Program Overview: 

The OCSMP Program is expected to consist of four levels of certification and corresponding multiple-choice examinations. Our committee of SysML domain experts will define program details including the exact array of exams, their levels, and topical coverage. The first two will be specialized for SysML model users, while the other two will be aimed at model builders, with the last of these covering advanced material including customization techniques. Lower-level certifications will be prerequisites for levels above. When the domain experts have defined the coverage limits and all sponsorship funding has been assured, OMG will assemble a larger group of experts to write the exam questions and multiple-choice answers, which will be subject to psychometric verification before being published world-wide by our test delivery company, Pearson VUE, in their worldwide network of testing centers.

OMG and INCOSE Partnership: 

OMG and the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) worked closely together on the original development of SysML, and we are very pleased that this cooperation extends to our certification programs. OCSMP will cover SysML and its application to Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), making it complementary to INCOSE's comprehensive SE certification program CSEP. INCOSE plans to help recruit OCSMP question-writers and beta-test takers from their membership; in addition, each organization will point out the role of the other's program on certification websites and collateral, and link to the other's program site. Our two organizations also plan to award a joint certificate to candidates who acquire both CSEP and OCSMP certification, although no certification from one organization will be a prerequisite for any from the other. To read the press release announcing OCSMP and the agreement between OMG and INCOSE, please click here. For program highlights and information about SysML, see the OMG SysML website at www.omgsysml.org/.

Why Sponsor OCSMP? 

Your investment will make OCSMP possible by covering the costs of writing, verifying, and publishing the certification examinations. This is the most important reason to sponsor; without your sponsorship, OMG cannot produce the examinations. So, if you believe that your company and the field of SE will benefit from the OCSMP Certification Program, you should become a program sponsor. When program creation completes, sponsors will receive examination vouchers equivalent in value to their investment allowing them to start the certification of their staff using the examinations that they made possible. This turns sponsorship into a net positive, as the certified staff provides a benefit to the sponsor company for years into the future.

The program will take approximately 15 months to complete from the time funding is secured. The initial phase, in process now, focuses on recruitment of sponsors, and of the experts who will sit on the Coverage Map committee and write the examination questions. The second phase, examination production, will start when recruitment is complete, scheduled for July 31, 2009. The process of writing, verifying, and publishing an examination takes about seven months with overlapping examination production cycles following each other at two- or three-month intervals. We'll give details about this process in the next section.

SysML Certification "Ecosystem"
SysML itself has already motivated the writing of three dedicated books. We expect that the release of the OCSMP program will result in an even larger library plus numerous ancillary items including books and study guides tailored to the different exams, classroom and on-line courses, and offerings that combine training with an examination, to further enhance the body of knowledge. (OMG's BPM certification, which has only been available for a few months, provides an example of such an ecosystem: five training companies have already written courses; two of these offer their training and the OMG examination as a package. Several dedicated books are also being written. OMG's UML certification has motivated a similar array of courses and books.) Because training companies necessarily promote the standard as they promote their courses, the net result is increased awareness and use of the various standards in addition to the rise in proficiency that results from the training and certification.

Levels and Coverage
Our examinations will cover SysML language concepts and principles and its application to MBSE, while avoiding overlap with INCOSE's current general Systems Engineering certification. (Through our agreement with INCOSE, we will assure even coverage of the domain, without overlap, thus maximizing benefit to SEs who acquire certifications from both organizations.) Certification titles, to be determined by the Coverage Map Committee, will relate to domain job descriptions or categories. The first two levels of certification will serve the large population of practitioners who interpret and understand SysML as part of their SE responsibilities but may not construct models themselves. This group includes the domain experts who provide inputs to the modelers and review the models, along with other engineers who develop, analyze and verify the systems, hardware and software defined by the models. The two levels above this will cover the knowledge and practice required to develop system models in SysML, with the most advanced level also covering customization of language elements for a project or organization. Certification at levels above the first will require certification at all lower levels as a prerequisite, allowing all of the questions on each exam to cover new material.

Exam Creation Steps and Timeline
As of July 2009, the program is in its earliest creation stage, which includes contacting potential sponsor companies.

The project divides into a preparation phase followed by repeated loops through the examination-writing and -preparation process. Cycles through the Writing process overlap - When the SMEs finish writing and reviewing the material for one exam, they'll hand it over to OMG staff and the psychometricians who will take it through psychometric verification while the SMEs "loop around" and start writing and reviewing for the next. OMG has produced certification programs before; elapsed times are based on this experience. Still, they are only estimates; actual process times and delivery dates may vary.

For additional program details or sponsorship information, contact Ken Berk, OMG Vice President of Business Development, at +1-781-444-0404 ext. 150 or ken.berk@omg.org .

About OMG  

The Object Management Group™ is an open membership, not-for-profit consortium that produces and maintains computer industry and, more recently, business domain specifications for interoperable enterprise applications. Our membership includes virtually every large company in the IT industry, and hundreds of smaller ones. Most of the companies that shape enterprise and Internet computing today are represented on our Board of Directors. Our primary specification in the business domain is the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), supported by the Business Motivation Model (BMM), Business Process Maturity Model (BPMM), and additional business domain specifications including SBVR and BPDM. Our Unified Modeling Language™ (UML^®) dominates IT modeling, and the MOF™ provides a foundation that makes models useful, by allowing them to be transformed by software, and so used in the Model Driven Architecture^® (MDA^®). Founded in 1989, the OMG's first well-known (and still widely-used) specification was CORBA^®. 

For more information or questions about the OMG Certification Program, please contact certificationinfo@omg.org

OCUP, OCRES, and OCEB are joint programs of the OMG and the UML Technology Institute (UTI)

Last updated on 07/07/2009