Certified Kanban Management Specialist
For those who answer for the delivery flow of a team: system design, work-in-progress limits, metrics of predictability, cadences and rollout.
- Questions
- 50
- Duration
- 60 min
- Passing score
- 70%
- Investment
- $100
The pass mark is fixed: you pass with 70% correct answers, with no curve and no comparison with other candidates.
- Changed your mind? Ask for a full refund within 14 days of purchase, if the voucher has not been used.
- Your voucher never expires. Take the certification exam when you are ready.
- If you do not pass, your next attempt is half price for 90 days.
- The credential never expires and has no annual fee. You pay for the certification exam once.
Who this is for
You work inside a flow
Development, operations, support or shared services. You feel the effect of excess work in progress every day and lose time for not telling a blocker apart from a wait.
You answer for the flow
Delivery manager, tech lead or coordinator of a board that crosses more than one area. You have to decide limits, policies and classes of service, and what to do when the limit is broken for a legitimate reason.
You decide about the demand
Portfolio, product or service level agreement. You need to know what to ask before accepting a date, and what separates a forecast based on history from an estimate based on optimism.
What you take with you
A permanent verification code
Anyone confirms your credential at pmcert.org/verify, without having to ask you for anything.
Approval that does not expire
A credential you earned does not lapse, asks for no annual renewal and charges no subscription.
LinkedIn and a public profile
Add it to your licenses and certifications section, or share the link to your profile.
A certificate with your score by domain
In PDF, showing how you performed in each area assessed.
What you need to know
Seven domains, drawn at random from a bank written for this certification exam. Read each one and see where you stand.
Fundamentals and principles
6 questions · 12% of the exam
What the method is and what it is not: an evolutionary approach rather than a restructuring, a pull system as opposed to a push one, and why the work flow is managed rather than the people. Also the situations in which it is not the right instrument.
Visualisation and system design
7 questions · 14% of the exam
The board as a representation of the real flow, not the wished-for one: stages, waiting queues kept apart from working stages, written criteria for moving between them and visible blockers. When the board has stopped describing the operation.
Flow and work limits
8 questions · 16% of the exam
Why to limit work in progress, where to place the limit and what to do when it is reached. A bottleneck recognised by accumulation rather than by complaint, the cost of multitasking, and the item that ages before it turns into an emergency.
Metrics and predictability
8 questions · 16% of the exam
Choosing the metric by the question to answer: cycle time, lead time, throughput and the relation between them. Reading bands that widen in a cumulative flow diagram, and forecasting from the historical distribution with the confidence level stated.
Classes of service and prioritisation
7 questions · 14% of the exam
Different treatment for different demands: classifying by the cost-of-delay profile rather than by the pressure of whoever asks, reserving capacity per class, and recognising the erosion that overuse of the expedite class produces.
Cadences and roles
7 questions · 14% of the exam
Each meeting by the decision it produces, not by the agenda inherited from another method. The daily meeting run by the flow rather than by the person, the service delivery review with data on the table, and the cadence the organisation does not need to hold.
Adoption and evolutionary change
7 questions · 14% of the exam
How the method comes in: surfacing dissatisfaction and the nature of demand before designing the system, starting from what the organisation already does, choosing the next step by the observed bottleneck, and recognising resistance produced by the rollout itself.
Test your knowledge with the Open Assessment
The Open Assessment has twenty questions at the level of the certification exam, with the result on the spot and a score for each domain. It is the honest way to decide whether you are ready.
Test your knowledgeSee what the questions are like
Two questions from the free open assessment. The certification exam uses different ones in the same format: a work situation and a decision.
A board asks whether adopting the Kanban method implies a rupture in the way the area works. Which answer correctly describes the nature of the method?
- AYes, the method replaces the existing processes with a new flow, designed before the first week of operation.
- BYes, because the method requires roles and responsibilities to be redefined as a condition for it to start working.
- CNo, the method starts from what the organisation already does and evolves through small and successive changes.
