Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Studying for OCEB fundamentals

I was lucky to become one of the beta-testers for the OMG's OCEB fundamental exam.

More info on: http://www.omg.org/oceb/

A great refresh (well, to be honest - some new stuff!). And the nice thing - some of the new material I could immediately use in my work. For instance the BMM standard is a great framework for strategy and planning concepts. And Martyn Ould's book about BPM is a nice read, I like his tone of voice - I will probably not just read chapter one, but continue.

A fair amount of BPM area's is covered :

- Process concepts

- Process modelling (BPMN)

- Maturity (BPMM)

- Compliance (but a warning: very USA centric)

- Process performance - KPI's, goal setting, etc

- General MBA stuff on business concepts

- Six Sigma (very very basic)


Stuff that I miss (maybe in a more advanced level?):

- Change management

- BPM technology (including BAM, Rules, Document management interfacing)

- How to do BPM projects (from pure processwork to BPM technology)

- Other process improvement methods such as Lean, TOC

- The relation between BPM and Business/IT architecture

- Other "activity coordination" approaches besides orchestration & choreagraphy: case management, human interaction management, collaborative BPM

A tip: Don't underestimate the work - it's quite a lot of material.
A question: any other Dutch participants? Would be nice to become the first Dutch OCEB certified (ah, my ego again ;-))

Friday exam. Will let you know more... (well, as far as the quite strict NDA will allow me….)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just got my own OCEB certification completed here in Montreal and also noticed the bias towards the USA in the compliance material. This wasn't much of a problem for me personally because most of my work is done in the USA anyhow.

One thing I might recommend is taking some training. I took some excellent training at the following firm: http://interfacing.com/business-process-management-solutions/oceb-training-2

i would recommend them to anyone trying to get their certification. I even learned a few new things that helped me with a client project.

Anonymous said...

Interesting variety of subject areas that it covers. Do you know where I can find out a bit more about the service providers in Europe?

Thanks
Ian

Roeland Loggen said...

Well, depends:

For the exam, you can use the OCEB selected organisation (Pearson, see site).

For instruction courses, there are a number of them listed on the OCEB site as well. But in europe it's quite limited. So I studied the material on my own.
There are however some instruction course providers that have online training. See OCEB site as well.

Regards,
Roeland

Herky Mezarina said...

How I sign up for beta testing? There is a promotion code or vouchers?

Regards
PoloNet

Sethu said...

Hi Roeland,
Thanks for the post about OCEB. I'm from the US and planning to take it in the next 2 weeks. Can you answer these questions:
1. How long does it take to prepare?
2. Do we need to go through all the material listed?
3. How would rate the difficulty in a scale of 1-5.
Thanks ins advance for your response.
Cheers,
Sethu

ben said...

Hey Roeland,

nice blog on bpm you have here!

I just wanted to say i'm taking the OCEB technical intermediate this afternoon.. and it covers some more of the things you found missing, such as:

-BAM
-relation IT architecture / BPM
-business rules

-but also an extensive BoK of BPMN (ofcourse)

I must say I agree with the heavy time constraints OMG is putting forward on the beta-testers.
Normally i will be taking the advanced business track around 19/12 (it's due to be taken before 24/12 as far as I know of..), but I'm still doubting if i wil make it.
My preparation for this afternoon was also limited due to the fact that as a consultant I also have a fulltime job and family life to look after.. we'll see what gives.

Roeland Loggen said...

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the compliment!

I decided to pull out of the OCEB. I've done both Fundamentals (passed) and Business Intermediate (probably passed). But the rest : the time is just too short, just like to mentioned.

He, good luck with the exam! And thanks for your message.
Regards,
Roeland

PD said...

Hello Roeland, I hope you are still following this blog up as its a bit old now!

Can I start with saying that I am a bit scared with the difficulty of this test as mentioned by yourself and others(on the internet) but I guess thats a good thing.

Regarding preparation, do you think a training is mandatory (I dont have any BPM experience but yes, do understand it well plus am SOA certified architect as well) or preparing from the listed material is good enough? I think my main concern is the specifications that they've listed, from the books there are just a few chapters and then white papers however these specifications, they are a book each in themselves - do we really need to go thru thoroughly thru each of them before appearing for the exam - if thats the case then this'll probably take a few months for me along with my usual job!

Also, do you know of any sample exam questions anywhere please?

Thanks.