What Is Certified Agility Consultant (CAC) Certification? A Complete Guide

The Certified Agility Consultant (CAC) is a Scrum Alliance credential still in development. It is designed to combine core agile coaching skills with consulting capabilities such as assessing organizational systems, advising leaders, and designing interventions. 

It is intended as the successor pathway after Scrum Alliance stopped accepting new Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC) and Certified Team Coach (CTC) applications in January 2025. As of the August 2026 Scrum Alliance update, CAC is not yet available. Existing CEC and CTC holders keep their badges through the current renewal cycle. 

Other programs that also use the letters “CAC,” including GAQM’s Certified Agile Coach, are separate credentials.

Key highlights:

• The Certified Agility Consultant (CAC) is a new Scrum Alliance credential currently in development, designed to replace the closed CEC and CTC pathways by combining agile coaching skills with consulting capabilities like systems assessment and organizational intervention design.
• Scrum Alliance stopped accepting new CEC and CTC applications on January 6, 2025, with in-progress applications reviewed until April 30, 2025, while existing badge holders retain their credentials through the current renewal cycle.
• The CAC pathway will use a layered learning structure with Agile Coaching Essentials microcredentials, Advanced Coaching microcredentials, and the full CAC certification that incorporates courses like Organizational Agility and Optimizing Value Streams.
• As of the August 2026 update, CAC launch date, final prerequisites, assessment format, pricing, and renewal rules remain unpublished, with official updates available through Scrum Alliance's News & Updates subscription.
• Other certifications using "CAC" initials, such as GAQM's Certified Agile Coach, are separate credentials from different issuing bodies and should not be confused with the upcoming Scrum Alliance CAC.
• Professionals can prepare for CAC by building coaching fundamentals through existing Scrum Alliance microcredentials, developing systems-thinking skills independently, and staying current with adjacent certifications like CSP-SM or CAL while awaiting the official pathway.

Introduction

Agile coaching has matured. Organizations no longer hire coaches only to sit with one team and improve standups. They are looking at two major qualities

• They want people who can coach and consult.
• They want someone who can read a system, talk to executives, design an intervention, and still stay grounded in coaching ethics.

That market shift is the reason Scrum Alliance is building the Certified Agility Consultant credential.

This guide explains what CAC is, what it is not, why CEC and CTC closed, what is confirmed, and what is still pending. It also shows how to prepare while you wait.

Important Update: This Certification Is Still in Development

Fact: The Scrum Alliance Certified Agility Consultant certification is not live yet.
 

That is not a rumour. It is the official position in Scrum Alliance’s help center article on updates to the CEC and CTC programs. The page was last updated on 19 August 2026. The announcement itself is dated 5 August 2026.

Treat every course listing, LinkedIn post, or training brochure that says you can “earn CAC now” with care. If the issuer is not Scrum Alliance, it is a different program that happens to share the same three letters.

Development work is underway with subject matter experts. Those experts include agile coaches and consultants. Scrum Alliance has described the destination clearly enough for career planning. It has not published a launch date, exam blueprint, price, or full prerequisite list.

If you need a credential you can put on a résumé this quarter, CAC is not that credential. If you want to understand the next official Scrum Alliance coaching-plus-consulting path, this is the program to watch.

Current status as of the latest Scrum Alliance announcement

On 6 January 2025, Scrum Alliance closed the CEC and CTC application portals. Candidates who had already submitted by that deadline were assessed under the existing review-team standards. Approvals for those in-flight applications continued through 30 April 2025.

In the period after that closure, Scrum Alliance first described a new coaching certification aimed at a broader audience. Community debate followed. CEC and CTC had rare, peer-reviewed, guide-level credentials. Many coaches worried that a mass-market replacement would dilute the signal.

By 5 August 2026, the design had changed again. Scrum Alliance said the original coaching-only scope had expanded. Organizations now want professionals who combine coaching with consulting, organizational change, systems thinking, and business problem-solving. The working name for the new credential is Certified Agility Consultant. The acronym remains CAC.

