Experience of taking up an ITIL Foundation exam.

As part of my resolution to learn something, an hour every day, after spending spending 7 months on Agile i was looking to take up something new. That's what made me to take up ITIL foundation. Let me share my experience.

I went through an ITIL youtube playlist to get an overview on the contents of ITIL. I think this playlist contents is aligned with v2 foundation however it gives a fair understanding of core elements of ITIL. In the meanwhile i was also trying to figure out how to take the exam and which course material should i read. I decided to go with thoughtrock as i found the price of study material along with the exam worth while. Though not a R.E.P of PMI their 26 hours course + completion of exam helped me to obtain 26 PDU's for my PMP. I registered this under Category B in gaining PDU.

Taking about thought rock material is very raw and is literally an "audio reader" of their presentations. ITIL foundation is fairly an easier course than PMP or ACP but i wouldnt say its a cake walk. Learnings of PMP does match at times with many topics in ITIL. I took a good one month to complete course  and also did some reading and browsing while taking up the online tutorial.

I tried a few practice exams during my prep. There arent much free question sets available for ITIL so once i completed a few reliable ones i started redoing the same. Thoughtrock study material also has two good sample questions sets and also you can find a sample question on ITIL offical site. I will share the bookmark of all the links i used for the exam in the bottom of this blog.

Thought rock provide Loyalty exam code along with their material to take ITIL foundation exam from home. This was my first experience of taking an exam online from home. The process was pretty smooth and easy. The proctor was friendly and guides you well through the process. Only noticeable point is that though in the instruction they say get a printer configured for the exam, ITIL foundation exam doesnt need a printer and you can skip configuring a printer.

I passed the exam with a good 85% , process was the category where i didnt do well. Like PMP questions even these ones are tricky and you need to solve 40 questions in an hour. I finished them in 30 minutes and reviewed my answers twice ( but that didnt help much :) because i didnt deter from a single answer i previously selected) 

ITIL study reference bookmarks and sample question links

Download these html to view as bookmarks. If you directly open you would see only the html contents.

My 5 five cents: Core stages of life cycle are : SDTOC - Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, Continuous service improvement.

Although an overused statement i really think its important for the success of a venture to:  Vision -> mission -> goals -> objectives - > CSF (critical success factor) -> KPI (key performance indicator) -> define metrics - > measure whats in real time.

-> = should be converted

PMI - ACP ( agile certified practitioner ) fixed. Another one to talk about

After four months of struggle, lethargy, procrastination, laziness, i'm a certified ACP an agile certified practitioner. I managed it with proficient in both tools and techniques, knowledge and skills. This is the plan i used to conquer.

• Bought agile prepcast . Why i went with Cornelius and prepcast have two reasons: I used prepcast during PMP and I liked it and also thought it was very useful. I'm couldn't find a better tutorial searching online. I didnt want to do a boot camp because it doesn't give me the freedom to rewind what is been taught and also it’s shitty pricey. Also i dont get to learn it in my pace 

          Deepfriedbrainproject has a good review of agile prepcast. I still consider said all that its still one of the value for money online tutorial for acp.

• Finished prepcast and got the eligibility to obtain 21 contact points.

• Filled in Application form. It’s pretty simple if you have a PMP. Still as a backup I contacted my managers and just ensured their email address and contact details and kept them informed I will be taking ACP. Just to stay alert in case my form goes in for an audit. 

• Bought PMI-ACP Exam Prep of Mike Griffith from amazon. I found it the cheapest there. Kept aside 3 weeks for finishing it. But then plans don’t work. It took me 7 weeks to finish it with all my travel, relocation, lethargy and procrastination. The book is nice and far simple than Rita Mulcay. It’s one of the most concise, precise books you can find in market for ACP. I wanted to buy Andy Crowe as well. However this time around I decided not because I did it last time for PMP and in the end I never read it. Few comments worth saying about Mike Griffith book is it’s an easy read. Practice exams are very very few and easy. Details of agile methodologies scrum, xp, lean, Kanban, are minuscule.

