Passed the PMI-ACP Exam

Yesterday I passed the PMI – Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) exam with Proficient results. Woo Hoo!!

I took a very very light weight approach to my preparation. I am currently very time poor which has led me to do minimal and just enough study.

I did not read any of the prescribed reference books for the exam (I have no time) – there’s 11 of them (ouch)!!! But I have read parts of some of the books at some stage in the past. The only book I read once 4 months ago was “The PMI-ACP Exam: How To Pass On Your First Try” by Andy Crowe. In hind sight after completing the exam, I didn’t find this book very useful in that I didn’t learn anything that would prepare me for the exam.

A few days prior to the exam, I used http://www.agileexams.com as a guide to what to study. Whenever I got an answer wrong I would do a short study spike by researching the topic. Most of the time the questions I got wrong on the practice exam were ‘off-the-road’ agile concepts or ensuring I got the ‘text-book’ agile theory right. As most would know, there are various approaches and adaptations in agile that would work, but for the exam you are tested for the theoretical correct approach. I would recommend using agileexams (I found it useful) as a study/prep tool as a way to hone in on study gaps.

I am an agile practitioner and have been coaching agile for a number of years now so the above light weight, minimal marketable reading approach worked for me. I suspect if you have agile experience, then passing the exam would not be too difficult without having to read all the books too.

For the actual exam I took 3 iterations, 2 hours in total (you have 3 hours to complete the exam):

Iteration 1 – Went through all the questions and selected the best answer. Marked about 20 questions to review (60mins).
Iteration 2 – Reviewed all the marked questions (15mins).
Iteration 3 – Went through all the questions again to double check my answers (45 mins).

In most cases, 2 answers can be easily ruled out (i.e. obviously incorrect). There were a few instances where in practice several answers would be plausible, but there was only one theoretical and ‘correct’ answer for the exam.

Good luck if you are planning to take the exam!

Now that I am PMI-ACP certified, what now?