pmi-acp (sm) exam prep study outline & tips -...
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PMI-ACP (sm) Exam Prep
Study Outline & Tips
AgileBill Krebs CSM, CSP, PMI-ACP
Distributed Agile Coach
Includes ‘interesting but
not on test’
meetup.com/agile3d
© 2013 Agile Dimensions LLC
Books
PMI-ACP (sm) Exam Prep
Mike Griffiths
Expensive. Excellent, Detailed
The PMI-ACP (sm) Exam
Andy Crowe
High level overview
Both have good practice tests
A typical question
Bla bla bla bla, yada yada
Very Reasonable Answer 1
Very Reasonable Answer 2
Obviously fake answer 1
Obviously fake answer 2
When an XP team uses their velocity for their next iteration,
they should
A) Seek to improve their velocity each iteration
B) Plan no more than they achieved on their last iteration
C) Plan work ahead for each person based on available hours
D) Divide Velocity by each team member for individual accountability
About the Exam
Requirements
21 hours of training
2,000 of project work (12 months) Plus
1,500 of Agile work (8 months)
$500 and 2 hour test at a testing center – feedback at end
Tools and Techniques: 50%
Knowledge & Skills: 50%
33% Level 1
12% Level 2
5% Level 3
Domains
Value-Driven Delivery
Stakeholder Engagement
Boosting Team Performance
Adaptive Planning
Problem Detection and Resolution
Continuous Improvement
Assessing Value
Business Measures
ROI
NPV
FYI – PV = FV / (1 + r ) ^2
152K in 4 years is worth 200K at 7%
IRR
Duration and payback gives rate
Planning Value
Chartering
Value Stream Mapping
Customer-valued prioritization
Relative prioritization/ranking
Product roadmap
Risk-adjusted backlog
• Prioritization
• Agile contracting Methods
Tracking and reporting value
Earned value management for agile projects
Cumulative flow diagrams (CFDs)
Risk burn down graphs
Task / Kanban boards
Value Stream Mapping - Exercise
24 hours of work
34 hours elapsed
Code fix
3 hours
Regression
3 hours UAT
3 hours
Integration
3 hours
Customer
gets fix
Unit Test
2.5 hours
Build
1 hour
Testing
6 hours
Prioritization
MoSCoW
Kano
Simple List
Story Maps / Product Roadmap
Risk Adjusted Backlog
FYI – Innovation Games ®
• Buy a Feature
• 20 / 20
• Prune the Product Tree
Delivering Value
Task and Kanban Boards
Work in Progress (WIP) limits
Cost of Change
Little’s Law: Queue Length and Queue Duration. See
figure [Griffiths] page 94
Customer- Valued Prioritization
Prototypes, Simuls, Demos
Tracking and Reporting Earned Value
Earned Value Management
Graph scope over time and…
Projected Progress,
Scope Built
Spending, Projected spending,
Shows Planned and Earned value, Schedule and Cost variance
Risk Table
High, Medium, Low = 3, 2, 1
Should we graph it?
Risk Impact Prob “Sev”
Meteor 3 1 3
New compiler
compatibilities
2 2 4
Someone sick on team 1 3 3
Aspects
Get the right stakeholders
Cement stakeholder involvement
Actively manager stakeholder interest
Frequently discuss what “done” looks like
Show progress and capabilities
Candidly discuss estimates and projections
Tools
Align Understanding
Wireframes
Personas [Griffiths] pg 124
User Stories / Backlogs
Story Maps
Communicate
Information Radiators
Burn down charts
Velocity
Agile Modeling
Soft Skills
Negotiation
Conflict resolution
Servant Leadership
RGB
INVEST
Feature, Epic, Story, (task)
Stakeholder Communication
Graph Effective vs Timely [Griffiths] pg 135
What information would you radiate?
Who is the Audience?
Soft Skills
Negotiation
Active Listening
Facilitation methods
Global culture and diversity
Conflict resolution
Distributed Teams
Participatory decision models
Thumbs up, down, or side. Fist of Five
More
Principals for Leading Agile Teams
Modeling Desired Behavior
Communicate the Vision
Enable others to Act
Willing to Change
Responsibility, Respect, Fairness, Honesty
Tools and Knowledge
Adaptive Leadership
Emotional Intelligence
Daily Standups
Co-located Teams
Team space
Agile tooling
Build empowered teams
Build high performance
teams
Team Motivation
Coaching and Mentoring
Brainstorming techniques
Distributed teams
Cocomo II Parameters
People factors
Product factors
Tools and process
Schedule constraint
Project precedence
Design Reuse
Computer Platform
Adaptive Stages
Forming
Storming
Norming
Performing
Adjourning
Situational Leadership
Emotional Intelligence
Self Management, Social Skills, Self-Awareness, Social
Awareness
Self Organized teams….but!
What can a leader do with an umbrella?
Co-Located Teams
Caves and Commons
Osmotic Communication
Tacit Knowledge
Distributed Teams
Tools:
Comm: ______
Co-work _____
Professional Responsibility and Ethics
Best interests of the company
Protect proprietary info
Respect
Fairness
Honesty
Retrospectives
5 Steps (Derby & Larsen)
1. Set the stage
2. Gather Data
3. Generate insights
4. Decide what to do
5. Close the retrospective
2 Hours
Process Tailoring
Page 305 – Consider the relationships between XP
practices
Systems Thinking
Graph complexity vs Technology
Process Analysis
One size for all projects
Intolerant
Heavy
Embellished
Untried
Used Once
Criterea:
Product Shipped? Leadership remained intact
Would you do it again?
To meet
1. High bandwidth communication (“f2”)
2. Excess methodology is costy
3. Larger teams need heavier methods (??)
4. Greater ceremony good for greater criticality
5. Increased feedback and comm reduces the need for
intermediate deviverables
6. Discipline and skills mitigates less formality and docs
7. Efficiency is expendable in non bottleneck activities
Applying new agile practices
Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA)
Agile Radar
Agile Journey Index by
Krebs, Morgan, Aston
is also useful in this space
Applying for the Test
Apply online at PMI.org / agile. Document your required
work and training hours
Projects doing general work (and contact who can verify)
Projects while being on an Agile team (and contact)
Classes you took – date, evidence of completion
Assume you will be audited, and will need to show copies
of your records, and have your contacts fill in a form
validating your experience. Audits are not uncommon
(20% ?)
Taking the Test
Bring a sharpened number 2 pencil
Just kidding – it’s online
Do bring 2 forms of ID and your permission to test #
Test takes about 2 hours – you find out right away if you pass
To Apply for permission to take test be prepared to show your education and work records in case of an Audit (not uncommon)
Homework – outline one chapter of the PMI-ACP Exam Prep book and put it on discussion forum
Let us know when you pass the test!!