Thursday, November 12, 2009

BI Certifications - CBIP/TDWI Certifications done!

I started writing this post on the return trip to Portugal. It was a very enriching and experience trip, which I reached one more objective I had in mind for more than two years. I passed the four exams and got the specialization in Business Analytics and Data Management provided by The Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI - www.TDWI.org)

To whom I dedicate this achievement...I'd like to dedicate the achievement of this goal, besides of course my family and girlfriend who accompanied me on this trip to Germany, two very special persons.
Maria Jose TrigueirosFirstly, to Mrs. Maria José Trigueiros for all messages and follow that gave me along the master. Secondly, to my master adviser Mr. Orlando Belo, who accompanied me on a daily basis during the dissertation. These two persons, directly and indirectly supported me in the last two years, and for sure without them, it would be difficult to maintain my motivation and strength to deepen my knowledge in this amazing world of Business Intelligence.

The exams…Relating to the exams, what I felt was that in fact, the level of difficulty is high and mainly because there is less than a minute to answer to each question. There are 110 questions to be answered in 90 minutes ... Each question has 4 possible answers, where two of them are usually very similar and can be confusing ... When the "mother" language is not English, is even more complicated because some questions and their answers are long.

Fortunately, I was lucky to begin with the apparently the less complicated exam to make, and it allowed me to understand the time management that should be looked at, in order to do other exams. To get an idea, in the first exam when I had only 5 minutes to finish, I had 20 questions to answer... it was an authentic stress and the last question was answered over the last second ... There's no time to think and go back to review the answers ... that is, or you known the answer and quickly respond to a question, or it will be better to go ahead to next question!

It is difficult to describe the best way to prepare for the exams ... Normally the scope of a normal exam it’s a well-defined scope and the issues are related to the context and usually reading a book or two is enough. But in CBIP/TDWI exams it is quite different... you need to have a real-world experience and read several (many) books. But for the preparation and bibliography to make the CBIP exams, I’ll prepare/describe in a future post.
CBIP Logo
I made and passed in four exams: Information Systems (core), Data Warehouse (core), Business Analytics and Data Management that turns me a specialized professional in Business Analytics and Data Management. The more complicated exam was the Information Systems which is too much technical and detailed.

TDWI Germany Centre...It all started at 8:00 in the morning of last Friday (06-Nov-2009)... in the TDWI Germany centre, located about 30 km’s from Cologne (Germany) where I was accommodated with my girlfriend Joana.
The facilities of the centre are very good and the staff really fantastic, especially Simmone and Mr. Guenter Fuhrmeister, CEO of SIGS DATACOM (TDWI Partner) ... They both received me very well and they greatly reduced my stress caused by so many tests on the same day. In addition to all the sympathy and coffees, snacks, drinks, and others... they offered me an amazing book that I will start reading during this week, wrote by Frank Buytendijk. (Click on the book image to preview the book)



The Cologne city...Cologne (German: Köln) is Germany's fourth-largest city after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than 10 million habitants. It is one of the oldest cities in Germany, having been founded by the Romans in the year 30 BC.
Cologne lies on the Rhine. The city's world famous Cologne Cathedral (Kölne
r Dom) is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archbishopric of Cologne. The University of Cologne (Universität zu Köln) is one of Europe's oldest universities and internationally renowned for its economics department.
(reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne)



The party...At the end it was the party where my princess Joana was waiting for me at the in Cologne... we started enjoy this fabulous city with some of the advices given by Simone. We were focused mainly in the shopping area and near the Rhine river. It is a beautiful city with an intense movement of people not only in the shopping area, but also in the restaurants and bars area. We attend, almost every day, to a Cuban bar where we drank exotic drinks as capiroska, mojito and others!



My sensation is that I’ll return to Germany to take the other CBIP specializations very soon... I hope this post was helpful to you.
Regards,
Pedro

24 comments:

Amin said...

