Last year I wrote and passed the ISEB service manager's certification. When I wrote, time for study was a great problem. My two kids are very young and when returning from work, they took a large amount of my time, deservingly I might add, and after that a person is pretty much exhausted. This is also made more difficult by a demanding job that demands more than it's pound of flesh, not only during the daylight hours but in the twilight zone as well!
The recommended study period for the exam is 60 days and by the time I had wiped my eyes and decided to knuckle down, I had just over two weeks. I couldn't take time off work, so I came up with a plan to bundle the family off on a time share holiday to Mabula. This gave me a gap and I worked on using checklists and podcasts. I missed a distinction by 4% and I wonder how I would do right now, with more time being available, as a result of no current employment (anyone out there looking for a skilled IT firefighter?).
The trick to checklists is to be able to remember as much as possible of their content by assosication. Thus in the methodologies I created, namely BMX, Project Lite and Magnum MIP, the steps all have a historical association to make them easier to memorize and recall.
Now the most time I have available for study is in the car and while exercising and here is where podcasts play a role. I have a 2GB flash for my Nuvi 710 and also an iShuffle. So for two weeks, I listened to podcasts and even created my own from my old study material.
Here is a list of podcasts I found useful:
- It is important blow out the old foundation cobwebs. The following podcasts by Atwell Williams on TalkBMC do just the trick. The podcasts have a service support component and a service delivery component.
- The Art of Service has a great set of podcasts. Pick and choose as not all of them are relevant to ISEB certification.
- Go to the following url on itiltraining.com and download the set of podcasts on that page.
- I didn't use the Pink Elephant podcasts, but a friend of mine found them useful. (Only told me after we had written, the bugger!)
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