high-performance teams 
• Tactical scaling in complex situations
• Removing Impediments
• Coordinating and collaborating across teams 
• Conflict management
• Pragmatic Planning and Reporting 

The candidates are granted three attempts to take the certification test within a 60-day eligibility period. The exam does not show scores but only displays the result as pass or fail.

DASSM Certification Fees

The DASSM Certification fee must be paid after the application is approved. You can directly pay one of PMI’s Authorized Training Partners by enrolling in their DASSM training. You can then proceed to schedule a date and time to take the test. ProThoughts is PMI’s premier authorized training partner and offers DASSM Training piloted by in-house industry experts. The fees for obtaining the DASSM. PMI accepts credit cards and wire transfers as modes of payment.

Validity Of The DASSM Certification

The DASSM certification is valid for one year and can be renewed by earning and showcasing 7 PDUs with regard to agile content. Renewing your DASSM Certification will also require a renewal fee which will be based on whether you hold a membership with PMI and your geographical region and currency.