For those of us who have been Scrum certified for a number of years now, we can attest to the frenetic SEU (Scrum Education Unit) gathering and documentation that happens as we near the renewal time (for those who are new or haven’t hit that yet, it happens every 2 years, and the amount of SEUs required are specific to the type of certification you hold).

Why SEUs?

SEUs are the only way that the Scrum Alliance can track the professional educational growth and development of those carrying its certifications. Agile is fundamentally about continuous improvement and learning, it would make sense that the Scrum Alliance would want to maintain a quality standard and assurance related to its candidate base. SEUs are essentially the same as PDU’s (Professional Development Units) that you might be familiar with from the PMI, but they are specific to the Scrum Alliance.

How do SEUs work?

Let’s say you hold a foundational level Scrum Alliance certification (CSM, CSPO or CSD), and every two years you are required to earn 20 SEUs. The amount you need to earn is dependent on the level of the certification however, so while it’s just 10 for a Leadership certification, it goes to 30 for an Advanced Certification and up to 40 for a Professional Certification.

If you have multiple certifications, you will obviously have more continuing education units you will need to earn, though the Scrum Alliance does all of us who fall into that bucket a favour by reducing the overall amount a bit. The way this works, is that you need to submit the full amount of required SEU’s for the highest-level certification, and then half for each subsequent cert (so let’s say you hold a CSM and A-CSM, but no CSP-SM) you would automatically need 30, plus 10 (half of the 20 required) to renew.  

How do I earn SEUs?

The Scrum Alliance makes it relatively easy to earn these units, as webinars, books, blog posts, podcasts all count towards SEUs if they are related to the topics that are related to our professional sphere. (Not that you needed an excuse to read our blog, join our next webinar or listen to the Definitely, Maybe Agile Podcasts!)  It is much, much easier however, if you stay on top of it throughout the course of the two-year period rather than waiting until crunch time.  

SEUs are based on a 1:1 ratio of hours to points, where 0.25 is the smallest unit increment available. Let’s say you watch a YouTube video of Dave Snowden talking about Cynefin, that will earn you 1.25 SEUs (the video is 1 hour and 11 minutes). If you watch the same video 2x (which is legitimate, because a) it’s Dave Snowden and b) he’s Welsh), you’d earn 2.5 SEUs, though I’m not sure that’s the strategy you want to use for all of them.

If blogs and videos aren’t your thing however, there are quite a few more categories your SEUs can fall into. You can choose between Learning, Events, Volunteering and Other as categories that house your SEU’s. Here’s a little bit about each one of them.

• Learning

- Includes both independent learning activities such as:

• Preparing presentations
• Authoring books, articles, or blogs
• Watching videos
• Attending webinars
• Reading blogs, books or articles: Sign up for our newsletter and get 0.25 SEUs directly into your inbox every week!

- Includes working with Scrum Alliance CSTs, CECs, and REPs, however new Scrum Alliance certification courses themselves don’t count

• Events - You can earn SEUs and have fun! Attending local Scrum and Agile meetups or attending events such as the Scrum Alliance Global Scrum Gathering and Scrum Alliance Regional Gatherings all earn you SEUs  
  

• Volunteering - SEUs can be earned by giving back to the community, as long as it’s providing professional Scrum services that you aren’t already getting paid for  

• Other - This is the catch-all bucket of stuff that doesn’t fit neatly into any other box, though at the moment I can’t think of anything that I’d pop in this one!

If you’ve got more specific questions about SEUs that haven’t been answered here, feel free to visit the Scrum Alliance page on renewing your certifications.

Otherwise, we invite you to subscribe to our newsletter if you haven’t already (remember, free SEUs into your inbox every week). If you already have signed up but have a friend who might benefit from getting them, flip this email their way, or have them sign up here! We love when you share the love.