Types of Tests

The arguments in favor and against certifications are representative for certificates with automated tests without any initial requirements. Certificates that not only examine knowledge, but also test skills, for instance, in the course of an oral examination, or by demanding initial requirements, like proof of practical experience, may have different arguments.

Measuring Knowledge

These certificates basically involve a measurable proof of knowledge. Let's assume you want to hire consultants in the area of business process management (BPM). How do you determine beforehand which BPM knowledge the people have? Associate degrees prove holistic skills rather than topic-specific knowledge, such as BPM. An OCEB2 certificate is a tiny little piece of the answer to this question. Of course, you must not consider the certificate separately, and even less does it replace a one-to-one interview.

Forgetting Knowledge

Knowledge is subject to half-life. You forget things that you don't use regularly. For this reason, there are certificates that have an expiration date. After this expiration date, you must repeat the examination and pay for it to renew the certificate. This is very profitable for those issuing the certificates, and everyone may have their own opinion to what extent these repeated examinations make sense, for instance, for pilot licenses, or whether the date of the first examination, and some knowledge on the projects implemented are sufficient to get a good idea of how up-to-date the knowledge actually is. The OCEB2 certificates are valid for 5 years. This expiration is printed on your certificate.

Knowledge versus Skills

In real life, certificates are frequently misinterpreted and occasionally misused. Someone who doesn't know anything about the content or implementation of a certificate may easily be misled by alleged knowledge, skills, and experience, which most certificates don't prove at all. For example, an analyst requires the ability to abstract, have analytic power, excellent communication skills, and other soft skills. These skills are not covered by the OCEB2 certificates, and they could not be checked by any other multiple-choice test. This way, skills can only be verified to a limited extent or not at all. A certificate like OCEB2 is only a measure of knowledge—no more, no less.

Demand

It can be clearly perceived that the demand for certificates has increased in recent years. Certificates exist because there's a requirement for them. They don't grow on trees. One of the requirements has been shown previously: The requirement to make knowledge measurable. But there are further interests and the associated stakeholders.

Increasing the Value

The person certified possibly doesn't want to be measured at all. Maybe he wants to use the certificate to increase his value in order to increase his prospects for a good job or a profitable assignment. Or he perceives the certificate as a privilege. Email signatures frequently provide a proud list of all certificates achieved.

Supervisors

Supervisors are also stakeholders in the certification business. Maybe they want to use the certifications to upgrade their teams to the outside to be more successful in customer acquisition. As trainers for various certifications, we often witness that supervisors want to use certifications to test their employees, or make target agreements that are relevant for their salary. When the participants introduce themselves during our preparatory course they often say: “My boss wants me to do this.” Sometimes, there are also managers who don't pay their employees' certification because they dread fluctuation or higher salary demands due to the gain in status of the employee.

Commerce

The list of stakeholders wouldn't be complete without the certification organization itself. For OCEB2, these include OMG and UML Technology Institute (UTI) that developed the certification program and assume responsibility for it. There is no financial interest here. The revenues are to cover the costs for developing the certificate. However, OMG provides certificates to enable its members to earn money, for instance, with preparatory courses and consulting services in the topic area of the respective certificate. Persons running test centers also earn money. All examinations of OMG, and thus OCEB2, are done in Pearson VUE test centers.

A certificate is only one tiny little option of many others to assess a person. Depending on the context, it can be an important or unimportant little piece or simply the final touch to round off a person's image.

Goal

These and other BPM standards provide support to discover, incorporate, optimize, and implement business processes. The goal of OCEB2 is to provide a measure for this knowledge [18].

Developers

The certification program has been developed by a team of international experts. These include, for example, the OMG's project leader, Jon Siegel, Stephen White⁷ from IBM, as well as several employees from oose. You can find a full list of participants on OCEB2's official website: http://www.omg.org/oceb-2 [19].

Contents

OCEB2 not only addresses standards of OMG, but also asks questions on general knowledge of project and business process management, business administration, and basic rules, or quality frameworks like Six Sigma.

