FAQs

No, we do not automatically renew your membership. You will be sent reminders to your associated email address and it's up to you to renew it. No money will be taken from your bank account automatically.

Contact us with your full name, current email address and your new email address and we can make the change for you.

Members can view their benefits by logging into the Member Hub area of the website.

Yes! You can view our Code of Practice and our values here, as well as the Agnostic Agile principles by which we abide.

We currently do not have digital badges for Associates. We are working on badges for members who have applied to have their experience and knowledge accredited against our Competency Framework. For more information on Professional membership, please click here.

After passing your exam, you will receive an email notification from APMG, asking you to complete an online form. After this, the Consortium is sent data each week which is then uploaded every Friday. Please note, this is a manual process which can take up to 3 working weeks.

Qualifying Membership does not allow you to have access to the sample papers. You will find the differences between the type of memberships we offer here.

Yes, we have a selection of handbooks and pocketbooks available to purchase via our webshop.

You can purchase physical copies of our books, as well as digital versions. We are now also offering book bundles, with discounted prices when buying multiple books together. All book bundles include a free coaster and business agility kit.

Please do not panic! If your order was placed Monday-Friday, it will be processed the same day and dispatched the next working day. All orders are sent Royal Mail 2nd Class - please allow a minimum of five working days for delivery before contacting us.

You cannot upgrade your shipping via our webshop, but you are welcome to contact us and we can arrange an upgrade at an additional fee. If you do require a shipping upgrade, please contact us to discuss requirements before placing your order.

We do not send a dispatch note but you will receive an invoice that may be sitting in your junk mail. If you have located this invoice, then please trust your order has been received. If you are unsure, please contact us.

All orders are processed manually; it is not an automated process. If your order has been placed in our core office hours (10am-3pm), then you will receive your link that day. If you have placed your order outside of these hours, you will receive your link the next working day.

All invoices are sent automatically once an order has been placed - they are often found in your junk mail. If you still cannot locate your invoice, you are welcome to contact us.

We are currently unable to take payments via telephone. You can pay via PayPal, credit card or debit card directly through the website. We do not accept AMEX. If you would like to pay by bank transfer, please contact us for an invoice and your order will be despatched upon payment.

Contact us and include the error message you have received. We can investigate the problem and check funds have not been received our end. Often if your billing address is different to the address the card is registered to, you will fail the AVS check and payment will not be able to go through, so please do check this before emailing.

 

Regarding taking the exams, currently candidates have a year in which to complete and sit their exams online. Regarding the exams themselves, the Foundation exam does not expire once you have passed it, the Practicioner exam is valid for 5 years.

If candidates fail at the first attempt, then they can re-book to take the exam again as soon as they wish and the charge for this will be the same as the original exam.

Please visit our products site.

To become an AgilePM Trainer you will first need to take the AgilePM Foundation and Practitioner course and exam and receive a pass mark of 80%+

For more information on how to register for AgilePM please see our products site.

If you have passed AgilePM Practitioner with 80%, your next step is to find a sponsor.

All AgilePM trainers must be "sponsored" by one of our Accredited Delivery Partners (ADPs) (or an APMG Accredited Training Organisation (ATOs)). Details of our AgilePM ADPs can be found here.

A trainer application must be submitted by the sponsoring ADP to us at [email protected] (or the equivalent relevant APMG-International office if you choose one of their ATOs).

You must contact your trainer directly for this.

We are currently reviewing our structure and process with regards to the existing accredited partner network. Thus at present, we are not taking on any new accredited partner organisations until this review is complete. We expect to have some updated information on our website soon. Please do however feel free to register your interest by contacting us.

In the meantime, please consider getting accredited with our Partner APMG, who we work very closely with. Find out more about their process here: APMG Accreditation.

Our passion is agility, and we want to help support everyone no matter where they are on their agile journey. We do this by supporting and collaborating with our Strategic Partners and Alliances who share similar enthusiasm and passion for making the world a better place with agile. Subscribe to our newsletter to find out more about our work.

If you are interested in becoming a partner please contact us.

If you would like to reach out and connect with our partners to learn more about their mission and visions, find more information on our partner page.

For trainers already certified by Agile Business Consortium to train ABC Scrum Master, recertifying in the new version will require passing the revised ABC Scrum Master exam with a mark of 86% (43/50). Trainers can also extend their certification to train the new ABC Scrum Product Owner course by passing the ABC Product Owner exam with a mark of 86% (43/50). Note that trainers certified by Agile Business Consortium MUST use the vanilla course materials created by us unless such course materials have been accredited by APMG for use by a specific APMG ATO.

For trainers new to training ABC Scrum Product they MUST certify in Scrum Master and extend that to cover Product Owner if they wish to train that too. As well as passing the exams with a mark of 86% there is a requirement for the trainer to have practical experience with the application of Scrum or a similar Agile approach such as DSDM (AgilePM) for which they must provide a written account and attend an assessment interview with two ABC certified examiners.

Trainers intending to provide training services exclusively for APMG ATOs (for clarity that means training organisations accredited by APMG rather than by ABC) also have the option of certifying through APMG who follow essentially the same process.

