This page starts with the Coverage Map for the OCEB Technical 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 TECHNICAL ADVANCED EXAM - REFERENCE LIST

This is a list of suggested references that is neither required, nor complete. It is not expected that anyone accumulate this exact library of references to study for the exam.  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 Study Material section, but we know that the capable Advanced Level BPM Practitioner can find them, either in one of the listed references, 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. We do not 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 to go beyond Wikipedia for material on many topics.

Books:

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.

• Effective IT Service Management – to ITIL and Beyond! Springer
  Rob Addy, 2007. 
  Chapters 8 (Services)
                    9 (Defining Meaningful IT Services)
                  10 (Service Catalog / Portfolio)
• Key Performance Indicators: Developing, Implementing,and Using Winning KPIs
  David Parmenter - Wiley, 2007
  Note: This book is a good source of information on KPIs, although the exam does not cover the author’s methodology. Alternatively, the Ed Walters article (cited below), plus the IBM article cited next in our list, cover this topic pretty well.
• Business Process Change, Second Edition
  Paul Harmon - Morgan Kaufman, 2007. 
  Chapter 6 (Measuring Process Performance)
  pp. 455 ff (BPMS and BAM)
• Business Process Management - the third wave
  Howard Smith, Peter Fingar - Meghan Kiffer, 2006
  On the BPM process lifecycle, or an alternate reference on process lifecycle.
• BOOKS ON SOA: Several subsections of Part 4 (Enterprise Architecture) of this examination cover SOA. There are many SOA books on the market; we’ve used these three and any one will serve you well in your preparation but, if you already have a general SOA book on your shelf, you should be similarly well-prepared if you use it instead. Note, however, that Rosen’s book also has a useful section on ESB that we didn’t find in either of the other two books on our list.
  • Applied SOA: Service-Oriented Architecture and Design Strategies
    Michael Rosen et al - Wiley, 2008. 
    Chapters 1 & 2 (SOA fundamentals)
                       6 (first section, Services Revisited)
                       9 (section on ESB, pp 344-351, or an alternative reference on ESB basics)
  •  Implementing SOA: Total Architecture in Practice
    Paul C. Brown - Addison-Wesley, 2008. 
    Chapters 1-4 (SOA fundamentals)
    Note: This book is a suitable alternative to Rosen’s book (just above).
  • Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA): Concepts, Technology, and Design
    Thomas Erl - Prentice-Hall, 2005. 
    Chapter 3 (SOA characteristics)
                    8 (Service Orientation)
                    9 (Service Layer Abstraction through 9.6.)
• SOA Design Patterns
  Thomas Erl - Prentice-Hall, 2008 (Expected publication in late December, 2008). 
  NOTE: You can prepare by reading Erl’s introductory article downloadable here.  
• A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Third Edition (PMBOK Guides)
  Project Management Institute, 2004. 
  Chapters 1 & 2
                    3 (through the introduction to Section 3.2 but not its subsections)

Books and articles about GRC are listed in their own section, below.

Papers (All downloadable free):

For several topics, we’ve included multiple references, grouped together. 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
• John Hall, Overview of OMG Business Motivation Model: Core Concepts.  
  Note: If you're new to the BMM, this paper by one of its principal authors will get you started, but you'll still need to study all of the sections assigned in the specification reference (below). 
• Bjørn Andersen and Tom Fagerhaug, Advantages and disadvantages of using predefined process models, or an alternative reference on use of predefined process models.
• Business Process Trends, Business Processes Lifecycles and ROI, 2004.
• Sandra Lusk, Deciding on the Right Level of Business Process Documentation, BPM Institute, 2008.  (Free registration required)
• Monique Garrett, Process Documentation: Does it really have to be this difficult? ContractPharma, 2006
• Sally E. Slack, Create a process documentation guide, IBM, 2007
• Laury Verner, The Challenge of Process Discovery, BPTrends. May, 2004
• Tony Clark et al., Applied Metamodeling – A Foundation for Language Driven Development, Second Edition
  Chapters 1 & 2 (exam material is also covered in the first two chapters of the First Edition - downloadable here).
• Ed Seidewitz, What do models mean? An alternative reference on metamodels and metamodeling.
• John Butler et al, An MOF-based repository for enterprise architecture models. IBM, 2005
• About UML Profiles:
  The Metamodeling section of this examination touches on UML Profiles, especially as they compare to metamodels. Chapter 18 of the UML Specification, through Section 18.1.2, (downloadable here) discusses this, but beginners to metamodeling may find the explanation somewhat opaque.  Chapter 6 of David Frankel’s book Model Driven Architecture: Applying MDA to Enterprise Computing covers the topic well but the light exam coverage doesn’t justify a book purchase. However, if you’re supervising an MDA project for your enterprise, this would be a good book to have.
• Robert B. Doorenbos, Production Matching for Large Learning Systems, Ph.D. thesis, CMU-CS-95-113, 1995. 
  Pages 7-9 (basic Rete algorithm)
• Paul Vincent, OCEB White Paper on Business Rules, Decisions, and PRR
• Business Process Trends, The 2007 BPM Suites Report. 
  Chapter 2: A Detailed Analysis of BPM Suites.
• James Taylor, Bringing Analytics into Processes Using Business Rules, 2006
• George Barlow, How Real Time Analytics Delivers Significantly Better BPM, 2008
• Colin Tuebner, The Forrester Wave: Human Centric BPM for Java Platforms, Q3, 2007 
  Through page 5 on types of business processes and their characteristics.
• F. John Reh, Cost Benefit Analysis  
  Note: or an alternate article or book chapter on Cost Benefit Analysis.
• Andrew Spanyi, How to Choose the Right BPM Suite: From RFP to Final Selection, 2008 
  Note: or an alternate paper or book chapter on the RFP process, especially as it relates to purchase of a BPM suite.

OMG and other Specifications (All Downloadable free):

• Business Process Modeling Notation specification (BPMN), V1.1
  In the Advanced examination, questions may draw on any of the BPMN elements and constructs covered in the two previous examinations. In addition, this Technical Advanced examination covers the mapping to BPEL detailed in Appendix A. A basic understanding of the structure of BPEL is necessary to understand and interpret this material and do well on the examination, but this is not a test of BPEL programming. BPMN attributes are not covered in this examination.
• Business Motivation Model Specification, V 1.0
  Chapters 1, 7, 8

Industry Frameworks:

The Technical Advanced examination covers two GRC-related topics: Meeting GRC Requirements, and Designing and building auditable Business Processes. If you already have or can find a good alternative source on one or the other of these topics, you should do well on that part of the exam without studying from the exact books listed here.

• Making IT Governance Work in a Sarbanes-Oxley World
  Jaap Bloem et al - Wiley, 2005
  Chapter 4 (IT Portfolio Management)
                 5 (Activity-Based Costing)
• ISO/IEC 38500: Corporate governance of information technology – Preview document, free download here.  
  NOTE: We’ve had trouble downloading this document into Firefox, but IE 7 works. The examination covers the scope and goals of ISO 38500, which are discussed well enough in this preview document; you’ll need to purchase and read the full standard if you’re planning to implement, of course.
• Governance, Risk, and Compliance Handbook
  Anthony Tarantino - Wiley, 2008
  Chapter 20 (Internal Audit Operations and Controls in the Enterprise)