Critical Success Factors

The CISSP exam is undoubtedly challenging, but you can manage to succeed as I did.

The following are the critical success factors:

1. Discipline and Commitment
2. SMART Goals and Study Plan
3. Effective Study Materials
4. Effective and Efficient Study Approach

Discipline and Commitment

• Keep studying every day. It’s more effective to study constantly than intermittently.
• Reserve enough funds for your CISSP.

SMART Goals and Study Plan

• Determine your exam date. You don’t have to register and pay for the exam immediately, but I encourage you to do so in the beginning. If you feel that you are not well prepared one week before your exam date, reschedule it.
• Evaluate how many study hours you will spend preparing for the CISSP exam. In my opinion, 250-hour is a ballpark figure for your reference. Work experience related to general management, project management, ITIL foundation, and network essentials helps.

Effective Study Materials

• Get one and only one study guide as your primary source; If you are affordable, a second source isn’t a bad idea. I recommend the ISC2 official study guide from Sybex as the primary.
• Make good use of the practice questions and other resources companioned with the study guide. Typically, you can register the book online to get access to the online practice questions.
• Get a reliable source of questions for more practice.
• Before you sit for the CISSP exam, practice at least 2500 questions.

Effective and Efficient Study Approach

• Keep a constant and stable pace of study.
• Use the top-down approach. Building the high-level conceptual model of information security (your study blueprint) in the first one or two weeks is crucial. Don’t dive into the details in the beginning.
• Weigh concepts over the facts. Please do understand how the principles, processes, lifecycles, and frameworks work and how to apply them in practice. Rote learning or memorizing everything doesn’t work.
• Study information security with a business mindset. Relate what you have learned to your job; that is, study to solve problems and deliver values.

My Journey to Success

• Security Governance
  1. CGEIT, Certified Governance of Enterprise IT
  2. CISM, Certified Information Security Manager
  3. CRISC, Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control
  4. CISA, Certified Information Systems Auditor
• Security Management
  1. CISSP, Certified Information Systems Security Professional
  2. CISSP-ISSEP, Information Systems Security Engineering Professional
  3. CISSP-ISSAP, Information Systems Security Architecture Professional
  4. CISSP-ISSMP, Information Systems Security Management Professional
  5. CCSP, Certified Cloud Security Professional
  6. CSSLP, Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional
• Security Technologies
  1. CEH, EC-Council Certified Ethical Hacker v10
  2. ECSA, EC-Council Certified Security Analyst v10

Get Started Your CISSP Journey!

Please refer to the CISSP Starter Page to start your CISSP journey, and join Wentz’s Effective CISSP Facebook group to learn and share together!

• CISSP Starter Page: https://wentzwu.com/cissp
• Effective CISSP: https://www.facebook.com/groups/EffectiveCISSP