Existing APMG accredited Scrum Master trainers can take the new Scrum Master exam for free. They will need to pay to take the Scrum Product Owner exam.

The Trainer will need to contact their APMG Business Development Manager (BDM), who will arrange the free exam with APMGs accreditation team.

If you do not know who your BDM is please contact us.

Please refer to our CPD Policy.

For individuals

CPD is a way to advance your career or plan a career change. This policy is designed to benefit you, employers and your clients, by helping you to identify, plan and reflect on your learning more effectively.

For employers

Planning a person’s CPD to suit business needs is a more efficient use of time and money. Many organisations book the same training course and recommend the same books year after year, when they could benefit from more diverse skills and knowledge.

Different professions have different names for CPD, so you may already be planning and recording what we call “CPD”, even if you call it something else. For example, some employers include a list of training needs as part of performance reviews, which you could use as your CPD Plan. Employers might not list non-formal learning, such as independent reading, which you can add to your own plan.

If you already track learning on your own system, you can send a copy of that when requested.

If you don’t have a plan or record through your employer or a regulator, you can take the following steps to create your own.

1. Think about your current situation. What’s going well? What would you like to change? Are you interested in a promotion, or changing jobs? Are you looking at moving to another country? It might take time to explore your options and choose appropriate actions.
2. Decide what you think is achievable in the next 12 months.
3. Make a list of knowledge and skills that you need to achieve those things. We recognise any learning activities that are relevant to your role, so there’s no need to find activities related to agile every year.
4. Is your list achievable within the next 12 months? If not, you can still make a note of it on your plan as a long-term goal.
5. Look at how you can gain the knowledge and skills you have chosen. The quality of any learning activity is more important than counting the number of hours you’ve spent learning. 
6. If you were issued with a certificate for a conference or training course, it is useful to add to your record, but not mandatory. As long as you give enough detail for a CPD reviewer to be able to find the provider and details of the activity, that is enough to meet your requirement.
7. Note what you learned from each activity, even if the activity didn’t meet expectations. For example, if you disagreed with a book, it would still count as CPD, if you could explain why it didn’t cover your training need and what you want to do next. 
8. Record all your decisions in a format that suits you, or download our template:

You can download some examples of what a basic CPD plan and record looks like here:

It’s good practice to take a few minutes to reflect on a learning activity to help reinforce what you’ve learned, particularly if you belong to organisations or professional bodies that track CPD.  

This resource would usually be referred to as “informal” or “unstructured” learning by organisations that track professional development, so the following reflective questions have been chosen to help convert it into “formal” or “structured” learning.    

• What are my first impressions of this (book/ article/ video/ recording)? Are they mostly positive or negative? What comes to mind when I consider what was said? 
• What are the key points that I found interesting? Why? 
• Were there any points that I disagreed with? Why? 
• Will this change how I do my work in future? If yes, in what way? 
• Has this learning activity raised more questions that I need to research? If yes, how?

Our members come from a range of industries with different CPD requirements, so we chose to let members stay in line with their professional background. We also believe that hours don’t prove something meets your training needs.

Imagine that you have a choice between 2 training courses. Your professional body has insisted that you need 15 hours of CPD. You know that you need to study A, B and C and the courses offer the following:

You know that you need to study Subjects A, B & C, but you only have time to do one course. Course 1 meets your needs, but doesn’t meet your professional body’s requirements. Which one is more useful to you? We think it’s more important for you to choose the right CPD for you, than count hours for a professional body.

If you were issued with a certificate for a conference or training course, it is useful to add to your record, but not mandatory. As long as you give enough detail for a CPD reviewer to be able to find the provider and details of the activity, that is enough to meet your requirement.

We request CPD plans and records from up to 5% of members per year. You don’t need to submit records unless you receive a request.

One of the conditions of maintaining Professional Level membership is that you need to keep up with CPD planning and recording.

See "How do I plan and record my CPD?" above for guidance. If you have any questions, please contact us.

Your current studies count as CPD, assuming that they improve your work-based skills and knowledge. Agilists work in a range of industries, so we include any studies that relate to a member’s field of work as counting towards their CPD.

CPD is any activity that improves your knowledge and skills as a professional. Formal training courses are a very useful way to learn, but we also recognise learning activities like reading a manual, or end of project reviews where a group discuss lessons learned.

Someone who has studied business agility and wants to maintain Professional membership should plan to maintain their expertise. If you only want to stay in touch with agile thinking, not maintain your accreditations, there is no need to maintain your CPD record.

You should tailor your CPD plan to your situation. For example, someone on sick leave could focus on what they need to know before they return to work and may only need to have a few meetings with colleagues.

We don't require members to attend face-to-face events, or specify time spent on formal or informal CPD, so if one of your CPD activities is unavailable, you can choose any other that teaches you what you need to know.

You can tailor your CPD plan to your circumstances, not just during a pandemic. If you or a family member were affected by serious illnesses of any kind, or acting as a carer, you could take that into account in your CPD plan and record.