OCEB Certification Guide: Business Process Management - Fundamental Level 1st Edition

If you plan on getting certified in the OCEB Fundamentals, this is the book. There were a number of typos and should be updated. I found that some of the examples and illustrations could have been better leading to a more adept grasp of BPMN. You can get your merit badge with this book but, will it equip you to be a hand's on BPMN professional--no, I don't think so. That will have to come with use after passing this exam. I think the certification should be a little more rigorous and force you to construct the graphic models as if they were with a client or set of subject matter experts developing these models.

In my opinion the book serves its purpose, i.e. passing the OCEB Fundamental exam. Nonetheless I strongly encourage reading the BPMN, BMM and BPMM specifications as priority number 1 as well as some of the other references provided in the coverage map. That way one will get the real benefit of studying for the exam and applying the theory into practice later on.Congratulations to Tim Weilkiens, Christian Weiss and Andrea Grass for contributing this valuable guide to the BPM community. It was long anticipated and they've done it well!While reading it I spotted some minor errors which I will mention below:1) Figure 5.6 - "Goals, Objectives and Means (Metamodel)" the multiplicity at Desired Results says 0..1 instead of 0..* as per BMM 1.002) Organization Unit logical links and BMM are specified below Figure 5.15 "BMM Area Organization unit". The one that says "An organization unit Defines strategies" should be read as "An organization unit IS Defined by strategies".3) Regarding the description of Figure 6.40 "Deadlock", i.e. "Because either condition A, B, or C is met, only one token arrives at the parallel gateway.". I see A, B and C as Tasks rather than conditions, while "b, c and d" look like the conditions meant.4) Figure 6.52 "Intermediate Event on the Boundary of the Activity" is better to say "Intermediate Event on the Boundary of the Task" as the subprocess in Figure 6.51 is also an Activity.5) Regarding the Business Process Maturity Model, just below the table with Levels: "Maturity level 2, for example, includes requirements and configuration management, and maturity level 7 comprises further process areas." . There is no Level 7 in BPMM, I guess it's a typo.6) Regarding the ISO 9000 - "ISO 9004 is a guideline for improving a quality management system, and ISO 9011 is a guideline for auditing quality management systems." - instead of ISO 9011 should be ISO 19011.7) In the Glossary Chapter - regarding the description of "END" its written to be part of BPMN, instead of BMM.For all of you who are going to the exam - Good Luck! ;-)

This book is a good start to prepare yourself to the exam but I feel it is not sufficient. Approximately only 65% of its contents is useful text (the rest of a book consists of appendix, index and other not-reading-worth material).On the other hand, book allows you to grasp through fields of OCEB examination very fast - that is a good thing. This gives you feedback on what you should study more & as other reviewers spotted you should read specification.One of big cons is that sample exam questions don't have explanations, just answers (like a or c). Explanations would be very helpful.To sum up, I think for that price it should provide more details.

The writing is hilarious- love the small jokes that brighten up the dry textbook writing. Easy to understand and pretty thorough

Why only 3 stars:First of all i was a bit unsure if to buy this book or not, because a sample chapter contains only detailed description of how certification process is organized. This information is publicly available on OMG site. So basing on sample chapter I couldn't see if graphics and diagrams are readable.The real important content starts from chapter 2 that is about 11 percent of the book. The last chapter is at about 80% of the book which was an ambivalent surprise.After the last chapter the book contains appendix which contains... surprise surprise... description of how certification process is organized. :) After appendix there is of course index. Having index in an kindle edition is a bit of nonsense because simple searching is by far superior.The relevant (for exam) content of the book is on about 70% of rest of the pages and this material has a lot of information and things to remember.The language used is easy to follow and also a lot of given samples makes some of abstract terms easy to understand.Most of the terms are in fact supported by examples which is a nice thing.Some minor editorial things that I've spotted:1. Diagrams are readable although on each one the right border is not displayed.2. One graphic that is supposed to show how to calculate "break-even" point, is just a black rectangle. Please correct it!3. Answers to sample questions are presented in tables where first column (with question number) takes 90% of space, and the following 3 columns are pushed to the right margin.

This is a very good book but according to OMG new OCEB 2 exam this book is incomplete.Thank you

This book is a english translation of the german original. Despite their boast that a "detailed review of the English translation" took place, I found it to be one of the least readable books I've come across and consequently put it down after 2 chapters.

