FIrst a disclaimer, I am mostly talking about Scrum and SAFe certification. I think iCAgile’s certification is fine and am not familiar enough with the others to comment.
I say “return to” because in the early days it was known that the course didn’t do much and few foresaw the consequences of a course providing certification. The original intent was to take people from competency to more competency.
Now in both the Scrum and SAFe certification models people can be taken off the street and go from 0 to 60 in 2-3 days (the SPC class is a 3 day course disguised as a 4 day one). The fact that tests are given makes it worse. It doesn’t add to anyone’s abilities, just gives them more information and has them be that much more likely to be dogmatic.
Many of Scrum and SAFe’s failures are due to unequipped people leading transformations and teams. But since Scrum and SAFe are setting this up, they have responsibility.
Certification by a workshop can only be ethical when participants bring experience and understanding to the workshop and only need information or a few insights to teach the materials. This is taking competency to the next level. This is what the Net Objectives Train the Trainer program in FLEX is. Contact me for more information.