Certified Scrum Product Owner® (CSPO) Certification & Training

CSPO® – CSPO® – Certified Scrum Product Owner® certification is a credential offered by Scrum Alliance®. A Product owner understands the customers who buy the product, end-users who use the product, and sponsors who invest in the product and prioritizes the work done. If you aspire to become a Product Owner or want to coach Product Owners as a Scrum Master or Agile coach, you should do the CSPO certificate course.

The CSPO certificate course covers details related to the Product Owner’s role, like:
– How to look at the product backlog?
– How to identify the right requirement for the product?
– How to set a vision for the product?
– How to communicate things with various stakeholders and development teams?

It improves your overall understanding of the complete Product Owner’s role. So, professionals who want to become great Product Owners should achieve the Certified Scrum Product Owner certification.

As per Scrum Alliance, no examination is required to get the CSPO certificate after attending the CSPO training. However, you will receive the CSPO certificate based on your active participation and trainer evaluation in the CSPO training session.

As per Scrum Alliance, the CSPO certificate is valid for two years. After two years, you can renew your Agile Scrum Product Owner certification by earning 20 SEUs.
After the Scrum Alliance’s CSPO certificate training, we provide you access to our three complementary online programs against which you will earn 14 SEUs. When you plan to renew the CSPO certificate after two years, you will claim these 14 SEUs (from our complimentary programs) & we will further assist you to earn six more SEUs, and you are done with 20 SEUs for renewal (14+6=20). No need to worry about the renewal as we are always available to support our clients.

Certified Scrum Product Owner is a certification offered by the Scrum Alliance. In contrast, Professional Scrum Product Owner is a certification offered by Scrum.org. Certified Scrum Product Owner certification is valid for two years, whereas Professional Scrum Product Owner certification is valid for a lifetime. After achieving the Certified Scrum Product Owner certification, you get 2 years of membership with Scrum Alliance. In contrast, after achieving the Professional Scrum Product Owner certification, you get a Scrum.org membership for a lifetime. Both the certification courses (Certified Scrum Product Owner and Professional Scrum Product Owner) are helpful for the advancement of the Product Owner’s journey.

CSPO® – Certified Scrum Product Owner® certificate is a stepping stone to getting started in project management. If you want to enhance your skills and credibility to lead product development initiatives, then the Certified Scrum Product Owner Program is for you. This CSPO training will teach you the competencies of a successful Product Owner. You will learn how to produce efficiently without compromising quality, handle a product with Scrum teams, order the backlog of the product while ensuring that the product is delivered, and so on.

A-CSPO® – Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® certificate is designed for Certified Scrum Product Owner® (CSPO®) who wish to take their Scrum Product Owner skills to the next level. As a Product Owner, you will work directly with the business to gain product knowledge, make the decisions related to prioritizing the product backlog items, and help provide the product’s vision. If you are already a Certified Scrum Product Owner certificate holder, the next step in your Agile journey is to achieve your Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner (A-CSPO) certification. As an A-CSPO, you will learn how to handle multiple business initiatives from competing stakeholders, order and express items for Product Backlog, define a clear product vision, communicate effectively to achieve alignment with different stakeholder groups, recognize the necessary possibilities and avoid wasting time, define and validate business value, enhance your credibility as a product expert and so on.

CSPO® – If you want to start your Agile and Scrum Journey by working with Small Agile teams for effective product development, then the CSPO certificate course is for you. Through this course, you will understand the developing product vision, prioritising product backlogs, and optimising value to delight the customer. So, professionals who want to become great Product Owners should go for the Certified Scrum Product Owner Certification course.

SAFe® POPM – If you want to understand the role of a Product Management and Product Owner at a SAFe enterprise level, then this course is for you. Through this course, you will explore the role of the Product Management and Product Owner, prepare and participate in PI planning, and ensure smooth execution of Program and Team Backlogs to deliver the maximum business value at scale. So, if your organization is already using SAFe, this is one of the best career investments.

However, to know more, check out our blog SAFe® POPM vs CSPO®

Yes, unlike earlier, now you can do the online training for the Certified Scrum Product Owner certification.

Here is the comprehensive list of Product Owner anti-patterns that a Product Owner should understand and avoid –

Three leading organizational contexts affect a Product Owner’s role –

• Full-time Product Owner – A Product Owner acts as a mini-CEO with complete ownership of the target customer, problem, and solution.
• Product Owner as a shared resource – A Product Owner works with multiple teams as a shared resource or takes care of other engagements while playing the role of a PO.
• Short-term Product Owners – Product Owner works on short-term projects for which they own the outcome; they do not hold a prolonged engagement with the product and are not responsible for its long-term ROI.

• Release burn-up charts – A burn-up chart clearly shows work completed and project scope. It is an effective tool for communicating to the project stakeholders and clients how the extra feature requests they are asking for will affect the deadline and reassure them that good progress is being made.
• Sprint review – Sprint review is another tool to bring transparency to the Scrum team. It’s an opportunity to discuss what is working and what needs to be fixed. The team can openly raise impediments, and the Product Owner can work with the Scrum Master and other stakeholders to remove these impediments.
• Product Roadmap – A Goal-oriented product roadmap clearly shows the future course of action for the team.
• Daily stand-up – Product Owners can participate in daily standups to get an update on the progress of product backlog items and issues that the team is facing.