That August 2026 update also confirmed a layered learning structure:

• Agile Coaching Essentials microcredentials, offered on demand and instructor-led.
• Advanced Coaching microcredentials, currently named Agile Consulting: Coaching High-Performance Teams That Deliver and Enterprise Agility: Aligning Culture & Structure to Deliver Results.
• The full CAC certification, still in development, will include at least two current advanced microcredentials: Organizational Agility: Coaching Adaptive Systems in Complex Environments and Optimizing Value Streams: Turn Friction into Flow, plus other topics

The new path is meant to replace the old written-application model. CEC and CTC required documented hours, references, and committee review. CAC is being designed as a streamlined learning journey with microcredentials and assessment.

Active CEC and CTC holders keep their designations through the current renewal cycle. A trainer pilot is also underway so some CEC and CTC holders can become Certified Scrum Alliance Trainers (CSATs) for the coaching microcredentials and the future CAC.

What's confirmed vs. what's still pending

Clarity matters here. Mix confirmed facts with speculation, and you will mislead readers and yourself.

Confirmed as of August 2026:

• The credential name in the latest official update is Certified Agility Consultant (CAC).
• It is being built by Scrum Alliance with a team of subject matter experts.
• It will keep core agile coaching competencies and add consulting capabilities.
• Target skills include assessing organizational systems, advising leaders, designing broader interventions, and supporting transformation across teams and functions.
• It will not reuse the CEC and CTC written application pathway.
• Microcredentials already exist in the Leadership and Coaching catalog and are part of the announced pathway.
• CEC and CTC applications are closed. No new CEC or CTC badges will be issued through that old process.
• People who already hold active CEC or CTC badges keep them through the current renewal cycle.
• Official updates will come through Scrum Alliance channels, including the News & Updates list.

Still pending:

• Launch date.
• Final learning objectives and competency model.
• Exact mix of required microcredentials versus optional ones.
• Assessment format (course completion, exam, observed practice, portfolio, or a blend)
• Prerequisites, experience requirements, and recommended prior certifications.
• Price, renewal rules, and whether CAC will expire like most Scrum Alliance certifications.
• How existing CEC and CTC holders will map into CAC, if they map at all.
• Whether CAC will be treated as guide-level recognition.
• Geographic rollout and trainer capacity.

An earlier community communication described a “Certified Agile Coach” CAC as a broader, non-guide-level credential. The August 2026 update changed both the name and the consulting emphasis. Until Scrum Alliance publishes the final standard, treat the consulting-focused CAC as the current official direction, not as a finished product.

How to get official updates? (Scrum Alliance's subscription list)

Do not rely on unofficial course aggregators for launch news.

The help center points people to Scrum Alliance’s News & Updates subscription at scrumalliance.org/subscribe. That list is the simplest way to receive email when new information is released.

Also check out these sources:

• The official CEC and CTC help-center article, which is where the August 2026 CAC update was published.
• The Leadership and Coaching microcredential catalog.
• The CEC and CTC program pages, which already tell visitors that a new program is coming.
• Scrum Alliance member communications if you already hold a certification

Set a calendar reminder to re-check the help center every month or two. Development programs move in bursts. A quiet quarter does not mean the work stopped.

If you are a current CEC or CTC and you want to teach the new microcredentials, contact the Education Programs team about the CSAT pilot. That is a separate track from earning CAC yourself.

Not to Be Confused With: Other "CAC" Certifications

The letters CAC are crowded. Search engines do not know which one you mean. Hiring managers often do not either. Name the issuing body every time you write or say the credential.

GAQM's Certified Agile Coach (CAC)

The Global Association for Quality Management offers a Certified Agile Coach with exam code CAC-001. It is a knowledge exam. The typical structure is 50 multiple-choice questions, a 60-minute window, and a passing score of around 70 per cent. GAQM states that the credential is valid for life and that formal prerequisites are not required, though an e-course is recommended.