Dear Pedro,

Congratulation!!!
I am very happy that you could pass these four exams :)
This post is fantastic, and it surprised me.
I am looking forward to reading prospective posts,

Best wishes,
Amin

Intelligence Tests said...

I just want to congratulate the pipz here for the success he had received.

Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat.

Pedro said...

Hi Amin,
Thanks for your kindly words!
I made it my friend... I was a little affraid, because the content of all the 4 exams ar to vast! But It's done!

I'll try to publish some about the books and articles that could be usefull for those who think to take these exams.

Intelligence Tests,
Welcome to the blog and thanks for your comments!

regards,
Pedro

Anonymous said...

It is extremely interesting for me to read the article. Thanx for it. I like such topics and everything connected to this matter. I would like to read a bit more soon.

Anonymous said...

It is certainly interesting for me to read this post. Thanks for it. I like such topics and everything that is connected to them. I would like to read more on that blog soon.

Ella Maschiach said...

Wow Pedro, fantastic news! I'm so happy for you, congratulations!
It's definitely a big step for you to pass those exams and I'm sure it was hard, doing it all on the same day…
Glad you had fun afterwards, well deserved!
Keep up the great informative blog running,

Ella

Pedro said...

Hi Ella!!
Thanks a lot for your kindly comments!!!
It's good to see you again here!
Cheers!
pedro

Pedro said...

Thanks for the kindly words!
Regards,
Pedro

Raz Khan said...

It seems quite relieving for you since you knocked out a stone off your career path. Many congratulations. I am BI professional, in midst of deciding to go for the certification.
Since you mentioned earlier you'll be posting information on resources to study from, I am waiting to hear on that.
Thanks

Cheers

Pedro said...

Hy raz,
Welcome to the blog and thanks for your kindly comments.
I hope to post some tips about CBIP preparation very soon!
Regards,
pedro

Unknown said...

Hi Pedro,

Congrtulations!!.

Your post is fantastic.

Even I have been looking to appear for these certifications for a quite long. It would be really apperciated if you could share some tips on CBIP.

Thanks & Regards,

Venkat

Pedro said...

Hi Venkat!
Welcome to this blog and thanks for the kindly comments.
I hope to get some time to post several tips and tricks for a better CBIP exam preparation!
I hope to see you more often here!
pedro

Nilesh said...

Hi Pedro,
It would be very helpful to many BI professionals, If you post the tips,trics & Bibliography of materials which required to study for CBIP exam.

Thanks,
Nilesh

Nilesh said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Pedro said...

Hi Nilesh,
Check the post I wrote about my BI Books suggestions!
Thanks for your visit!! Helped?
regards,
Pedro

Nilesh said...

Thanks Pedro !!

Appreciate your support & guidance..

Unknown said...

Pedro, Thanks for sharing your experiences buddy. You got me excited about taking the examination. :-).

Pedro said...

Thank you guys for the visit to the blog!
You are always welcome.
Soo... do you have news about your TDWI certification?
Regards,
Pedro

Anonymous said...

... and I hope you enjoyed the book ;-)

Frank Buytendijk

Pedro said...

Dear Frank,
Thanks a lot for your visit! It's a honour for me. Unfortunately I didnt start to read the book yet, but I'm planning to do it soon! Thanks!
Regards,
Pedro

Ajay Chawla said...

Dear Pedro,

I am new to your blogs and finding these very informative and inspiring. I am BI professional and keen to take CBIP certification. Just wanted to know your opinion on how good is TDWI conference for taking these exams? Did you attend CBIP certification sessions during conference?

regards

Ajay

Pedro said...

Hi Ajay!
Thanks for your visit!
I didnt attend any TDWI conference,... I went to the TDWI European Centre to make the exams! It was an amazing experience! I recommend!! :-)
regards,
Pedro

Brian said...

Hi Pedro! Just wanted to find out when you'd be putting up some good books to read over before writing the exams. I'm planning on writing the exams this year.

Kind Regards,

Brian

Pedro said...

Hi Brian,
Welcome to the blog!
I'll try to post something about it!
Regards,
Pedro

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