How to prepare for a scenario-based certification exam

Read the question the way an architect reads a brief

Each scenario carries constraints: a deadline, a risk, a team, a system that already exists. The wrong answers are usually reasonable ideas that ignore one constraint. Before choosing, name the constraints out loud.

A study method that fits

1. Start from the published blueprint for your credential and list its domains.
2. For each domain, write the decisions a practitioner has to make, not the terms they have to know.
3. Practise on your own past work: for a decision you made, write the options you rejected and why.
4. Time yourself on scenario sets. Long scenarios are a reading-speed problem as well as a knowledge problem.
5. Review every miss by asking which constraint you overlooked.

What to avoid

• Memorising lists with no situation attached.
• Studying only your strongest domain.
• Treating practice scores as a promise. Practice material is not the exam.

On the day

Read all of each scenario, mark questions you are unsure of rather than stalling, and keep an eye on the clock. The format for each credential, such as the number of questions and the time allowed, is on the exam facts page.

IICTP is a new independent credential and is not ISO/IEC 17024 accredited.