Some notes and thoughts from my study of the PM certifications.
Reader's Guide
PeopleCert have made available a readers guide for their practice guides. It is designed to help readers understand and use the ITIL 4 practice guides.
Note that every practice guide has the same chapter numbers, though with small variations in titles. For example, chapter 2 is general information, chapter 2.4 is the PSFs, chapter 3 is the Value Streams and Processes dimension.
The chapter order is the order that the Practice Manager courses teach each practice. The Foundation courses uses a different order.
The table numbers and figure numbers are not consistent across different guides.
PeopleCert Ebooks
At the beginning of the course you will get an exam code. Sign in to peoplecert.org and redeem this code now, because it is what gives you the Practice Guide ebooks!
You will be referring to them often throughout the course delivery so open them all now, in different browser tabs or windows.
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.
Models
Service request model. A repeatable predefined approach to the fulfilment of a particular type of service request.
Incident model. A repeatable approach to the management of a particular type of incident.
Problem model. A repeatable approach to the management of a particular type of problem.
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.
See § 2.2.1 in the problem management practice guide.
We can apply the same phrasing to incident management: proactive incident handling is identifying incidents before they occur.
Montoring and event management uses the terms as well. 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.
See § 2.2 in the monitoring and event management practice guide.
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 systems.
Report. An account of something, but includes analysis and conclusions.
They are almost always associated with analysis and reporting tools.
Process, Value Stream
A process is "a set of interrelated or interacting activities that transform inputs into outputs. Processes define the sequence of activities and their dependencies".
A value stream is "a series of steps an organization undertakes to create and deliver products and services to consumers".
These terms are very close in definition, and both describe activities happening in the organization.
The difference is that a value stream includes information needed to identify waste and to continually improve. This includes fulfillment times and waiting times, as well as a focus on the outcomes and values produced.
Analysing and improving a value stream is done using value stream mapping (section 3.2.3.1 in the practice guides).
Exam Hints
General
Read every word in the question and in every answer.
Read from the last answer upwards.
Look for words like "must", "never", "mandate", "prohibit". They are probably the wrong answers.
Look for plurals.
Guessed? Mark 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, mark the question, move on, review at the end. Never end a multichoice exam with unanswered questions.
No negative marking.
Things that I kept getting wrong. :-(
A service request probably initiates a standard 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.