EXIN Agile Business Professional

It is a multiple-choice exam with 30 questions, and EXIN states a duration of 1 hour 30 minutes. That works out to about three minutes per question. The exam is not open book, and electronic equipment is not allowed, so anything you want to rely on has to be in your head on the day.

The pass mark is 67%. With 30 questions, that means you need at least 21 correct answers, so you can afford roughly nine misses. Because the margin is fairly tight, aim to be comfortable across all four subject areas rather than relying on strength in one of them.

EXIN describes it as tailored to professionals working in an Agile enterprise or an organization undergoing an Agile transition, and to professionals who want to update their expertise to reflect the trend towards business agility. It is an advanced-level certification, so it suits people who already know Agile basics and now need to apply them beyond software delivery, including production, operations and support processes.

EXIN lists four main subjects: The Agile Mindset; Facilitating Agile Culture; Optimizing Business Value; and Expanding and Sustaining Agile in an Organization. Together they move from individual and leadership mindset, through shaping culture and value delivery, to scaling and keeping Agile alive across an organization. No official per-domain weighting is published, so treat all four as equally important.

EXIN names two required readings: Gil Broza's Agile for Non-Software Teams: A Practical Guide for Your Journey (3P Vantage Media, 2019) and Christina Wodtke's Introduction to OKRs (O'Reilly Media, 2016). Read them with the four subject areas in mind. The second is particularly relevant to Optimizing Business Value, since OKRs are a goal-setting mechanism rather than a delivery framework.

Yes. EXIN publishes a Preparation Guide, a sample exam, an online sample exam, and practical assignments on the certification page, with some materials also available in German and in a German-English version. Use the sample exam to check your pacing against the 90-minute limit, and the practical assignments to test whether you can apply the ideas rather than just recall them.

EXIN lists the exam languages as English and German. Training and self-study materials are not guaranteed to exist in every other language, so if you are studying in a third language, plan to sit the exam in English or German and make sure you know the standard English terminology for the concepts.

Both routes exist. EXIN says the certification offers training and self-study options and includes practical assignments, and it works through accredited partners. Accredited training adds structure and feedback on the practical work; self-study is viable if you are disciplined, since the required reading and the sample exam are published openly.

The common failure mode is treating this as a Scrum exam. It is about applying Agile principles across the whole business, including non-software functions, and about culture, value and scaling rather than ceremonies and roles. Candidates who only revise framework mechanics tend to struggle with questions on mindset, leadership behaviour and organizational change.

Start with The Agile Mindset to fix the vocabulary, then Facilitating Agile Culture, which builds on it. Move to Optimizing Business Value with the OKR reading alongside, and finish with Expanding and Sustaining Agile, which draws on all three. Take the sample exam near the end under timed conditions, then revisit your weakest area.