Good information. Very short. Lots of wasted pages in index, glossary, etc. Needed more questions.

a little expensive for what you get. The book is about 150 pages and it does contain some quite useful material. I would expect a book with type of content to cost around £15-£20.However, I would also expect this book to cover things in a bit more detail than it does, so I felt it did not give enough information on some areas like the Technical Business Analysis path and the BPMN modelling levels - and how to tie the level to the puspose of the diagram. So maybe it should have been £30 and 300 pages...

I bought this book, read it carefully, made some summary and passed the OCEB fundamental Exam. So this book did what it should. In the exam was few questions maybe 5 (from 90) which this book do not cover and also this book contains information which is not relevant to the exam. If you are looking to this book with intention to learn about BPM in general it has very good chapters about BPMN, I could recommend these chapters to all who are new in BPMN and looks for short information to begin with.Note for all who will go for the exam: learn some things by heart e.g what author said what and so on. Exam has questions like these...

Ich habe das Buch genutzt, um mich auf die Prüfung (OMG-Certified Expert in BPM 2 - Fundamental) vorzubereiten.Der inhaltliche Aufbau orientiert sich an den Fragenblöcken der Prüfung, die Prüfungsthemen werden daher gut eingeführt. Das Buch deckt alle relevanten Bereiche komprimiert ab, der Schreibstil ist klar und meist leicht verständlich. Zum Bestehen hat's gereicht. :-)Man muss allerdings folgendes beachten:- Ich habe die BPM 2- Prüfung abgelegt - das Buch bezieht sich noch auf die BPM (1.0) -Version. Das muss man vor allem beim "Modeling"-Teil beachten. In der Prüfung werden natürlich auch Modellierungs-Elemente der Version 2.0 abgefragt, die im Buch (noch) nicht thematisiert sind (es wurde vor dem offiziellen Release der Version 2.0 veröffentlicht). Hier lohnt ein Blick in ergänzende Modellierungs-Literatur.- Es lohnt sich auch bei den anderen Fragen, flankierende die Buchtitel der "Coverage Table" hinzuzuziehen. Nicht JEDE Frage aus der Prüfung lässt sich mit den Inhalten dieses Buches beantworten - darauf weisen die Autoren aber auch explizit hin. Wer 90 Punkte will, muss die Sekundärliteratur auch durcharbeiten...- Die Beispiel-Prüfungsfragen im Buch vermitteln einen guten Eindruck davon, wie die Fragen in der echten Prüfung gestellt werden. Allerdings kann man nicht testen, wie schnell man insgesamt durchkommt - im Buch stehen 58 Testfragen, in der Prüfung sind es 90 Fragen.Ein paar kleinere Tippfehler sind verzeihlich (so ist beispielsweise der ROI im Beispiel von Kapitel 2 meiner Meinung nach eher 1.3 statt 0.3).Insgesamt also eine sehr gute Vorbereitung - wer sich dieses Buch draufschafft, sollte eigentlich die erforderliche Mindestpunktzahl erreichen können.

The original book was written in German. The English version is a translation. The translation was done by somebody, who was neither fluent in English nor in the subject matter of BPMN.The first thing you realise is that this book makes no "good read". In the most parts it is a word by word translation of the German sentence. As a direct result you have to spend a lot of time thinking about the possible interpretation and meaning of the words. Without the help of the original you will regularly end up in the wrong direction.One Example: page 131, about the 5 level "Business Process Maturity Model" (BPMM)"Maturity level 2, for example, includes requirements and configuration management, and maturity level 7 comprises further process areas."The original text means:"Maturity level 2, for example, includes requirements and configuration management, and comprises of further 7 process areas."So once you bought the German version, as well, and started to read both books side by side, you quickly realise that many of these little words were translated at random; "after" becomes "until" or "design process" becomes "design" (p. 130) etc. Due to a lack of space (205 pages vs. 168 pages in a different format) sometimes sentences are simply not translated at all.But if this is not already bad enough this English issue is missing simplest quality control. For example on pages 25/26 the calculation of the "return on investment" is explained correctly and followed up with an example. The result of the example states 0.3 but should be 1.3 (as it does correctly in the German version).Conclusion: The exam is only available in English, so to prepare with the English Certification Guide would normally make a lot of sense. If you have at least a certain degree of German buy the original as well, if not, verify every piece of information with an independent source - or you are in for a huge gamble and might fail the exam, although you spent a lot of time on preparation.The idea of BPMN is to improve the quality of products and services - this book is exactly the opposite. It is just a disgrace.

El libro está bien. Es concreto y trata la mayoría de los temas que aparecen en la certificación. Sin embargo, no cubre la versión 2 de BPMN ni otras preguntas aisladas que pueden aparecer en el examen.