Accordingly, the reference list not only comprises OMG specifications, but also various articles and books. The list is rather comprehensive because, so far, no individual book has been published that covers such a wide range of topics in the area of business processes. But don't worry: Only individual sections from the many books are referenced and not all hundreds of pages. Moreover, you are holding this preparatory book in your hands that fully covers the topics relevant for OCEB2 Fundamental. You only require the official references if you want to read the original or require additional information.

Certificates

There are five OCEB2 certificates in total (Table 1.1). The Fundamental level covers basic knowledge. This forms the basis from where OCEB2 branches to a technical and a business area. The technical certificates are intended for IT employees who implement business processes in systems, that is, architects, designers, and developers. Topics include, for example, detailed modeling aspects, information security, and architectures such as Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The business certificates address analysts, architects, and also employees of specialist departments. Topics comprise, for example, change management, process improvement, or the management of business processes.

Table 1.1

OCEB2 Certification Program

The following sections briefly present the individual levels. As of Chapter 2, we only deal with the topics of the Fundamental level.

Business Goals

The business goals topic area entails concepts of business administration, marketing, and project management. Anyone who works in the business process environment should have basic knowledge of organizational forms of enterprises, market environment analyses, marketing, financial key figures, and business analysis methods.

Business Processes

Independent of the standard BPMN, the two topic areas, concepts and fundamentals of business processes and concepts and fundamentals of business process management, require basic knowledge of business processes. Not only the What, but also the How is important, for example, how to discover business processes or present business process hierarchies, and how to handle the various degrees of abstraction in the description. By aligning the business processes with the business goals, a link is established between the first and the third topic areas.

BPM

The business process management concepts and fundamentals topic area deals with the handling of business processes in enterprises, the impacts of process-focused structures, and the various approaches of business process management such as Business Process Reengineering (BPR) or Total Quality Management (TQM). Another topic is again an OMG standard: Business Process Maturity Model (BPMM). This is a maturity model for business processes similar to Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) for software and system development.

BMM

The business motivation modeling topic area addresses another OMG specifications. The Business Motivation Model (BMM) is a standard to describe business plans. It defines the basic artifacts, their characteristics, and their interrelationship. This includes vision, mission, strategy, business rules, objectives, influencers, and appraisals.

BPMN

With a total of 40%, the business process modeling concepts and skills topic assumes the largest part of the OCEB2-Fundamental certification. The OMG standard, BPMN, predominates here. BPMN fundamentals and the diagram elements of the process diagram are required here. You not only need to know what a specific element represents, but also must be able to interpret a BPMN diagram. You must be able to answer contextual questions on a process diagram with real subject-matter knowledge.

Frameworks

The last topic area of the OCEB2 Fundamental certification deals with process quality, governance, and metrics frameworks.

Members

Any organization can join OMG and actively participate in the standardization process. Almost all large enterprises of the IT industry and many small companies as well as universities are represented in OMG.

Meetings

Each year, OMG organizes conferences and technical meetings, where the various task teams come together to discuss and adopt standards.

Certifications

With the implementation of UML 2.0 in 2003, OMG for the first time developed a certification program called OCUP to provide a scale for the knowledge about one of its standards. This was followed by OCRES in 2006 for standards and general knowledge in the area of embedded systems. OCEB was developed and published as the third certification program in 2008. Additionally, OCSMP has been available for systems modeling since 2010.

Coverage Map

The first step on the path to certification is the contextual preparation. The topics covered by the certification are specified by OMG in the coverage map (Section A.1). The spectrum of topics is very diversified. Accordingly, the list of books, articles, and specifications, which are part of the official reference list of OCEB2 Fundamental, is very long. It takes a lot of effort to read and understand all of these references. And it also involves some rather significant costs, which will make the bookseller of your choice very happy. We've prepared these topics in a compressed form and have written this book on the basic knowledge for business process management.

