CISSP Preparation Tips (Step-1)

Hey, my name is Manoj Sharma and I am a CISSP coach for the last 5+ years and have helped over 1000+ security professionals in achieving their CISSP certification.

I keep getting questions on how to prepare for CISSP. I? am starting a series of preparation tips to help aspirants.?

CISSP is in fact a long journey looking at the content and topics to be covered. Failure to plan it better may turn your CISSP Project into a CISSP Operation, which is never-ending.

To help you plan better, here is STEP1: Prepare a Goal Setting Document.

looks very simple, right? Wait, there is some groundwork to be done.?

Let’s start with some drilling Questions first:?

Ask yourself and document your responses to the below questions. Rate yourself out of 5 where 5 is the highest. If you score 4+ then it’s a green flag to proceed with CISSP preparation

• How important is CISSP designation for me?
• Am I ready to read at least 1 book with 1000+ pages?
• Are you ready to invest 749 USD (Taxes extra in a few countries) for your CISSP??

?Hey, that’s good, you are now in green to prepare for CISSP, Now what?

Setup your CISSP goal statement based on the below:

1. Download “CISSP-Exam-Outline-English-April-2021” from (ISC)2 website
2. List down all topics on an excel sheet or a word document.
3. Have a look at the CISSP preparation book Sybex/CBK/Shon Harris (anyone) and evaluate the length of the topic which will help you plan your target.?
4. Prepare a day-wise plan for CISSP topic completion. Be considerate of the length of each topic while preparing the plan
5. Take a target to complete at least 1000 CISSP Questions before appearing for your CISSP exam. So, plan time for those too. Practicing CISSP Questions in parallel is the best strategy, however, make sure you only refer to a good source of practice questions. I see a lot of dumps out there on the internet and none of them are even near to (ISC)2 standards.
6. Set Domain-wise completion milestones.
7. Once you have prepared the topic-wise plan in step 4, prepare a scale for the measurement of your progress on a daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. ?
8. Prepare a Definition of Winning (DoW) for your milestone. To have a perfect DOW, Mark a domain as complete only after:??

• You understood all concepts mentioned in the domain and are able to relate at work.
• You have created your own mind map for the Domain. you can take references from mindmaps available on the internet, however, preparing your own mindmap is the best strategy.
• You have practiced sufficient domain questions (at least 150)?

9. List down all challenges which you may face in this journey and how you are going to solve those. Example - stuck with a domain or broke your study rhythm.

10. Decide when you are going to book your exam. (My take - book the exam date once you are done with Domain 4 - CISSP is nose heavy)

Perseverance is the Key to CISSP's success. So keep grilling!

In case you find the article helpful, please comment on your ideas. You can visit www.cybernous.com for a complete end-to-end CISSP preparation program hosted by me. It's the world's first end-to-end CISSP preparation program and serves excellent results for CISSP aspirants. you can also follow us on #cybernous