Some notes and thoughts from my study of the PM certifications.
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Terms
Technical debt
The total rework backlog accumulated by choosing workarounds instead of systemic solutions that would take longer.
Some notes on technical debt from the man who coined the phrase.
A discussion of how some technical debt is good.
Proactive, Reactive
These two words are used in several practices.
Proactive/Reactive problem identification relates to incidents. Proactive problem identification is focused on identifying problems before they cause any incidents. Reactive problem identification helps to prevent future incidents.
PRM practice guide § 2.2.1.
The monitoring and event management practice also uses the terms, though in a slightly different way. Event management is reactive when it uses monitoring to respond to events after an impact on the service or service component has occurred; proactive when it analyses non-impacting events (past and current) to identify a potential future impact.
MEM practice guide § 2.2.
Record, Report
For example, incident record and incident report.
INM practice guide § 3.1.1.
Record. A written or electronic account of something that has happened or been recorded.
In the Information and Technology dimension, records are almost always associated with workflow management and collaboration tools.
Report. An account of something, but includes analysis and conclusions.
Reports are almost always associated with analysis and reporting tools.
Exam
Hints
Read every word in the question and in every answer.
Make sure you understand what the question is actually asking.
Read from the last answer upwards.
Look for words like "must", "never", "mandate", "prohibit". They are probably the wrong answers.
Look for plurals.
Guessed? Flag the question, move on, review at the end.
Watch the time. 90 seconds per question. Spent more than a couple of minutes? Pick an answer, flag the question, move on, review at the end. Never end a multichoice exam with unanswered questions.
Remember that there is no negative marking. Answer every question.
Things that I kept getting wrong. :-(
A service request probably initiates a standard change, not a normal change.
Measurement (analysis and reporting tools) supports improvement, not control.
Flowcharts
The workflow diagrams in the practice guides use Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) though they use it a bit inconsistently.
What we need to know to read them is that the small diamonds indicate some sort of choice or option, and the outgoing line with a slash is the default path (i.e. if none of the choices or options are applicable).
See https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/bpmn for more details.
Practice Guide general questions/comments
3.2.2 …in service value streams
Why is “resolution of problems” not included? Is it supposed to be included in “resolution of incidents”? Also note the lack of consistency. Some practice guides use the phrase “resolution of incidents” while others use “incident resolution”.
Chapter 6 Partners and Suppliers
Why do the guides use the phrase “Provision of software tools”? Partners and suppliers also provide us with hardware tools, especially for MEM and ITAM.
Figure 7.2 The capability development steps and levels
This is a bad diagram. Please stop using it.
As drawn, it implies that the steps at the top are evenly distributed across the steps on the bottom. They aren’t. The first five belong to step 2 on the bottom, the next one to step 3, the next one to step 4, and the final one to step 5. None of the steps at the top apply to step 1 in the bottom.
Inconsistency
(Rant) This hinders learning. When a learner comes across inconsistency, they are required to spend effort determining whether the inconsistency is deliberate or not. That effort would be better spent learning the material.
For example, is there a difference between an “implementation initiative” and an “improvement initiative” and an “optimisation initiative”? If so, what?
For example, are abbreviations significant? Compare “ITAM approach performance reports” with “Service configuration management approach performance reports”. Why is the latter not “SCM approach performance reports”?
For example, is a “performance report” different to a “review report”? Is a “change review report” different to a “change report”?
For example, if one practice lists an output of “review report” and another lists “review reports”, is the plural significant? Same question for “risk register” and “risk registers”?
For example, why is “Work planning and prioritization tools” in the automation solutions table for the INM practice but not the PRM practice? Why are service configuration management tools used to diagnose incidents but not investigate problems? Why are analysis and reporting tools used for PRM but not INM?
For example, are “Information security policies and plans” different from “Security policies and plans”.