This is not a Scrum Alliance program. It does not replace CEC or CTC. It does not confer Scrum Alliance membership. It is an exam-based agile coaching certificate from a different body.

If a job posting says “CAC required,” ask which organization issued it. GAQM CAC and Scrum Alliance CAC are not interchangeable.

Certified Agile Coaching Practitioner (CACP)

CACP appears in commercial training catalogs, including programs marketed as Certified Agile Coaching Practitioner. One widely listed version is a multi-day workshop covering leadership, practices, systems, and culture, aimed at people supporting enterprise agility. Completion plus an exam is typically what earns the badge.

CACP is useful as skills training. It is not Scrum Alliance CAC. It will not automatically count toward the future Scrum Alliance pathway unless Scrum Alliance later says so. Do not assume stacking.

Other unrelated "CAC" credentials outside the agile space

CAC also means Certified Addiction Counselor, Certified Athletic Coach, various country-specific agile coach brands, and other professional titles. Congruent Agile Coach programs, ISO-style person certificates in some European markets, and smaller councils have used similar names.

Before you pay, check four things:

1. Who issues the badge?
2. Is training mandatory, exam-only, or portfolio-based?
3. Does it expire?
4. Do employers in your market recognize that issuer?

For Scrum Alliance CAC, the only authoritative issuer is Scrum Alliance.

Why Is Scrum Alliance Replacing CEC/CTC with CAC?

Scrum Alliance is not erasing coaching. It is changing how coaching expertise is developed and recognized.

The old model selected a small number of highly experienced coaches through a demanding written application. The new model aims to teach a wider group through a structured path that ends in a consulting-aware certification.

That change has trade-offs. Access goes up. The historic scarcity of CEC and CTC goes away for new applicants. Whether rigor stays high will depend on the assessment Scrum Alliance eventually publishes.

What Happened to the Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC) and Certified Team Coach (CTC)?

CEC and CTC were Scrum Alliance’s guide-level coaching credentials.

A CTC typically coached above a single team. The work spanned multiple teams, stakeholders, and managers. Documented coaching hours were substantial. More than 1,000 hours of relevant coaching was part of the expected profile.

A CEC worked at organizational altitude. The focus was leadership, systemic barriers, and company-wide change. Experience expectations were higher still, including thousands of coaching hours across levels.

Both paths required an active professional-level Scrum Alliance certification, evidence, recommendations, and review by coaching peers. The process was slow and selective. Scrum Alliance later noted that fewer than 500 CEC and CTC certifications had been issued since 2007, with a few hundred still active at the time of that communication. That small population was both a mark of prestige and a limit on scale.

On 6 January 2025, the doors closed to new applications. In-progress files were finished. After 30 April 2025, the old pipeline ended.

The badges themselves did not vanish. Holders may continue to display CEC and CTC through the current renewal cycle. For employers, that still means something. Those people passed a peer review that no longer exists. What disappeared is the ability to become a CEC or CTC the old way.

The Shift from Coaching-Only to Coaching + Consulting

The first public replacement concept leaned toward “Certified Agile Coach.” The later official update leaned toward “Certified Agility Consultant.”

That is not a cosmetic name. It reflects how the work changed in the field.

Coaching, in the professional sense, helps a client find their own answers. The coach holds a stance of inquiry. Consulting brings analysis, recommendation, and design. Many enterprise engagements need both in the same week. A coach who can only ask questions may stall when a leadership team needs a diagnosis of a broken funding model. A consultant who only delivers slide decks may create dependency and no internal capability.

Scrum Alliance’s August 2026 language is explicit. Organizations want people who combine coaching with consulting, organizational change, systems thinking, and business problem-solving. CAC is being built for that hybrid role.

This also explains the microcredential titles already in the market. “Agile Consulting,” “Enterprise Agility,” “Organizational Agility,” and “Optimizing Value Streams” are not team-level standup courses. They point at structure, flow, culture, and system design.

