Examination Number: OMG-OCEB-B301
Status: Beta testing scheduled to begin November 24, 2008.

This page starts with the Coverage Map for the OCEB Business Advanced Examination - a list of the topics and subtopics covered, and the percentage of the exam that each occupies. Following the Coverage Map is the list of references, along with suggestions for study.

OCEB Study Guides and Training Courses are here now! Check this page for Courses, Study Guides, and books written by the same group of experts who are writing the exams!

OCEB BUSINESS ADVANCED EXAMINATION - COVERAGE MAP

1. Aligning BPM with Enterprise goals and resources - 11%

Aligning business processes with stakeholders’ goals; aligning business processes with available resources; changing business processes to continue to achieve business goals in response to changing conditions; enterprise decision management.

2. Advanced Business Process Modeling with BPMN - 15%

Advanced process discovery; working with large models; splitting a model for outsourcing; model validation.

3. Management of BPM programs - 27%

Developing a BPM Center of Excellence; Developing an enterprise roadmap for BPM; techniques to drive business adoption; developing business cases; developing a business architecture; resourcing a BPM team; ownership of processes; process portfolio management; global and local process guidelines.

4. Advanced Change Management - 11%

Implementing and aligning organizational change; rollout strategies; assessing degrees of impact; advanced change techniques.

5. Compliance and Assurance - 22%

Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) including Corporate Governance, Enterprise Risk Management, Strategic Compliance Management, and Corporate Social Responsibility. Assurance topics including Information Assurance, Process Assurance, and Quality Assurance.

6. Advanced Topics in Process Improvement - 14%

BP and transition QA techniques; BPMM – Structure and Major Features; 6 Sigma – Major features, approaches, and benefits; LEAN - Major features, approaches, and benefits.

OCEB BUSINESS ADVANCED EXAMINATION - REFERENCES

This is a list of suggested references – neither required, nor complete. We certainly don’t expect anyone to accumulate this exact library of references to study for the exam, and we know that a large percentage of BPM practitioners will study from other sources, know the material well, and quite deservedly pass our exams. About completeness: We realize there are a few topics listed in the Coverage Map above that are not represented by explicit book or page references in this References section, but we know that the capable Advanced Level BPM practitioner can find them, either in one of the references on a different page, or in a source of its own.

About Wikipedia: In general, we have found Wikipedia articles to be good sources of basic knowledge about topics covered by the OCEB examinations, but we have not listed any Wikipedia articles as sources here. Why not? Because we didn’t feel right about referencing an article that can change from minute to minute – making it possible for an article that reads perfectly well when one person studies it, to be incorrect (or, at least, inconsistent with an OCEB examination question) when another person studies from it later that day, or the next. We expect that many candidates will find Wikipedia a useful starting point for their study, although we expect those at Intermediate and Advanced level will need to go beyond Wikipedia for material on many topics.

References - Books:

Which books should I buy? The BPM experts who mapped the coverage and wrote the questions for the OCEB examinations found that no single book covered the range of material that a well-rounded BPM practitioner needs to know. In our lists for the different examinations, you'll find the books that we used to write the questions, but we don't think it's necessary to study this exact set in order to do well on the exam. In the entry for each book, we've listed the topics we covered from it; if you have another book that covers the same topics, or can find an alternate source somewhere else (such as on the Web), we suggest you use it instead of investing in a book that nearly duplicates it. On the other hand, if you don't have a book on one of these topics, we think that one or the other from this list on a topic would enhance any BPM practitioner's library. And, by listing sections, we don’t mean to discourage you from browsing more widely through these books – Reading about topics beyond those listed here will help you, not only in your career, but likely also when you take our OCEB examinations.

• David Bridgeland and Ron Zahavi, Business Modeling: A Practical Guide to Realizing Business Value, MK/OMG Press, 2008. Not yet published; we have posted the referenced chapter on Model Value Analysis for free download here.
• Paul Harmon, Business Process Change, Second Edition, Morgan Kaufman, 2007. Chapter 4, first 6 sections (they’re not numbered) covering Business Process Architecture, and Core, Support, and Management Processes; and Chapter 8 on Process Problems.
• Howard Smith, Peter Fingar, Business Process Management - the third wave, Meghan Kiffer, 2006, OR Peter Fingar and Joe Bellini, The Real-Time Enterprise, Meghan Kiffer, 2004, or another basic article or book on outsourcing.
• Jeffrey Hiatt and Timothy Creasey, Change Management – the People Side of Change, Prosci, 2003 (Paperback). Chapters 1-6. This topic gets a section of the exam all to itself. If you use an alternate source, be sure to study people change management, not engineering change management.
• Fred Cummins, Building the Agile Enterprise with SOA, BPM, and MBM, Morgan Kaufmann/OMG Press, 2009 [actually released October 2008]. Chapters 1, 2, and 9, or an alternate source on the Enterprise view of SOA, agility, and their effects on business requirements.
• Jeanne W. Ross et al, Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution. Harvard Business School Press, 2006. Chapters 1-4 covering types of Enterprise Architecture and choosing the right one for your enterprise.
• H. James Harrington, Business Process Improvement: The breakthrough Strategy for Total Quality, Productivity, and Competitiveness. McGraw-Hill, 1991. Chapter 2, especially the section on the process owner, or another reference on process owner responsibilities.
• James Taylor and Neil Raden, Smart (Enough) Systems, Prentice Hall, 2007. Chapters 1 & 2 on Enterprise Decision Management basics; Ch 9 on introducing EDM to your enterprise, through the section on Phase 2.
• Natalie Sayer and Bruce Williams, LEAN for Dummies, Wiley, 2007. Chapters 1 & 2 on the foundation, basic structure, and vocabulary of LEAN, or another suitable reference on these topics.
• Harvard Business School (editor), Strategy; Create and Implement the Best Strategy for your Business, Subject Adviser, David J. Collis, Harvard Business School Publishing USA 2005. The Business Advanced examination touches on business strategy. Experienced practitioners probably don’t need to study this topic, but others might. This primer contains a lot of good information for a very reasonable price. You need only read the basics to be prepared for this exam, but you’ll need more than that to be prepared for the world of business!