A product owner can take the following distinct decision-making approaches. Here are their pros and cons.

A Product Owner is a natural facilitator. The role involves dealing with multiple stakeholders, often with conflicting interests. The Product Owner has to perform the role of a neutral facilitator in the entire discussion; his focus should be on getting unambiguous and non-conflicting information from a discussion between various stakeholders.

As a Product Owner, you need to be a master facilitator who can bring the best out of a team and enhance collaboration. Here is a list of the most important facilitation techniques for Product Owners –

Affinity Grouping –

Affinity Grouping is a brainstorming method in which participants organize their ideas and identify common themes. A Product Owner can use Affinity grouping to club similar product ideas of feature requests; it helps them refine a user story.

Follow these steps to create Affinity grouping in your next Product Discussion meeting –

• Ask everyone to write their idea on a sticky note.
• Place all cards on a flipchart or whiteboard.
• Ask everyone from the group to club similar ideas
• The target for less than ten groups of items.
• Discuss the grouped items as a team
• Give a name to each clubbed item or attach it to a story.
• They discuss every group of ideas with everyone present to stimulate the ideas, add more information or remove what is irrelevant.
• Add the outcome of each discussion to the final list of features or points to the story.

Dot Voting

Dot Voting is another group discussion technique used by Product Owners to find preferences. The Product Owners can use this technique to prioritize a feature list or a list of story items. Follow the steps below to use the dot voting technique –

• It is a simple group activity for recognizing preferences among limited options:
• Participants are each given a set number of dot stickers.
• They place dot stickers next to options presented that they like.
• Options with the most dots “win”.

Fist to five

Fist to five is another popular brainstorming technique used by Product Owners to help achieve consensus among teams. Follow the steps below to use this technique –

• State an action the group should take or show their level of support for a story item.
• Each member responds by showing the number of a finger or closed fist. Higher the number of fingers, the more support.
• Any team member showing less than three fingers can share their objections.
• The team will address the objections, and the process is repeated. It continues till the team achieves a consensus.

Open-ended Questions

• As a Product Owner, if you want to explore a story in detail, Open-ended questions are a great way. By asking open-ended questions, you offer people an opportunity to share more information, feelings, attitudes, and understanding of the topic.

The Product Owner owns, manages, and prioritises the product backlog. He may take some help from the Scrum team and discuss ideas, but primary responsibility stays with the Product Owner.

Scrum does not recommend any role of a Product Owner. The complete product backlog and stakeholder interaction are owned by the Product Owner. But in an Enterprise Agile Environment, organizations have a Product Manager role that focuses on high-level requirements and interacts with the external stakeholders.

Difference between Product Owner and Product Manager

Yes, the Certified Scrum Product Owner certification cost is included in the course fee.

There is no defined level of experience after which you can consider going for a PO role. Ideally, after 3-4 years of experience, you might be able to handle the challenges which a Product Owner role offers. A Product Owner needs to be a tough negotiator, team player and a great collaborator to succeed. Domain expertise and understanding of the Scrum framework are also critical for success.

After the Certified Scrum Product Owner training program, you will earn 16 PDUs and 30 SEUs.

No, this workshop provides you with membership in Scrum Alliance for two years.

No, you will receive a Certified Scrum Product Owner® (CSPO®) Certificate on successfully completing the course.

Yes, the Certified Scrum Product Owner Certification training cost is included in the CSPO certificate course fee.

You can go for advanced certificates like CSP® or PMI-ACP® after achieving a CSPO certificate. We also provide support in getting your advanced certificates like CSP® or PMI-ACP®.

As per Scrum Alliance, there is no examination required to get the CSPO certificate after attending the training. However, you will receive the certificate based on your active participation and trainer evaluation in the CSPO live training session.

CSPO® – Certified Scrum Product Owner® is a stepping stone to get started in project management. If you are looking to enhance your skills and credibility to lead product development initiatives, then the Certified Scrum Product Owner Program is for you. You will learn how to produce efficiently without compromising quality, how to handle a product together with Scrum teams, how to order the backlog of the product while ensuring that the product is delivered, and so on.

A-CSPO® – Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® is designed for Certified Scrum Product Owner® (CSPO®) who wish to take their Scrum Product Owner skills to the next level. As an A-CSPO, you will learn how to handle multiple business initiatives from competing stakeholders, order and express items for Product Backlog, define a clear product vision, communicate effectively to achieve alignment with different stakeholder groups, recognize the necessary possibilities and avoid wasting time, define and validate business value, enhance your credibility as a product expert and so on.

• We will refund the full amount if you cannot attend the CSPO certificate course and request a refund before the course start date.
• If our session does not meet your expectations, you can request a refund immediately after attending the first session, and we will issue a full refund.
• You will not be eligible for a refund after attending more than one session.
• You can change your batch at no additional cost at any moment before the session begins.
• If you cannot continue or complete the session for any reason, we will transfer you to a different batch of the same course at no charge.