Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) - My Journey

 

Well I did the almost impossible, and proved that it is indeed possible. After getting audited for the PMI-ACP exam, I missed out on the exam cut-off date at the end of March 2018. This meant that according to many in the know, it would be necessary to learn the entire Agile Practice Guide in addition to the other recommended resources.

I decided against this, and in true Agile fashion, instead focused on what I believed would be "barely sufficient" to pass the PMI-ACP exam. I knew that in this way, if I did pass the exam, that would be the best indication of a true Agile mindset. And so, this is how I did it:

First a disclaimer. I am not condoning this method as the best way of passing the exam. Naturally, arming oneself with all the knowledge at your disposal would be a sensible thing to do. The Agile Practice Guide is one of those knowledge assets that is key for most people to pass the exam, and will undoubtedly become increasingly important as the years go by. I can only say what worked for me.

Step 1
First and foremost, I ordered a copy of Mike Griffiths book "PMI-ACP Exam Prep". Then I read the book from cover to cover without answering any of the end-of-chapter quizzes. Then I read it a second time (skipping the parts I was proficient in) and this time made sure to do the end-of-chapter quizzes. If you get around 80% average for these quizzes, then move on to the next step; otherwise go through the book again. I averaged around 85%.

Step 2
Look at all the "Tasks" for all seven domains in the PMI-ACP Examination Content Outline. It's a good indication of the kinds of topic areas and terminology that will be tested during the exam.

Step 3
Get a top-quality exam simulator. In my view there are only two: Fastrack and Prepcast. I went with Fastrack because it is aligned with the Mike Griffiths book. I only did two full-exam simulations. Yes you heard me correctly. Memorizing simulation exams is not going to reflect actual results in the real exam. It's far better to study hard and then attempt a simulation exam to get a true indication of your knowledge level. You should not get less than 70% on your first try, 80% on your second try and so on. I got 82% and 90% respectively.

Study Duration
I would say that I studied for around six weeks, for a few hours a day, and sometimes more on the weekend. Minus two weeks during the audit process when I didn't feel like studying at all.

Exam Day
Apart from a lot of noise in the examination room, some guy typing heavily on his keyboard (must have been for a different certification), people coming in and out of the room all the time, and the person who was coughing up a lung, hey it was fairly quiet.

Now for the shocking part. The exam was a lot harder than I thought. I have to say that 1/3 of the exam (around 40 questions) I was pretty unsure of the answers and just did my best to guess what I felt was correct. From memory, there were no questions on XP, only a few on Scrum, and a lot of focus on risk, stakeholders, team performance, and value delivery. Every exam is different, and perhaps on your exam you might get ten questions on XP.

You know how they say that you can usually cancel out two answers on the exam and be left with two seemingly correct choices, and then just pick one? Well I recall well over 20 questions where I could swear three of the answers could have been correct.

One of my colleagues here on PM.com said he was out of the PMI-ACP exam in 1 hour. Either he is a super computer, or we had two totally different exams (I'm skipping the third option where I am just plain dumb). I took around 2 hours and then went over some questions again before ending the exam. I probably wasted 30 minutes not being able to focus due to the noise in my examination room. I am totally OCD that way.

When I finished the exam, I honestly had no idea how I went, and was nervously anticipating the worst at the end of the survey. Instead, I passed the exam with "Above Average" in each of the seven domains.



In summary, I have to accredit the PMI-ACP exam pass to the Mike Griffiths book and by association, the Fastrack exam simulator. Not to mention my perseverance, beeline focus, and a strong cup of coffee just prior to the exam.

It was a rocky road, but at the end of the day, I am still happy to be certified as an Agile practitioner with the world's leading project management and Agile certification body, PMI.
 

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