- DNo, because the method is only a tracking board and changes nothing at all in the way the area works.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C
The method is evolutionary by definition: it settles on top of the existing process and modifies it through agreed steps. Treating it as a rupture provokes the very resistance it was designed to avoid. Treating it as a mere tracking board is the opposite mistake, because limits, policies and cadences change the way decisions are made.
A team wants to understand why the lead time has risen without demand having increased. Which relation, originating in queuing theory, links the basic flow metrics and explains the effect?
- AThe relation between the number of people assigned and the number of items concluded in each measurement period.
- BThe relation between work in progress, throughput and cycle time.
- CThe relation between the estimated effort of each item and the deadline agreed with the requester at the moment of entry.
- DThe relation between the number of stages of the board and the variability observed in the lead time of each class.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B
With stable throughput, cycle time grows in proportion to work in progress. That is why lead time rises with nothing having changed in demand: more items were accepted at the same time. People assigned, estimated effort and number of stages do not support that relation.
Practise the topic with a free tool
No sign-up tools on subjects of this certification, to apply at work what the certification exam assesses.
- Little's Law calculatorEnter two of WIP, throughput and cycle time to find the third, with WIP reduction scenarios.Open
- WIP limit simulatorEnter your board columns and see where work piles up and how far cycle time could fall.Open
- Delivery forecastUse the team's real throughput to answer "when will it be done?" with a probability, not a guess.Open
No course is required
The certification exam is the same for everyone, and how you prepare is your call: a course, a book, or the experience you already carry from the job.
- Changed your mind? Ask for a full refund within 14 days of purchase, if the voucher has not been used.
- Your voucher never expires. Take the certification exam when you are ready.
- If you do not pass, your next attempt is half price for 90 days.
- The credential never expires and has no annual fee. You pay for the certification exam once.
Your access to the certification exam arrives by email as soon as the payment clears, and it does not expire. Payment is handled by Stripe.
Sample credential
Certified Kanban Management Specialist
- Holder
- Emily Katherine Thompson
CKMS-KTBB-TW2G
Frequently asked questions about the certification exam
›What is the certification exam like?
It is an online multiple-choice certification exam, taken in your own browser, with no scheduling and no exam centre. Questions describe work situations and ask for a decision, rather than testing memorised definitions. Some ask for more than one option, and the screen says how many to select. The number of questions, the duration and the passing score for each exam are on the certification page.
›What is the passing score?
The passing score varies by certification and is published on each certification exam page, alongside the number of questions and the duration. There is no curve and no comparison with other candidates: your result depends only on your answers. There is no partial credit on multiple-response questions either, where the whole set has to be right.
›Can I retake the certification exam? Do I have to wait?
You can retake it, and there is no waiting period and no limit on attempts. What each new attempt requires is a new voucher, because each voucher is worth one attempt. Questions are drawn afresh each time you open a certification exam, so a retake is not a repeat of the previous paper. If you do not pass, you receive a coupon to buy the new attempt at the same certification for half the price, valid for 90 days.
›Does the voucher expire?
A voucher bought on the site does not expire. Vouchers issued to an institution in bulk may carry a deadline set at issuance, and in that case the date is shown with the code. If you lost the email, the code is also in your account, under Certification exams, once your address is confirmed.
›Can I cancel my purchase and get a refund?
Yes, within 14 days of purchase, as long as the voucher has not been used. Write to [email protected] from the same email used in the purchase, saying you want the refund. We return the amount through the same payment method and cancel the voucher in the same act, so the code stops working. A voucher already used is not refundable, even within the 14 days, because the attempt is consumed when the certification exam is opened.
›Does the certification expire? Is there renewal or an annual fee?
No and no. A PMCert credential does not expire: there is no expiry date, no periodic retesting, no renewal fee and no annual dues to keep what has already been earned. You pay for the certification exam once. The only way a credential stops being valid is revocation, which is an administrative act with a recorded reason, not an automatic expiry.
Questions about the certification exam →All frequently asked questions →