Monthly Archives: July 2018

ACP16 Vision Statement

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pmi-acp

As a coach for the ACP16 class pursuing the PMI-ACP certification, I would propose a vision statement as follows and invite your commitment to:

The Shared Vision and Common Goals

  1. To succeed in the PMI-ACP exam by 2018/09/30 and help others do
  2. To continue learning and cultivate this profession on an ongoing basis

The Ground Rules

  1. Get prepared
  2. Be on time

Please get prepared and be on time to show up for the study group meetings. To be prepared, you have to study the specified materials as best as you can and it is highly expected that you finish the 20 assessment questions for each exam domain and learn by test-driven and top-down approach.

It is the key to the success of you and the whole team acknowledging the value of the ACP16 partnership, actively participating in the class activities and study group meetings.

Your coach,
Wentz Wu
2018/08/01

Bruce Passed ISACA CISM Exam on 24th July

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CISM

After passing CISSP and PMI-RMP on 06/19 and 07/10 respectively, Bruce provisionally passed ISACA CISM exam today (07/24). The exam is completed in 100 minutes.

It takes around 40 study hours to nail it. The preparation materials are listed as follows:

  1. CISM Certified Information Security Manager All-in-One Exam Guide 1st Edition
  2. YouTube Videos: Isaca CISM Real Exam 1~6
  3. Information Security Governance: Guidance for Boards of Directors and Executive Management 2nd Ed.
  4. NIST Special Publication 800-61 Revision 2 (Computer Security Incident Handling Guide)
  5. CISA Review Manual, 26th Edition
  6. CRISC Review Manual, 6th Edition
  7. CGEIT Review Manual, 7th Edition
  8. Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) Knowledge Foundation
  9. The Standard for Portfolio Management
  10. The Standard for Program Management

I really love the exams from ISACA. They are management-centric, or more specifically, they are for CIOs, CISOs, or Information Security Managers. Exam candidates should have solid foundation about Governance, Strategic Management, Risk Management, and know some technical stuff at conceptual level.

Frankly, CISM is not so challenging for business people, while technical guys would have to spend some time in studying the business stuff. This exam is all about concepts and principles. Don’t just memorize without understanding how the business world works. Some questions are tricky and you have to distinguish the minute differences between the answer options.

Some final words:

  1. Business always wins
  2. Align with the organizational objectives and strategy
  3. Don’t forget risks
  4. Know the current situation before taking any actions
  5. Know the Roles and Responsibilities

Bruce Passed PMI-RMP Exam on 10th July

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pmi-rmp

Maria Typhoon strikes Taiwan today (10th July). I am very fortunate to complete the PMI-RMP exam before the exam center is closed. In nearly four months, I finally achieved the goal of learning for this year to pass these exams, PMI-ACP, PMI-PBA, CISSP and PMI-RMP.

The PMI-RMP exam took a total of 80 hours: 50 hours for the e-learning course and extra 30 hours for study and preparation for the exam.

Basically, PMI-RMP is an advanced version of PMI-PMP, so it’s a must to review the exam contents of PMI-PMP and strengthen the knowledge area of ​​risk management.

The following is the materials I used:

  1. PMI-RMP Certification ExamPrep Course from Advanced Business Consulting Inc.
  2. Practice Standard for Project Risk Management (2009 edition, a bit old; but this is an important reading of the exam)
  3. PMBOK Guide – Fifth Edition
  4. PMBOK Guide – Sixth Edition
  5. PMI-RMP Exam Prep Study Guide by Belinda Fremouw

For the purpose of taking the PMI-RMP (Exam Outline for 2015), the above textbooks should be quite adequate.

Frankly, I was very hard at the beginning of the preparation of RMP. Fortunately, teacher Roger introduced Dr. David Hillson in the course, and finally I found a bright light to get started.

The following information from Dr. Hillson is very helpful to me personally. It is highly recommended to study:

  1. His conference papers published by PMI (about 25 articles)
  2. YouTube’s RiskDoctorVideo channel (especially the ones that explain the RaRa Model)
  3. The Risk Management Handbook: A Practical Guide to Managing the Multiple Dimensions of Risk (ISBN-10: 0749478829)