Failed Practitioner Exam

jpleace

I took the Pink Elephant Virtual Course for Practitioner, studied hard and still failed the exam by two points. What got me was the section on metrics and measurements. The sample paper questions were not like the actual test questions, only some of the scenarios were similar. The Axelos ITIL Practitioner Guidance publication was used as the text for this class. Can anyone who has taken the Practitioner exam please guide me on how I can get better at the metrics (CSF's and PKI's). I found the actual exam question quite difficult when it came to identifying inside-out, outside-in, process etc. There was not anything that looked clear on lagging or leading. I need a plan if I'm going to take this again

genxfinalrevision

While I have not yet taken the Practitioner, I have the Guidance and plan to do so after sitting RCV, next weekend.

Last weekend, I earned the certification for CSI (an Intermediate level exam that is said to have some Practitioner alignment but I am finding fewer instances of this as I read through the Practitioner Guidance...at least the topic is discussed differently in the two publications). At any rate the CSI Guidance does have a lot of material related to measurements/metrics - of course, none of the life cycle Guidance publications are geared specifically to the functional/direct application of the concepts presented.

Are you able to speak about some of the insights you gathered from the exam? Have you taken any Intermediate exams or just Foundation? Anything that you can share may make it easier for myself (and others) to lend helpful advice.

Unless something goes horribly wrong next weekend, I will be preparing for the Practitioner by Saturday evening. The certification will make me eligible to for the MALC. For that reason, I am very motivated to discuss and share insights with others preparing for the Practitioner exam.

Good luck on your retake...you were pretty close and it's a newer exam so there isn't as much established help out for it.

jpleace

Well I'll try to give you the low down. I wish I had a copy of that exam-there was scenarios to institute more categories of CSF's and KPI's. I don't really remember if they had a firm grasp on whether theirs were working or not. I have not been able to successfully spot and weed out the types of KPI that should be "balanced" in a scenario (Process, Technology, Leading, Trailing, Inside-out, Outside-in etc.) I know they were in the scenario. Here were my weak areas according to the post test report:

ITIL_PRCT_4 - Be able to use measurement and metrics to enable continual improvement
2.00
8.00





25.00%





ITIL_PRCT_5 - Be able to communicate effectively to enable continual service improvement
4.00
8.00





50.00%






This may not be enough to help but that's where I need to work. The sample papers that Pink Elephant included were only relevant for scenario rationales and the questions were different. I think I was guilty of memorizing it. I would really love to get a copy of the actual People Cert exam. If I can answer anything else please don't hesitate to ask. I appreciate all the guidance I can get

genxfinalrevision

Some of the measurement questions can be tricky...before trying to decide on the proper CSFs and KPIs (which often all seem a little plausible), you have to stop and ask yourself what is the purpose. Knowing if the measuring is meant to validate, direct, justify, or intervene will help to inform what types of KPIs would be useful.

If you trained with a company, do they have any assistance that they can give. Even if you didn't sit in a classroom and take the test in their building, they should be able to offer some guidance based on your feedback from the test.

I'm not sure if you can obtain a copy of the exam from one of the testing outfits. They probably have more than one set of questions - otherwise everyone could just take it twice.

jpleace

The instructor gave me an additional hour in which we went over the areas of metrics and measurements that I missed. As you said there are key ways to look at it. If keywords such as Hierarchy are used then it's not Balanced Scorecard etc. I wish I could get a copy of the exam but they only had sample papers.

Yoshii Capone

I'm sorry to see you didn't pass JPLEACE...I wish you the best of luck on the retake and look forward to your next post after the retake

ItsmHarun

best luck for next try...

Gerwin

Is there someone who has the practitioner questions and/or sample papers? I would really like to see them and train with them ....