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Preparing for Change Management Exams with Agile Change Management

As part of the switch to v3 of the Change Management Foundation and Practitioner exam, I had to retake the Practitioner examination.

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As part of the switch to v3 of the Change Management Foundation and Practitioner exam, I had to retake the Practitioner examination. This exam is 2.5 hours long and covers all five areas of the syllabus.

Preparing for the change management exams is a lot of work. To maximise this work, I used the experience to review my training style for the exam, and to update the pre-course preparation I send out to anyone who books a course with me.

Preparing for Change Management Exams – A Step-by-Step Guide

This is my experience in preparing for the change management exam I recently took. I hope reading it gives you some ideas for how best to prepare and study for your exam:

Step 1: Treat the Course Like an Interview – Treat the course and exam like an interview and accept you need to prepare. How often do we turn up to meetings without any preparation, hoping that everything will become clear as others speak and we start to engage with the subject? We can “wing it” for many meetings, but this is a stupid approach for a training course.

If the first time you hear something is when the trainer is sharing examples of how the concept is applied, how can you ever catch up? Everyone else is sharing their experiences of the subject, or asking insightful questions but you are thinking – what are they talking about and which page is that in the book?

So, treat the course and exam like an interview – prepare in advance, read around the subject and start thinking about how you can actively make a difference.

Step 2: Read the Book – Sounds stupidly simple, but this was a lot harder to do than I imagined because my attention span is so short. I am so used to being interrupted, anything longer than a few minutes and I found my attention wandering.

To overcome “brain wandering”, I turned my reading into a series of short activities. For example, I made sure that when I read something useful, I wrote the heading and the page number on a separate sheet of paper. Although the book has an index and the contents page, these will not necessarily have all the page references that are relevant to the exam.

As my list got bigger, I challenged myself to find connections between the earlier and later headings, adding arrows and comments to remind myself how one thing linked to or built upon another.

At the end of each short chapter, I drew a mind map with a branch for every topic I had read, then added my own comments and observations.

Whenever I felt my energy draining, I took the sample exam online. Sometimes, I only needed to answer a few questions before I was reminded of how much I didn’t know, which motivated me to look things up and carry on reading!

Reading the book is an obvious activity to complete when preparing for an exam. However, this active approach to reading and learning is a great way to ensure you are taking the information in.

Step 3: Book Study Time – I cleared my diary ready for the course, by booking in study periods as important meetings so anyone looking at my schedule would see I was not free. This is such an important step in preparing for any exam – you simply cannot expect to be able to continue with your normal busy routine whilst preparing and studying. You have to plan in extra time.

Step 4: Set Your Out Of Office – During the course, I turned off my email and created an “out of office” designed to create understanding and empathy from those waiting for a reply by explaining that not only was I on a fast-paced, intellectually demanding course but I had to take 2 exams and there was homework every night. This helped in my preparation as it didn’t feel as much pressure to respond to emails quickly, and I knew I could take the time out to study.

Step 5: Sit The Practice Exam– the final thing I did in preparing for the change management exam was to practice exam questions and apply some of my knowledge of neuroscience.

An exam is a change of behaviour. I am not used to being put on the spot and asked questions, so I need to train my brain to do this. This is easy to do because every time I sit the practice exam, I am building the habit of how to click on the answer, what to click to move it to the next question, and familiarity with the screen. All these practices create a sense of certainty in my brain, which increases my positivity. It is this positivity that enables my brain to process more information, increasing the probability that I will get the right answer, which creates dopamine in my brain, increasing my energy and motivation. Practice the exam to create this virtuous circle of achievement!

Prepare for your Change Management Exam with Me

Book your change training with me to ensure you are fully supported with pre-course preparation materials and activities.

Give yourself the best chance of passing your exams; I have been guiding successful candidates to career success for over 20 years!