I recently cleared PK I-Professional Kanban and PAM-Professional Applied Metrics from Prokanban.org and want to share what resources and books anyone can refer to increase their chances of clearing the exam by themselves without even attending any training.
The books and other resources which I will mention in this article are worth reading even if you are not planning to take the exams. It will enhance your knowledge of flow and enable you to help your teams in optimizing the value by optimizing flow.
PK I exam is tricky. It has 80 objective questions which you need to finish in 60 min. A good understanding of Flow, Kanban, and its application is required to pass the exam.?
PAM exam has 45 questions which you need to finish in 45 min. The exam is focused more on flow metrics, predictability, and probabilistic forecasting. It requires a very good understanding of basic flow metrics, little’s law, CFD, Cycle Time scatter plots, Cycle time histograms, and Monte Carlo Analysis.
Note: Passing marks for both exams is 85%.
The resources which I used helped me to enhance my knowledge related to flow and metrics. I cleared both my exams on the first attempt.
Resources you need / can refer to for the exam:
- Kanban Guide December 2020: The exam is based on the Kanban guide. So it’s a must to have a good understanding of all the terms within this guide. Ensure you have read it multiple times, each time understanding more in-depth. Memorizing won’t help. You can download it at:?https://kanbanguides.org/english/
- The audio version of the Kanban guide: If you don’t like reading you can also listen to the audio version of the Kanban guide here:?https://youtu.be/mD_i79elXbQ
- Kanban Pocket Guide: This guide explains the Kanban guide in more detail. Must read to increase your understanding of Kanban and its application. You can download it at:?https://prokanban.org/kpg/
- Two Books by Daniel Vacanti:?Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability?and?When Will It Be Done??Both these books are a must-read to clear the exam. Both these books will clear all your doubts regarding workflow, flow metrics, flow analytics, probabilistic forecasting, and predictability. I found it very useful and practical. You can start applying these concepts in your current teams and can see improvements.
- YouTube channel Drunken Agile: This channel is hosted by Daniel Vacanti and Prateek Singh. I highly recommend this channel if you need to learn more about flow and kanban. Link:?https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC758reHaPAeEixmCjWIbsOA/featured
- Flow Metrics for Scrum Teams: Another great book to read if you are working with Scrum teams and want to enable the flow. You can download it at:?https://prokanban.org/scrum-flow-metrics/
- Open assessments from Prokanban.org: Once you are ready for the exam, you can assess your knowledge by directly giving assessments provided by Prokanban.org. This will give you an idea of where you are now and close the gaps. Exam difficulty is more or less similar to these assessments. Link:?https://prokanban.org/open-assessments-overview/
- Resources recommended by Prokanban.org:?These are blogs, articles, and books recommended by Prokanban.org. I found it useful during my preparation. Link:?https://prokanban.org/kanban-learning-resources/