If you only want one-to-one professional coaching hours, CAC may be broader than you need. If you already operate as an internal consultant who coaches leaders, CAC is closer to the job you actually do.

What Will the CAC Certification Cover?

Scrum Alliance has not released a final syllabus. It has released a competency sketch and named courses that will feed the credential.

Read the sketch as a design brief, not as a completed exam outline.

Core Agile Coaching Competencies (retained from CEC/CTC)

The new credential is supposed to keep the coaching core that made CEC and CTC valuable.

Expect continuity in these areas, because they are the backbone of credible agile coaching:

• Professional coaching stance, including listening, powerful questions, and contracting.
• Ability to move among teaching, mentoring, facilitating, and coaching without confusing them.
• Team-level and multi-team enablement.
• Psychological safety and conflict navigation.
• Change work that builds the client’s capacity instead of creating coach dependence.
• Ethical practice and clarity about the coach’s role in the system

CEC and CTC were not only about Scrum events. They tested whether you could work with humans and systems under pressure. CAC is described as retaining that core while changing the on-ramp.

Until the learning objectives are published, use existing Scrum Alliance coaching microcredentials as the best public proxy for that core. Courses such as Introduction to Agile Coaching, Becoming an Agile Coach, Agile Coaching Skills, Coaching for Change, and Coaching for Transformation already sit in the official catalog.

New Consulting Capabilities (organizational systems assessment, advising leaders, designing interventions)

The consulting layer is the real addition.

Scrum Alliance says CAC will focus on the ability to:

• Assess organizational systems
• Advise leaders
• Design broader interventions
• Support meaningful transformation across teams and functions

That is a different job than coaching one product team through a rocky sprint.

Systems assessment means you can see how structure, incentives, portfolio intake, architecture, and culture interact. You do not treat a late roadmap as a “team motivation problem” when the real constraint is a quarterly budget ritual.

Advising leaders means you can sit with executives without collapsing into either hero consulting or vague coaching theater. You can name trade-offs. You can connect agility to strategy, risk, and value.

Designing interventions means you choose a change that the system can absorb. You sequence work. You know when a workshop is enough and when operating-model design is required.

This is why the name moved from coach to consultant. The market is buying outcomes at organization scale, not only better team dynamics.

Confirmed Microcredentials Feeding Into CAC

Two advanced microcredentials are named as part of the future CAC:

1. Organizational Agility: Coaching Adaptive Systems in Complex Environments (live, about 8 hours)
2. Optimizing Value Streams: Turn Friction into Flow (live, about 8 hours)

Both already appear in the Leadership and Coaching catalog.

Two other instructor-led courses are named as Advanced Coaching microcredentials in the same announcement:

1. Agile Consulting: Coaching High-Performance Teams That Deliver (live, about 8 hours)
2. Enterprise Agility: Aligning Culture & Structure to Deliver Results (live, about 8 hours)

Essentials-level coaching microcredentials are also part of the announced structure. They are available on demand and live. Titles in that neighbourhood include Introduction to Agile Coaching and Becoming an Agile Coach.

What is not confirmed is the exact stacking rule. Scrum Alliance has said it will combine microcredentials and assessment processes. It has not said, “complete these four courses, and you are a CAC.” Do not treat current catalogs as a finished degree plan.

Also note a catalog nuance. Scrum Alliance has separately explained that microcredentials are standalone qualifications and do not automatically add up to a certification. CAC is being designed as an exception to that general pattern, because the organization now says it will combine microcredentials into a learning path. Wait for the published pathway before you assume credit transfer.

What Is the New Learning Pathway Structure?

Think of three layers, even though the final map is unfinished.

Layer one is essential. Layer two is advanced coaching and consulting skills. Layer three is the full CAC assessment.

The intent is a climb from team-level enablement toward organization-level responsibility.

