Examination Number: OMG-OCEB-T301
Status: Beta testing has begun.

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 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 TECHNICAL ADVANCED EXAMINATION - COVERAGE MAP

1. Business Process Management Awareness - 13%

Configuring, measuring, and reporting KPIs; Advanced BMM modeling; and Leveraging existing assets within IT

2. Advanced Business Process Modeling with BPMN - 25%

Improving or optimizing BPMN models; Tuning a BPMN model for implementation; BPEL fundamentals; BAM Awareness; Relationship of ESB to Business Process; and Process Documentation topics including BP Use Cases; Technical Specifications from BP Models; and Business Process Analysis

3. Understanding Metamodeling Concepts - 9%

Metamodeling enables precise specification independent of notation; Metamodeling enables an interoperable repository for models

4. Enterprise Architecture - 23%

Service-Oriented design concepts; Service-oriented design patterns; Design of services; Meeting GRC requirements (6%); Designing and building auditable Business Processes (8%)

5. Business Rules - 8%

PRR Awareness; Rete Algorithm

6. Implementation and Integration - 9%

Integration Components and Adapters including ERP, CRM, SaaS, and Integrating Legacy Systems; Integrating Business Intelligence and Analytics including Data Warehousing

7. Vendor Selection and Marketplace Topics - 13%

Scenario-based assessment; Cost/Benefit analysis / ROI; RFP analysis; Fitting tool to task

OCEB TECHNICAL 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 tried not to list 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.

• Rob Addy, Effective IT Service Management – to ITIL and Beyond! Springer, 2007. Chapters 8 (Services), 9 (Defining Meaningful IT Services), and 10 (Service Catalog / Portfolio).
• David Parmenter, Key Performance Indicators: Developing, Implementing,and Using Winning KPIs, Wiley, 2007. 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 although a judicious scan of the Wikipedia article in addition may prove useful.
• Paul Harmon, Business Process Change, Second Edition, Morgan Kaufman, 2007. Chapter 6 on Measuring Process Performance; and pp. 455 ff on BPMS and BAM.
• Howard Smith, Peter Fingar, Business Process Management - the third wave, 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.
  • Michael Rosen et al, Applied SOA: Service-Oriented Architecture and Design Stategies, Wiley, 2008. Chapters 1 and 2 on SOA fundamentals, plus the first section, “Services Revisited”, of Chapter 6. Also, in Chapter 9, the section on ESB, pp 344-351, or an alternative reference on ESB basics.
  • Paul C. Brown, Implementing SOA: Total Architecture in Practice, Addison-Wesley, 2008. Chapters 1-4 on SOA fundamentals. This book is a suitable alternative to Rosen’s book (just above).
  • Thomas Erl, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA): Concepts, Technology, and Design, Prentice-Hall, 2005. Chapter 3 on SOA characteristics; Chapter 8 on Service Orientation; and Chapter 9 on the Service Layer Abstraction through 9.6. Another alternative SOA reference.
• Thomas Erl, SOA Design Patterns, Prentice-Hall, 2008 (Expected publication in late December, 2008). NOTE: One subsection of Part 4 of this examination covers SOA design patterns. If you’re implementing a SOA, you should have a book on this subject on your bookshelf, but if you’re not, or if you’re studying before Erl’s book publishes in late December, you can prepare by reading Erl’s introductory article downloadable here.  In early December, according to its home page, the updated website  will include additional material on a more complete list of these patterns, and we’ll update this reference to include it.
• Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Third Edition (PMBOK Guides), Project Management Institute, 2004. Chapters 1 and 2, plus Chapter 3 through the introduction to Section 3.2 but not its subsections.

Books and articles about GRC 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 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. 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. (Free download)
• Tony Clark et al., Applied Metamodeling – A Foundation for Language Driven Development, Second Edition; Chapters 1 and 2. The 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 on the 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.
• Ventana Research, Business Intelligence Meets Business Process Management, 2006.
• 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 or an alternate article or book chapter on Cost Benefit Analysis, possibly including Wikipedia.
• Andrew Spanyi, How to Choose the Right BPM Suite: From RFP to Final Selection, 2008, or an alternate paper or book chapter on the RFP process, especially as it relates to purchase of a BPM suite.

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. 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.  (Free download) Chapters 1, 7, 8.

References: 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.

• Jaap Bloem et al, Making IT Governance Work in a Sarbanes-Oxley World, Wiley, 2005. Chapter 4 on IT Portfolio Management, and Chapter 5 on Activity-Based Costing, or alternative references on these topics.
• 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.
• Anthony Tarantino, Governance, Risk, and Compliance Handbook, Wiley, 2008. Chapter 20 on Internal Audit operations and controls in the enterprise.
• Wikipedia articles on Software Review, Software Technical Review, and Software Audit Review, especially portions deriving from IEEE Std. 1028.

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.