Revising

[Nola25]

Hi

I'm attending a course next week for a professional qualification that, if I pass, will involve a fairly decent salary hike and open others avenues for employment.

Course is an Agile PM foundation and Practitioner and I've been informed as part of the pre course admin that homework and revision will be needed.

I currently work as a Junior PM and whilst I have my Prince2 qualification I barely scrapped a pass as I didn't carry out any revision but this time, because I basically don't know how to revise. didn't do much at school 35yrs ago and haven't done any since. I do perform fairly high within my current role, hence the course being offered.

I struggle to absorb information unless I'm actually doing the do and lack high levels of concentration when learning from a text book (my efforts at learning about bringing up a baby from a book are testament to that, albeit now he's here I'm doing ok)

Any tips on how to approach this?

[Truckosaurus]

I had to do an IT certification exam last year, the first formal test I've had since being a student over 25 years ago, so it was a bit of a culture shock having to revise for a test on topics you'd covered weeks before, rather than just do a quick online test on things you'd read 5 minutes previously like other education I'd done at work.

I found that writing notes (with pen and paper!) helped absorb what you've read, and then creating a list of bullet points of topics and key items that you could look out and go back to anything that you thought 'what the hell is that?'.

There were Youtube videos that covered the course basics in a couple of hours, which was a good helper in addition to the official training material. PRINCE stuff is popular enough that there must be something out there similar.

I also booked the exam for a Monday morning, and spent the weekend before doing nothing but going through everything one last time.

Finally, online videos can usually be sped up to 1.25 or 1.5 speed without seeming rushed which helps cut down the time when re-watching.

[C5_Steve]

I learn in the same way, find things far easier to understand when "doing" rather than reading. As mentioned above, try writing out a summary of a section in your own words, then refine it down again to bullet points. Then, what I found really helps cement the learning is either explaining what you've learned to someone or if no one wants to be bored then literally just speaking it out loud like you're giving a talk to an imaginary audience on the topic you've just covered.

By explaining it in your own words you're forcing your brain to understand the mechanics and details of what you're learning. You're also trying to move information from short-term to long-term memory and the best way to do that is repetition.

[Sheets Tabuer]

Videos, practice tests, study guide and flashcards.

[Freakuk]

Got to be honest I hate courses and would much rather learn on the job in a real world scenario.

The Prince2 course, book, homework was a real drag when I did mine years ago. I've never bothered doing an Agile course but have delivered multiple Agile projects, I know a fair few people who are Agile delivery managers/scrum masters etc that have just been flung into that position and carved out a decent enough career, I'm not saying it was easy in that scenario, but it's easier than Waterfall IMO.

I guess if it helps get a decent wage rise for you it's obviously worth the hassle to get the qualification under your belt.

I'm going to make an assumption here that if you have your Prince2 and have delivered projects using this methodology you shouldn't have too much trouble getting your head around Agile, in effect it's breaking down a larger project into smaller, manageable work packages and tracking them from requirements to delivery within 2-4 weeks, scoring them from a difficulty/effort perspective to get as much done in a sprint as possible in the correct order, i.e. get your dependencies worked out at the beginning and during each sprint, and tracking success/failure to enable each subsequent sprint to be better than the last.

I think notes, little stick it tabs you can put on pages that you can flick to quickly help, highlighter pens to draw your eye to certain sections will all help. Likewise, assuming there is homework involved make sure you have no interruptions or plans, just devote a week of your life to getting the course done. If like me after 20 mins or so your mind starts to drift, you're reading but not absorbing the information take a break, then start again, trying to just work through isn't going to help.

[Freakuk]

CheesecakeRunner said:

Freakuk said:

I'm going to make an assumption here that if you have your Prince2 and have delivered projects using this methodology you shouldn't have too much trouble getting your head around Agile, in effect it's breaking down a larger project into smaller, manageable work packages and tracking them from requirements to delivery within 2-4 weeks, scoring them from a difficulty/effort perspective to get as much done in a sprint as possible in the correct order, i.e. get your dependencies worked out at the beginning and during each sprint, and tracking success/failure to enable each subsequent sprint to be better than the last.

That’s not Agile. That’s iterative software delivery, Scrum being the most common these days. What you describe can equally be used to deliver a Waterfall project.

Agile is about how the business works with the software delivery to continually refine what’s being delivered to make sure it’s what’s needed and it’s delivered quickly and updated frequently. You can (and maybe more people should) do Agile delivery without sprints, and stand ups and planning poker and all the rest of the crap. You could do an Agile project with a business stakeholder permanently sat next to a developer with the developer continually asking the business person what they want, then building it, testing it, documenting it, and releasing it. Then reviewing what they’ve done to check it is meeting the needs. If it isn’t, change it. That would be the purest form of Agile possible.

It was an example and not going into every facet of the Agile framework, but IMO this is still the basics from a tech perspective on what those iterative steps look like

[Nola25]

Many thanks for all of your replies and advice

Been and stocked up on flash cards, sticky notes etc and found a couple of videos to watch

[wombleh]

I’ve done a few fairly hefty certs and my tools of choice are mind maps, flashcard apps and associative memory approaches for remembering lists. Had a few books by a guy called Tony Buzan that a few of us used as prep, also one on speed reading which was handy for absorbing massive text books full of info.

[gangzoom]

Nola25 said:

I currently work as a Junior PM and whilst I have my Prince2 qualification I barely scrapped a pass as I didn't carry out any revision but this time, because I basically don't know how to revise

A pass is a pass, I personally see little point in aiming for distinctions. Everyone has their own learning style, you need to find yours, but it all essentially comes down to finding time to focus, and putting in the effort.

Very few people don't have the ability to progress academicly, I count my self as distinctly average at best in natural ability, its putting in the effort that counts.

Having a plan to revision/writing is also vital, focus on what the exam is going to test vs trying to learn everything - passing is the aim (even by 1 mark).

[brickwall]

Out of interest who is the course provider? It’s a bit of a Wild West out there with some professional outfits (QA and Global Knowledge spring to mind) but also a fair few mom-and-pop shops.

[Nola25]

brickwall said:

Out of interest who is the course provider? It’s a bit of a Wild West out there with some professional outfits (QA and Global Knowledge spring to mind) but also a fair few mom-and-pop shops.

It’s a company called The Knowledge Academy

[brickwall]

Nola25 said:

brickwall said:

Out of interest who is the course provider? It’s a bit of a Wild West out there with some professional outfits (QA and Global Knowledge spring to mind) but also a fair few mom-and-pop shops.

It’s a company called The Knowledge Academy

They’re a well-known pretty sizeable outfit, so should be very well-practiced in getting people through the exams. They should give you all the tips you need.

[Nola25]

Again, many thanks for all of your replies and hints

Took the foundation test last week and scraped through, practitioner today and passed that too

Flash cards helped, as did having a decent amount of time to read, make notes and repeat

Cheers all

[gangzoom]

^Well done, a pass is a pass is a pass .