A comprehensive five-day programme that builds deep competency in Agile and Lean methodologies, culminating in a PMI-aligned professional certification.
Agile and Lean methodologies have moved far beyond their origins in software development. Today, organisations across every sector — from financial services and healthcare to manufacturing and government — are adopting these approaches to deliver projects faster, respond to change more effectively, and eliminate the waste that plagues traditional project management. Yet many implementations fail not because the methodologies are flawed, but because teams lack the depth of understanding needed to apply them thoughtfully in complex, real-world environments.
This five-day certification programme provides that depth. Rather than offering a superficial overview of Agile terminology, it builds genuine competency through a combination of structured teaching, simulation exercises, case study analysis, and hands-on practice with the tools and techniques used by high-performing Agile teams. Each day focuses on a distinct domain — from foundational Scrum through Kanban, scaling frameworks, leadership, and exam preparation — ensuring that participants develop a comprehensive and integrated understanding of the Agile and Lean landscape.
Agile is not a set of ceremonies to follow. It is a mindset that values learning, adaptation, and delivering value over adherence to a plan. This programme ensures you understand not just the practices, but the principles that make them work.
The programme is delivered by certified Agile practitioners who have led transformations at enterprise scale and coached teams across diverse industries. Their experience ensures that every concept is grounded in practical reality rather than textbook theory. Whether you are a project manager seeking formal certification, an Agile coach refining your practice, or a leader driving an organisational transformation, this programme equips you with the knowledge and credential to succeed.
This programme is designed for professionals who manage or contribute to projects and want to develop or formalise their Agile and Lean expertise. It is equally valuable for those new to Agile who have some project management experience and for experienced practitioners who want to deepen their knowledge and earn a recognised certification.
The first day establishes the conceptual and historical foundations of Agile, tracing its evolution from the Agile Manifesto through to the diverse ecosystem of methodologies practiced today. You will examine the four values and twelve principles of the Agile Manifesto in depth, exploring how each principle translates into concrete team behaviours and organisational practices — and where tensions between principles require judgement and trade-offs.
The majority of the day is dedicated to Scrum, the most widely adopted Agile framework. You will work through the complete Scrum framework in detail: the three roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Developers), the five events (Sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective), and the three artefacts (Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Increment). Crucially, the focus is not just on what each element is but on why it exists, what problems it solves, and what happens when teams implement it poorly. A full-sprint simulation exercise allows you to experience the framework in action, making decisions about backlog prioritisation, sprint capacity, and scope negotiation under realistic constraints.
Day two introduces the Kanban method and the Lean principles from which it derives. You will learn the core practices of Kanban — visualising workflow, limiting work in progress, managing flow, making policies explicit, implementing feedback loops, and improving collaboratively — and understand how Kanban differs from Scrum in its approach to change management, cadence, and role definition.
The Lean portion of the day covers the five principles of Lean thinking (value, value stream, flow, pull, and perfection) and the seven wastes (Muda) that Lean seeks to eliminate. You will learn to conduct value stream mapping exercises that identify bottlenecks, handoff delays, and non-value-adding activities in existing workflows. Practical exercises include designing Kanban boards for both software and non-software contexts, calculating and interpreting flow metrics (lead time, cycle time, throughput, and work-in-progress age), and using cumulative flow diagrams to identify systemic delivery problems before they become crises.
While Scrum and Kanban work well at the team level, most organisations need to coordinate Agile delivery across multiple teams, business units, and product lines. Day three addresses this challenge through an in-depth examination of the leading scaling frameworks: the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), and Nexus.
You will learn the architectural principles behind each framework — how they organise teams into trains, areas, or nexuses; how they handle cross-team dependencies and integration; how they align strategic portfolio planning with iterative team delivery; and how they manage the tension between autonomy and alignment that every scaling effort must resolve. The day includes a comparative analysis of when each framework is most appropriate based on organisational size, complexity, and culture, and honest discussion of the common failure modes that derail scaling initiatives. A large-group simulation exercise puts you in the role of a programme-level coordinator managing dependencies across four simulated Agile teams delivering a shared product increment.
Agile transformations succeed or fail based on leadership behaviour. Day four focuses on the leadership competencies required to create environments where Agile teams can thrive, and the team dynamics that determine whether those teams deliver their potential.
The morning session covers servant leadership, the primary leadership model in Agile contexts: what it means in practice, how it differs from traditional command-and-control management, and the specific behaviours that servant leaders demonstrate in day-to-day interactions. You will explore psychological safety — the research-backed foundation of high-performing teams — and learn techniques for building and maintaining it, even in high-pressure delivery environments. The session also addresses how to handle resistance to Agile adoption, coach teams through the storming phase of development, and facilitate difficult conversations about performance and ways of working.
The afternoon shifts to team dynamics, covering Tuckman's stages of group development applied to Agile teams, the characteristics of high-performing Agile teams based on research by Google (Project Aristotle) and others, techniques for effective retrospectives that drive genuine improvement rather than superficial action items, and conflict resolution strategies specific to cross-functional Agile environments. Interactive exercises include a challenging retrospective facilitation practice session and a leadership scenario role-play.
The final day is dedicated to consolidating your knowledge and preparing you for the certification exam with confidence. The morning session begins with a comprehensive review of all four preceding days, structured around the exam's domain weightings. Key concepts, common misconceptions, and areas where participants typically lose marks are highlighted and discussed.
You will work through two full-length practice exams under timed conditions, with detailed answer reviews after each. The reviews explain not only why the correct answer is right but also why each distractor is wrong — building the exam reasoning skills that are essential for scenario-based questions where multiple answers seem plausible. The afternoon includes a final Q&A session with the lead instructor, followed by the proctored certification exam itself. Results are typically available within five business days.
The K3i Agile & Lean Project Management Certification is aligned with the Project Management Institute's (PMI) Agile Practice Guide and the principles of the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) credential. It is recognised by employers and professional bodies as evidence of substantive Agile and Lean competency.
Upon successful completion of this programme and certification exam, you will be able to:
This programme is pitched at an intermediate to advanced level. While no prior Agile certification is required, participants should have practical project experience to contextualise the material effectively:
Pre-reading materials are distributed two weeks before the programme, including a primer on the Agile Manifesto, a Scrum Guide summary, and a brief introduction to Kanban. Completing this pre-reading ensures you arrive ready to engage with the material from Day 1 without requiring lengthy introductions.