• Booked dates for the exam with a 2 weeks gap for taking a few practice tests.  The number of practice exams is way to less. Talking about practice exams, sorry to say this, but there aint any good online practice exams I came across. I think I almost took each and every free/ test exams available online and I would not recommend an OK or even worth a look on any of them, for the exam. (The only one I missed is velociteach) Now here is something I might again contradict, 1000+ PMI-ACP Practice Questions, Christopher Scordo is worth some time. I decided to go for it after reading one of the comments from this group. It has around 400-500 useful questions. It also makes you think and tests your concepts on Agile. Cons, I agree many questions are repetitive and some questions are not much of use. 

       Free online copy available if you hold a PMI membership. Search in eReads and books of PMI with pmi-acp as the search text. I also read I a few reviews that velociteach practice exams is quite good.

• A day before the test day, decide to drive to the exam center, an believe me that was the most wisest thing I ever did in my entire preparation. The exam center I selected was National Academy for Research and Development ( NARD ) Al Gurg Tower3 Regga Al Butten Dubai 47567 . We drove around for an hour but just couldn't locate a building called Al gurg tower. Neither google maps nor gps nor blackberry map was any use. We just could not locate the building. Finally we parked our car and decide to walk around. In short Al gurg tower is right behind the clover creek hotel apartments or Marriot apartments there are a by-lane which goes inside. At the end of the by-lane is Al gurg tower. Easy way to locate this building is it has “ADNIF” written on the ground floor.

• Reached center on the day, and gave the exam. A few tips for the exam day and carry two id’s: 1 photo id and one non- photo id. Second for sure carry a light jacket. 3 be prepared for a noisy exam center. I was the only one for the exam, and there were a few people talking all throughout the exam in the corridor.

Topics of questions were, Agile manifesto, Scrum, XP, Lean, kanban Estimation (there were questions on cost estimation) roles and responsibilities, burndown charts, brainstorming, EVM, velocity, value based analysis, risk, Coordination,Risk adjusted backlog, Persona, Wireframe,Self Organizing team, conflict (not the levels of Mike Griffith), planning poker, backlog, value based prioritization,Retrospective, Affinity Estimating, estimations, Risk based Spike, Iteration & Release planning, Osmotic Communication,Definition of Done,Ideal time, Progressive Elaboration,Minimal Marketable feature,Story Points,Agile ceremonies. Some elusive topics where scrum of scrum, automated code coverage tools, technical debt, cost estimation. 

Below link contain bookmarks to some of the links which i referred and free sample questions online PMI - ACP. Lately i have been hearing reviews about agileexams, so you might want to check that too.

ACP study reference bookmarks and sample question links
Download these html to view as bookmarks. If you directly open you would see only the html contents. How to screenshots below.

Click on the download button as seen in the screenshot. The downloaded file is an html.

My five 5 cents: CWF CMF WCCSS R - My representation of Agile manifesto principles. 

• Customer, Welcome change, Frequent.
• Collocated, Motivated, Face2Face 
• Working, Constant, Continous, Simplicity, Self Organised
• Reflection.

Effective Conversation

Now this is spooky, i just started this blog yesterday i got 7 views. I dint even type anything. Is this showing up on my G+? I dont know. I dont even have a clue on how to check that thing. Anyways, why bother. :)

Reading on soft skill negotiation concepts on agile i came across this interesting piece on paraphrasing on effective conversation. To prove paraphrasing indeed is a good method, a real time example was that of a situation on a busy restaurant which we all have gone through in our life. 

The waiter comes in to take the order of the table. You got one friend still fumbling through the menu. Another one trying to figure out whats been served on the other table. The other one browsing on his phone and you are trying to negotiate with the waiter. 

All of you place your order, the waiter nods, murmurs and walks away. I normally get this question on my mind, did he hear that part, where, i told him AA instead of XX. Would he get me the right one?

Consider this butterfly effect:

All of you place your order, the waiter nods, and speaks out " so this is what you ordered...AA, XX, FF...". You are happy, he is happy, because you know what you get and he knows what to get. Bang!! Bang!! now thats some effective conversation which left a long term, lasting value to the customer to be rest assured.

My five 5 cents: Dont you think Michael David whatever, err, that dude from Passenger,  is a nasal singer?