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

Values

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

Griffiths – Chapter 1

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

Manifesto and Methods

Chapter 2

Philosophy

Agile Manifesto

4 ‘overs’

12 Principals

Declaration of Independence

Feel for the values

Methods

FYI – Not on Test

• OpenUp? 3 Pillars of Scrum - TIA

Value Driven Development

Chapter 3

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

Delivering Value

Task/Kanban boards

WIP limits

Incremental delivery

Confirming Value

Custom-valued prioritization

Feedback through prototypes, simulations, and demos

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

Iron Triangles

V

V

Staffing

Time

Scope Scope

(FYI – is Quality the 4th leg?)

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

CFD – Cumulative Flow Diagram

Total

In Progress

Completed

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

Also read

DSDM Contract [Griffiths] Page 85 – money for nothing

Stakeholder Engagement

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

Leadership

Servant Leadership

What is the difference between “Manage” and “Lead”?

More

Principals for Leading Agile Teams

Modeling Desired Behavior

Communicate the Vision

Enable others to Act

Willing to Change

Responsibility, Respect, Fairness, Honesty

Boosting Team Performance

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

Adaptive Planning

(Per my course PM200 – Agile Project Management)

Problem Detection and Resolution

Per my Course A300 Agile Quality

Problem Detection and Resolution

Relates to A400 Next Steps for root cause analysis

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

Test Mechanics

Application, Audit, and Next Steps

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!!

Next Steps

Homework – outline one chapter of the PMI-ACP Exam

Prep book and put it on our discussion forum

Let us know when you pass the test !!