Agile Coaching Essentials Microcredentials

These courses are for people who need foundational coaching skills, not a consultant title on day one.

They are short. Many run about four hours. Several are offered both live and on demand. That matters if you are employed full-time and cannot disappear for a week.

Typical essential themes in the current catalog include:

• What agile coaching is and is not
• Stances: teaching, mentoring, facilitating, coaching
• Entry-level skills for working with teams and change
• Systems coaching basics, such as seeing the team as a system rather than a set of individuals

Good candidates for this layer include experienced Scrum Masters, product coaches, internal change agents, and managers who already influence teams but have never trained as coaches.

These courses also award Scrum Education Units for people who need them for other Scrum Alliance renewals.

Advanced Coaching Microcredentials

The advanced layer is where the consulting identity shows up in course titles.

Agile Consulting: Coaching High-Performance Teams That Deliver signals team performance through a consulting lens, not only a coaching stance.

Enterprise Agility: Aligning Culture & Structure to Deliver Results points at operating model work. Culture and structure are where transformations usually stall.

Organizational Agility: Coaching Adaptive Systems in Complex Environments is named as CAC content. It sits at the intersection of complexity and coaching.

Optimizing Value Streams: Turn Friction into Flow is also named as CAC content. Flow work is consulting work. It requires mapping, constraint analysis, and intervention design.

These live courses are longer, typically around eight hours. Plan for instructor-led time, not only videos.

How Do These Feed Into the Full CAC Certification?

The official aim is a pathway that is accessible, robust, and comprehensive. Microcredentials create the learning. An assessment process is supposed to create the standard.

What “feed into” means in practice is still open. Possible models include:

• Required courses plus a capstone assessment
• A menu of microcredentials with a minimum set
• Coursework plus observed practice or a case study
• A professional exam after a learning sequence

Until that model is published, the smart move is to take the named courses because they have independent value. Do not pause your career waiting for a badge that has no date.

Also keep expectations honest. A stack of eight-hour courses is not the same thing as the old CEC review. It may be more scalable. It may be less selective. Quality will depend on assessment design, trainer quality, and whether practice evidence is required.

Who Is the CAC Certification For?

CAC is being built for people who work beyond a single team and need both coaching skill and consulting judgment.

Strong-fit profiles include:

• Senior Scrum Mastersand Agile Coaches who already support several teams and now get pulled into org design conversations.
• Internal consultants and transformation leads who advise leadership but want a stronger coaching stance.
• Value-stream managers, program leads, and flow coaches who diagnose system friction.
• People moving from delivery roles into organization-level change work.
• Consultants who sell agile transformations and need a structured competency story

Weaker-fit profiles include:

• Practitioners who only want a firstScrum certification.
• People looking for a same-week badge.
• Pure professional coaches who do not want to advise or design interventions.
• Anyone who thought CAC would be a new name for CEC with the same peer-review bar

Hiring managers should also recalibrate. A future CAC will likely signal structured training in coaching-plus-consulting. It will not automatically equal “this person passed the historic CEC panel.” If you need that historic signal, look for active CEC or CTC badges.

Geography and industry matter less than altitude of work. A coach in Bengaluru, London, or Chicago who spends the week with directors, funding models, and cross-team dependencies is closer to CAC than a coach who only facilitates one team’s events.

What Happens to Existing CEC/CTC Holders?

If you already hold CEC or CTC, you did not lose the credential.

Scrum Alliance’s position is that active holders in 2025 continue to display the original badge through the current renewal cycle. Keep your membership and renewal requirements current so the badge stays valid.

You do not need CAC to remain a CEC or CTC today. Scrum Alliance has not said that recertification into CAC will be mandatory.

What you should decide is strategy:

• Keep CEC or CTC as your primary market signal. It still communicates rarity and peer review.
• Add the new microcredentials so your skills stay current with the consulting emphasis.
• Join the CSAT pilot if you want to teach the new path.
• Wait for mapping rules before you spend money on a second senior badge you may not need.

