Certification Included: The One-Day Combined Course
A client asks you, a Professional Scrum Trainer, for a one-day private course for 30 people that combines "the best of" Professional Scrum Master and Professional Scrum with Kanban, delivered using their internal tooling, with "Scrum.org certification included". They also want every attendee to receive a certificate, want to drop the practice assessments because "they stress the team out", and want to replace the Sprint simulation with a walkthrough of their own delivery process. They would also like the session recorded so 200 more staff can watch it later. They are a good client, the deal is significant, and the procurement contract requires the course to be "delivered to Scrum.org standards". Your calendar has the date free, and the practice lead has already told her boss it is booked.
1. Work through each request: which are acceptable adaptations, which need negotiation, and which you must decline? Explain the principle behind each.
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Take them one at a time, because they are not the same kind of request.
Contextualising examples to their tooling - acceptable and good practice. The scenarios can be theirs; the objectives stay the same.
One day instead of two - a design change, not trainer discretion. Scrum.org courses are designed for a defined duration and set of objectives. You can offer a custom, non-certified workshop of your own design for a single day, but you cannot compress the official course and still call it that.
Combining PSM and Kanban content - negotiate. Mixing two bodies of content into one day almost always means neither set of objectives is met. The better structure is the official course plus a separate follow-on day: the client gets both, in the right order.
Certificates for all - decline. Scrum.org certification is earned by passing an assessment, not by attendance. Attendance can be acknowledged with a clearly labelled certificate of completion, never described as certification.
Dropping practice assessments - negotiate. They are learning tools, not gatekeeping, and "stressful" is worth addressing; but removing every check on learning removes the learners' own evidence. Reframe them as a low-stakes check with a debrief.
Recording for 200 staff - decline or escalate; it raises intellectual property and assessment-integrity issues that are not yours to waive.
2. The procurement officer says: "Fine - then don't call it a Scrum.org course. Just deliver the same content under our brand." What is your answer?
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The honest answer is no, and the reason is contractual, not personal.
As a Professional Scrum Trainer you deliver Scrum.org courses under Scrum.org's terms and branding, to their design. You cannot take the material, relabel it under a client's brand, and deliver it as your own - that is the same act with a different logo. The procurement clause requiring the course to be "delivered to Scrum.org standards" is exactly what makes the rebadged version non-compliant: those standards come with the branding and with your trainer agreement.
Offer the real alternatives. First, deliver the official course properly, under its own name, with the certification path intact. Second, design a genuinely separate workshop for the remaining need - your own materials, your own outcomes, no claim of Scrum.org certification. Third, if they want a single engagement, the official course plus a custom day, in that order.
Say it plainly and early, in writing. A client who hears "no" on day one with two workable options is still a client; a client who discovers it after the invoice is a dispute. If they insist on the rebadged version, decline the work and, if necessary, raise it with Scrum.org. A delivered-but-non-compliant course costs more reputation than the lost deal.
3. Design the pre-course conversation that saves the deal without compromising standards. What do you say, and what do you put in writing?
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Meet the sponsor, not the procurement officer, and open with their goal rather than your constraint. Thirty people who can actually do something is the goal; thirty certificates is a proxy that will not deliver it.
Show the arithmetic. One day for thirty people across two courses gives roughly three hours per subject - enough to create familiarity, not enough to change behaviour. Then propose a structure that meets the goal: the official two-day course for the fifteen people who will use it most, a one-day custom workshop of your own design for the other fifteen, assessments purchased separately for those who want certification, and recording limited to the custom day, where it is your material.
Put it in writing: what they get, what they do not get, what it costs, and the decision they can take to their own stakeholders. Be explicit that the compressed combined version is not equivalent to the official course and that certification cannot be bundled with attendance.
Then protect the relationship with honesty. Do not promise certification that will not arrive, and do not let a date in the calendar become leverage against the standard. A trainer who says "here is what I can do and here is what I cannot" is more valuable to a client than one who agrees to everything and delivers a day nobody remembers. If the deal still fails, it failed on a real constraint - and you will be asked back.