Experience

Furthermore, we, as the authors of this book, have extensive experience with the OCEB2 certification. oose employees even participated in the development of the tests. They concerned themselves with the topic coverage and are authors of numerous original questions. Oose was the first enterprise in Germany to offer preparatory courses. This way, we were able to get profound insight in the experiences of our participants.

We compiled this information in this book. Note, however, that although we know the concrete questions, we won't pass them on because then the test and the certificate would become worthless. In addition, this is illegal. It is therefore not sufficient to just read this book or learn everything by heart—this book is supposed to be a guide to understand the BPM basic knowledge.

Registration

Taking the examination is the easiest step on the road to the OCEB2 certification. Go to the website of OMG certification at Pearson VUE, http://www.pearsonvue.com/omg, search for a test center nearby, and register for an exam. Specific professional prerequisites, such as a university degree, are not necessary. The examination fee amounts to ~$200.

Exam

You must take a computer-based exam to obtain OCEB2 certificates. Participants must report to the test center, have a picture taken, and identify themselves before the test begins. Formally, two IDs (e.g., an ID card and driver's license) are required. One of these IDs must have a photograph. At the test center, the participants are briefly instructed on how to use the test software. Then the test starts, and the countdown begins.

Multiple-Choice Tests

The test includes several multiple-choice questions that must be answered within a predefined period of time. The questions come from a large pool and are always recombined so that the tests are all unique. The questions are subject to secrecy, and the test center doesn't know them either.

90 Questions in 90 + 30 Minutes

Each of the five OCEB2 certification exams entails 90 questions. You have 90 minutes to complete the exam. The questions are all in English. If English is not your native language, you are granted another 30 minutes. It is rightly assumed that you require more time to understand the English questions and answers.

Each question is provided on a separate screen, and you can scroll back and forth between the questions. It is useful to answer the questions in the given sequence, but you can also skip questions and answer them later on. You have the option to set a little flag for each question. You can then do an overview to see which questions still need to be answered, and for which questions you've set a flag.

Test Questions

At the end of the respective chapters of this book, you can find a set of test questions that are similar to the original questions of the certification. These enable you to get a feel for the type of questions, and you can check your current state of knowledge.

Surveillance

The test room is under video surveillance or monitored directly by test center staff. It is not permitted to take along any aids, even paper or pens are not allowed. The test center provides memo means, which must be returned after completion. If participants break these rules, they automatically fail. The persons running the test center are also subject to strict requirements and controls.

Certificate

You pass the Fundamental exam if you've answered at least 62 out of 90 questions correctly (~ 69%). Other values apply for the subsequent OCEB2 certificates. The result is available immediately, and—if you passed—you receive a preliminary certificate to take along with you. The official document—in color for the picture frame behind your desk—is delivered by mail later on.

Fail and Repeat: Retention Period

If you've failed a test, you must wait at least 30 days to repeat the exam. A maximum of three attempts is permitted within 12 months.

The five certification levels are based on one another, that is, you only obtain a higher certificate if you've successfully passed the previous one. So it is not possible to only pass the OCEB Business Advanced test to receive the certificate.

Knowledge Transfer

Also plan to transfer your acquired knowledge into practice. In the short term, your only goal is to pass the exam, but surely you also have medium-term goals with regard to contents. You invest a lot of energy to build up this knowledge. Utilize this basis to improve yourself in practice. The best way to preserve theoretical knowledge is to use it in practice.

Thank You, OMG!

The constructive arguments within OMG during the development of the certification program with experts from around the world have ensured a lot of “aha” experiences. Our special thanks go to Jon Siegel, who runs the OCEB2 certification program and wrote the Preface to this book.

Thank You, oose!

The environment and the freedom that oose gives us are very important for our further professional and personal development. Many thanks go to our coworkers. Some figures of this book are by courtesy of oose.

Thank You, Publisher!

Great praise and big thank you is due to the publisher, dpunkt.verlag and particularly to Christa Preisendanz!

Thank You, Reviewer!

A book can never achieve good quality without a qualified review. A view from the outside is essential. In this context, we'd like to thank our coworkers and Ms. Bühlmann from Switzerland for her suggestions.