For employers and clients, CEC and CTC remain useful diligence signals. The application process that produced them no longer exists. That scarcity may increase the value of existing holders even as CAC becomes the volume path for new practitioners.

If you were mid-application and missed the 6 January 2025 cutoff, that route is closed. Your next official Scrum Alliance option is the microcredential path and, later, CAC.

How to Prepare for the CAC While You Wait?

Waiting passively is the weakest plan. The skills CAC will test are already in demand. You can build them now without pretending the badge exists.

Building Coaching Fundamentals Now

Start with practice. Write a simple coaching contract for your next engagement. Name the client, the system, the outcomes, and the stances you will use. Review it with a mentor.

Record (with permission) or journal one coaching conversation a week. Look for how often you advise when you mean to inquire. Look for how often you inquire when the client needs a clear recommendation.

Learn to separate four stances:

• Teaching when a knowledge gap is the constraint.
• Mentoring when your experience is relevant and invited.
• Facilitating when the group needs a process.
• Coaching when the client has the capacity to find the next step.

Most weak “agile coaching” is accidental consulting delivered as if it were coaching. CAC’s consulting emphasis does not make that confusion acceptable. It makes stance discipline more important.

If you want structured hours, take Introduction to Agile Coaching or Becoming an Agile Coach. Pair the course with real client work in the following two weeks. Unused training decays fast.

Enrolling in Available Microcredentials

Prioritize the courses Scrum Alliance has already tied to the future credential.

First wave, if you can attend live classes:

• Organizational Agility: Coaching Adaptive Systems in Complex Environments.
• Optimizing Value Streams:Turn Friction into Flow.
• Agile Consulting:Coaching High-Performance Teams That Deliver.
• Enterprise Agility: Aligning Culture & Structure to Deliver Results.

Second wave, for foundations and change skills:

• Introduction to Agile Coaching.
• Becoming an Agile Coach.
• Agile Coaching Skills.
• Coaching for Change: Making Agility Work.
• Coaching for Transformation: Sustaining Change.
• Change Management: Overcoming Resistance for Agile Transformation

These courses have value even if CAC launches later than you hope. They also keep you inside the Scrum Alliance ecosystem, which is where the eventual assessment will live.

Budget time as well as money. An eight-hour live course plus application work is a serious weekend. A four-hour on-demand course still needs practice afterwards.

Developing Consulting/Systems-Thinking Skills Independently

Do not wait for a classroom to learn how systems work.

Build a one-page system map of your current organization or client. Include the official structure and the informal structure. Add funding rules, metrics that actually drive behavior, and the few constraints that explain most delays.

Pick one value stream. Measure intake to release in calendar time, not story points. Find the queues. Most “agility problems” are queue problems wearing team-process clothing.

Read and apply a short stack of ideas rather than a giant bookshelf:

• Systems thinking for organizations (how policies create patterns).
• Organizational design and team topology.
• Lean flow and constraint management.
• Stakeholder contracting and advisory conversations.
• Change that accounts for power, not only workshops.

Then do advisory work in small, ethical loops. After a leadership session, write what you observed, what you recommended, what you chose not to recommend, and what the system did next. That journal will be more useful than any brochure when CAC assessment details appear.

If you already hold CSP-SM Certification, CSP-PO Certification, CAL 1 Certification, or CAL 2 Certification, keep those current. They are not CAC. They are adjacent evidence that you can operate at team, product, and leadership altitude.

Conclusion

The practical takeaway is simple. CAC is the Scrum Alliance response to a market that wants coaches who can also consult. The destination is clear enough to train toward. The product is not finished.

Use the official subscription list. Take the named microcredentials if they match your work. Keep CEC or CTC if you have them. Ignore anyone selling a Scrum Alliance CAC seat before Scrum Alliance opens the program.

When the assessment details land, you will already have the skills the badge is meant to represent. That is the only preparation that will still matter after the acronym settles.