There are multiple product owner courses you can attend but only one CSPO (Certified Scrum Product Owner) course.
The CSPO course has been developed and nurtured by the Scrum Alliance. It is internationally recognised and certified by the Scrum Alliance.
A CSPO course must be led by an experienced Certified Scrum Trainer.
A certification that takes multiple years to achieve and must be validated by a certification body and peer-reviewed before someone can qualify as a Certified Scrum Trainer.
A CST must also have great practical skills and experience within scrum environments.
Many competing product owner courses don’t have any criteria for someone to host the course.
Some frameworks, for example ‘SAFe’, only require that someone has attended a 5 day ‘train the trainer’ course in order to deliver the product owner course.
The quality of your training experience is largely dependent on the skills and expertise of your course trainer. It makes a significant difference when your trainer has years of experience working at the coal face and deeply understands the challenges and opportunities of the role.
Without that, it’s simply a matter of reading curriculum, which you could do in your own time and achieve the exact same result.
At Agile Centre, we focus on learning as a transformative experience.
The idea being that the knowledge and skills are embedded during your training, and you’ve had discussions around each of the concepts to ensure that you understand from multiple perspectives.
The tools, frameworks and models used to deliver the training are also hand-selected to help you within your role from day one. Tools that will help you succeed and structure your progression.
So, in summary. There are multiple product owner courses available. Some are certified and some are uncertified.
We advise that you research your trainer and understand whether they have deep expertise and experience at the coal face. Have they worked in scrum environments? Have they solved complex problems? Are they used to working with a team to solve complex problems?
If so, you are in good hands. If not, we would advise that you rethink the purpose of your training and invest in a certified training experience that helps you progress in your career development.
If you want to become a product owner, visit our Certified Scrum Product Owner course page as well as the Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner course page.
Product Owner Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the difference between a Product Owner and a Project Manager?
- How is a product owner different to a product manager?
- Is a product owner a member of the development team?
- Do you need project management experience to be a Product Owner?
- How does a Product Owner integrate into a Scrum Team?
- Do project managers traditionally make great product owners?
- Is the product owner role a great fit for people in creative industries?
- Is there different levels of seniority for product owners?
- What are career opportunities for a Product Owner?
- What do Product Owners do?
- Do you need to be a developer to be a product owner for a software company?
- Can you create a Product Ownership role in a company that doesn’t do Scrum?
- What are some great traits of a product owner?
- How will I know if a product owner role is a great fit for me?
- Do product owners attend daily scrums?
- Do product owners interact and engage with project stakeholders?
- How does a product owner integrate into a marketing team?
- Do entrepreneurs make great product owners?
Frequently Asked Product Owner Training Question
- What is a Certified Scrum Product Owner?
- Will I be able to lead product development after doing a CSPO course?
- What will you learn on a CSPO course?
- How well recognised and respected is the CSPO course?
- What do you need to know to sign up for the CSPO course?
- How well does a CSPO course prepare you to be a product owner?
- Do I get textbooks and course materials as part of my CSPO course?
- What would be a good certification path for a Product Owner?
- Are there different CSPO certifications and how do they differ?
- How long is the CSPO course and how is it configured?
- Is the CSPO course theoretical or practical?
- Do companies invest in CSPO courses or is it primarily individuals?
- How do I progress as a Product Owner?
- Would you recommend the CSPO course for entrepreneurs?