Books about GRC and other industry frameworks are listed in their own section, below.

References - Papers (All downloadable free):

We admit, this is a long list of papers, even if they are all free downloads. For four topics, we’ve included multiple references, grouped together (in random order) under a heading. You may decide to study only one or a few, figuring that will cover enough material (although you’re the one making the decision on which reference to use, and when to stop), but if you read more than one, and especially if you browse the web for additional material, you’ll get a better picture of the range of opinions and possible solutions on that topic – a wider point of view that will serve you well when you’re in a responsible position and have to pick a solution, or defend your choice of solution as consistent with industry best practice.

• OCEB Definition of Business Process
• Laury Verner, The Challenge of Process Discovery. BPTrends website. May, 2004. (Free download)
• Michael Rosemann, Process Portfolio Management.
• Corporate social responsibility Guide, UK government BusinessLink
• Georgina Gonzalez and Karpagam Sankaran, Hypothesis Testing. (Skip the last section on Environmental Sampling.)
• These four references cover BPM Center of Excellence:
  • Madhat Gala, Center of Excellence: The Path to Process Innovation Success, DM Review Magazine, Sept. 1, 2008.
  • Glenn Smith, How to Establish a BPM Center of Excellence, BPM Enterprise, August, 2008.
  • Ken Vollmer, The EA View: BPM Has Become Mainstream OR this article based on the report: Rich Seeley, Forrester Details “Secret Sauce” for BPM Success, downloadable here.
  • Richardson, Clay, Process Governance Best Practices: Building a BPM Center of Excellence.
• These three references cover Information Assurance:
  • Lawrence R. Rogers, Principles of Survivability and Information Assurance.
  • Edward S Ferrara, The Need for Information Assurance in the 21st Century.
  • NIST Special Publication 800-30. Risk Management Guide for. Information Technology Systems.
• These six references cover BP and Quality Assurance:
  • Judy McKay, Quality Doesn't Just Happen.
  • James Eckle interviews Judy McKay, The secrets of successfully managing techies.
  • Elisabeth Hendrickson, Managing Technical People (When You're No Techie).
  • Andrew Brandt, Stupid QA Tricks: Colossal Software Testing Oversights.
  • Daniel J. Madison, The Five Implementation Options to Manage the Risk in a New Process.
  • Marvin Wurtzel, The Marriage of BPM and Six Sigma.
• These five references cover Business Case for BPM, and Adoption Topics
  • LogicManager, The Challenge of BPM Adoption
  • Sandy Kemsley’s review: Accelerating BPM Adoption Through An Integrated Business Framework.
  • Computer Business Review, Making a Business Case for BPM
  • FSN, Quantifying the benefits of BPM.
  • PC Magazine, Making the Case for BPM: A Benefits Checklist   (Free registration required)

References: OMG and other Specifications (All Downloadable free):

• Business Process Modeling Notation specification (BPMN), V1.1 - (Free download). In the Advanced examination, questions may draw on any of the BPMN elements and constructs covered in the two previous examinations. Attributes are not emphasized in this examination.
• Business Process Maturity Model Specification, V1.0 – (Free Download) Chapters 7-10; also review the structure presented in Ch 12 (details of the structural components are not covered in the exam), and the definition of Institutionalization in 13.1 – 13.2.

References: Industry Frameworks:

Unlike the previous examinations which focused on particular frameworks, the Business Advanced examination is organized around topics. We listed the broad topics near the top in the description of topic 5 – Compliance and Assurance. In this list of sources, we list the topics covered in a bit more detail. If you already have or can find a good alternative source on a topic, you should do well on that part of the exam without studying from the exact book listed here.

• Frederick D. Lipman and L.Keith Lipman, Corporate Governance Best Practices: Strategies for Public, Private, and Not-for-Profit Organizations, Wiley, 2006. Chapters 1 & 2 on corporate governance principles and best practice.
• Robert J. Chapman, Simple Tools and Techniques for Enterprise Risk Management, Wiley, 2006. Chapter 1 on basics of Risk Management; Ch 4 on internal control and Risk Management; and Ch. 17 on Operational Risk Management.
• Michael G. Silverman, Compliance Management for Public, Private, or Nonprofit Organizations, McGraw-Hill, 2008. Chapter 3 entitled Compliance and Ethics, which actually covers a range of barriers to compliance; Chapter 5 on Managing Compliance – Goals and Structure; and Chapter 11 on Evaluating Compliance.
• Thomas Pyzdek and Paul A. Keller, Quality Engineering Handbook, 2nd revised edition, CRC, 2003. or an alternate source on quality assurance, quality management, and quality frameworks.
  
  

Training Courses and Study Guides

There's no required training associated with the OCEB examinations - you're welcome to study on your own, and take the test when you feel you're ready. However, for those candidates who prefer to take a dedicated course that prepares them for the exam, or study from a book structured with the exam in mind, some of the same experts who are writing the exams are also preparing study materials. We've listed them on this web page.