Exam Archive

The Dark Side of Agile Exams

– January 19, 2012Posted in: Agile, Project Management

This morning I read a very interesting post over at the AgileScout website titled Agile exams fact check. Peter Saddington (AgileScout) voiced his concerns about a PMI-ACP exam prep website called AgileExams.com. Concerns ranged from questionable pass rates (97%) to testimonials from people who appeared to not be PMI-ACPs.

Now, I believe in capitalism. I believe in building products that have value and can help people. So, this morning, I went onto the AgileExams website and took a practice exam. Per my involvement with the PMI Agile Community of Practice, my involvement with the PMI-ACP exam, and someone who actually took the exam, in my opinion, these questions are not relevant to the exam. I’m not saying they are not accurate. They speak very specifically to content within the PMI recommended reading list. But the exam is not written that way.

If Agile Exams commented on the Agile Scout blog, answering the questions of its readers, perhaps this would have faded into the background rather quickly. Instead, I was cc’d on an email from Agile Exams Customer Service to Peter. Rather than, reading “Peter, we hear you and the community and we’ll make things right. We’ll be transparent. We’ll iterate our product. We’ll be agile”,

this is a snippet of what I read

Kindly remove the post or make serious revisions to it to reflect that you were wrong in your baseless attack. I warned you earlier that you were border-lining on defamation/libel. In fact, you aren’t just throwing into question the integrity of agileexams.com but also the integrity of Ravi, who does not deserve this negative attention at all! If I do not see satisfactory updates on your site, legal means will be considered.

I just saw Jesse Fewell also posted something about AgileExams. I’m also getting emails from people I know and respect in the Agile community asking questions. Curious to see how this plays out.

The Agile Scout blog post now has 29 comments and counting.

Image Source: Pictofigo

Popularity: 1%

Tags: AgileScout, Exam, PMI-ACP

PMI-ACP Proficiency

Derek Huether

– January 10, 2012Posted in: Agile, Project Management

I received a notification that I passed the PMI-ACP exam. But I was curious how well I did. I logged into the PMI website and viewed my Exam Report. It’s nice to know I am Proficient in both of the defined domains. How did you do on the exam? I’d love to hear about it.

Popularity: 1%

Tags: Exam, PMI, PMI-ACP

My PMI-ACP Exam Experience

Derek Huether

– November 8, 2011Posted in: Agile, Project Management

Because I wanted to ensure people taking my class were learning things that are actually on the PMI-ACP exam, I thought it necessary to actually take the test. Sure, I was an independent reviewer of the PMI-ACP content but I was not part of the team who wrote the exam. Let me just say, I think those who wrote the exam did us all proud. I know it sounds sick but I really enjoyed taking this exam. It wasn’t too hard or easy. For a v1.0 exam, it’s pretty darn good. If you’ve been leveraging Agile for several years, I think you could pass it (in its current form). Let me caveat that by saying you’d have to be properly leveraging Lean, XP, and Scrum for several years. In all seriousness, there are people who still think cowboy coding or having no formal process or documentation makes them “agile”. This exam pays its respects to the values and principles of agile practices and to those who wrote the Agile Manifesto just 10 years ago.

Now, considering every exam will be different, you can’t take my testing experience as gospel to prepare. But, you can focus your attention in certain areas. I’m pretty certain I won’t upset anyone with this blog post. I’m not exposing any super-secret strategy to game the exam. I remember taking the PMP and getting frustrated because I felt like the goal was to trick me, not test me. Thankfully, the PMI-ACP is not crafted like the PMP. It’s written in a tone an everyday Agilist will understand.

Here is my bullet list for public consumption. The rest I will reserve for my PMI-ACP classes. (shameless plug)

Know the Agile Manifesto Values and Principles. Understand them. Don’t just memorize them.

Have an end-to-end understanding of Scrum.
Know and understand the key roles of Scrum.
Know and understand the artifacts of Scrum.
Understand what are and why we use big visible charts or information radiators.
Be able to read a burndown chart and offer a few scenarios that would explain its appearance.
Understand all of the Scrum meetings. Who is there? Why? What happens and when?
Understand Scrum from a ScrumMaster perspective.
Understand Scrum from a Product Owner perspective.
Understand Scrum from an empowered Team perspective.
Know and understand the XP (eXtreme Programming) roles and who does what.
Understand Test Driven Development. Know how it works and why it’s valuable.
Understand Continuous Integration. Know how it works and why it’s valuable.
Understand the Lean Software Development Principles
Know what Lean Portfolio Management is and how your organization could benefit from it.
Understand what Value Stream Mapping is and how to do it
Understand the basics of Kanban
Understand what WIP is and why it works.
Know what Osmotic Communications is.
Understand what makes a Servant Leader and what they do.
Understand Velocity and it’s usefulness.
Understand Risk Burn Down Charts
Know about Risk Audit Meetings
Know Agile Estimation techniques
Understand the Definition of “Done”
Know how to write and identify good User Stories.
Know what Personas are and how to use them.
Understand why and when you would use AgileEVM (don’t worry about how!)

Remember, you have 3 hours to answer 120 questions.

Good luck!

Popularity: 1%

Tags: Exam, PMI, PMI-ACP, PMP

Agile Flashcards

Derek Huether

– August 8, 2011Posted in: Agile, Project Management

To celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the signing of the The Manifesto for Agile Software Development and the upcoming launch of the PMI-ACP^sm Agile certification, I have been working behind the scenes on a new mobile learning tool. After realizing how congested the PMP market was, I decided to leverage what I learned from PM Prep Flashcards and apply the code toward agile learning.

So, are you going to take the PMI-ACP^sm certification exam? Would you like to be notified as soon as we’re done with a simple learning tool that you can use on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad to prepare for the exam?

Get on the list!

PMP® is a registered trademarks of the Project Management Institute, Inc. PMI-ACP^sm is a service mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Popularity: 1%

Tags: Agile, Certification, Exam, Flashcards, Learning, PMI, PMI-ACP

PMI Agile Exam Tools and Techniques

Derek Huether

– April 22, 2011Posted in: Agile, Project Management

50 percent of the PMI Agile certification exam will be comprised of questions about tools and techniques. The PMI Agile Certification team grouped the tools and techniques it 10 areas.

The toolkits below are ranked in the order of their relative importance within the tools and techniques section of the exam.

1	Communications
2	Planning, monitoring, and adapting
3	Agile Estimation
4	Agile analysis and design
5	Product quality
6	Soft skills negotiation
7	Value-based prioritization
8	Risk management
9	Metrics
10	Value stream analysis

Want an example of what you will find within the Communications area? Some tools and techniques included but are not limited to information radiators, team space, agile tooling, osmotic communications for collocated and/or distributed teams, and daily stand-ups.