Passing Agile Certification
The author is PMP, IPSR, ACP Certified and has 14 years of experience in Information Technology
Here are key focus areas to be successful in PMI's Agile Certified Practioner (ACP) exam. Understanding of these would help answer a sizeable number of ACP exam questions.
1. Manifesto and Values – Knowing the manifesto and agile values will help you answer at least 10-12 questions correctly. If there are any conflicting answers – agile values and manifesto is the right thing to do.
2. Meetings – Understand the importance of each meeting –Stand ups, retrospective & planning.
3. Agile Practices – Differentiate lean, scrum, kanban and extreme programming.
4. Roles & responsibilities - Understand roles & responsibilities within different methodologies. E.g. Agile coach vs facilitator
5. Understand the Agile Charts & KPIs – Burn Up, burn down chart for sprints and risks, calculating velocity, ROI, earned value metrics.
6. Read and re-read worded questions – Word problems tend to focus you attention on something that is not very important. Key is to understand the MOST important issue and not what is the FIRST thing that is projected to be an issue. In case of conflicts, manifesto and agile values win.
7. Application of knowledge – If answers are not obvious, apply your knowledge from experience.
8. Agile Concepts - Understand affinity estimation, planning poker, wide band delphi, value based decomposition, Release backlogs, sprint backlogs, value stream mapping, iteration vs sprint, validation vs verification, WIP limits, servant leadership, minimally marketable feature, done done, portfolio management, agile risks.
9. Various levels of Planning – Know the depth that is covered in Strategic, Release, Iteration & Daily Planning.
10. Exam Questions - Take some practice tests from legitimate websites or books. Questions from Andy Crowe's – ‘The PMI-ACP Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try’ is very helpful.
11. Agile Training - I personally do not see a need to take training if you have worked on a few projects and read some material. Any online training can be counted against your contact hours for this exam.
12. Recommended book – The PMI lists 10 books for Agile. No one can read all of them. Here is what I would suggest that would be good balance to get though the exams
Mike Cohn - User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development
James Shore - The Art of Agile Development
Alistair Cockburn - Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game
Andy Crowe’s The PMI-ACP Exam: How To Pass On Your First Try
Good luck for your gig !
