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1,001 Steps to Crack Certified Supply Chain Professional (CSCP) Exam
Eduardo dos Santos Silva
Eduardo dos Santos Silva
Digital and Technology Leader. Coach & Mentor. Toastmaster & Speaker.
Last week I have gone through the examination for the CSCP certification, and got approved in my very first attempt. That was not an easy job! This is probably the bad news. The good news: it will take you a lot less than 1,001 steps to do the same! Interested?
First things first - why taking this exam? (skip this section if you are already convinced)
To quote Advance Operations Management School about APICS CSCP:
"APICS' CSCP certification was created in 2006 to transfer the necessary skills to face up to the growing challenges in the Supply Chain (...) Todaymore than 20,000 professionals are CSCP certified,which shows their knowledge of planning, implementing and managing a modern Supply Chain. (...) According to a recent survey CSCP certified professionals earn an average wage 21% higher than the market average. CSCP certification is aimed atprofessionals who already have Supply Chain experience.'We noted thatmainly supervisors and managersapproach this certification'said, Dr. Pfister, the Director of Advance School (...)."
Compare these 20,000 certified professionals with the more than 1,000,000 PMP certified professionals! As supply chain is such a key enabler to business, I was surprised to learn these numbers. Obviously, there are other Supply Chain certifications available (like CPSM), just like there are other Project Management certifications available (like PRINCE 2) - however the numbers help to understand the size of the opportunity.
Even more importantly, by learning more about Supply Chain Management you will be able to help your organization in the pursuit of operational excellence. You will understand better how you can unleash significant returns by better managing the costs, yes, and you will also learn why Supply Chain Management enables the organization to truly fulfill it's mission - by serving it's customers. You will learn some very important strategic trade-offs and will be well equipped to challenge and make difficult decisions! You will also understand why so many people talk about the importance of collaboration...
You will broaden your horizons and find additional opportunities!
Now, to the steps
This is how I cracked the exam. It does not mean it is the only way - hopefully you can design your own journey based on this script!
- Evaluate: understand your own reasons and goals associate with this exam. It will be somewhat expensive and require a lot of dedication. Consider the above session (WHY) before proceeding.
- Pre-approval: in order to take the exam you need to fulfill some criteria. Use this resource on ASCM site in order to get the approval before you start with anything - in this way you save time in case you are not eligible. You will need to create a free account at Association for Supply Chain Management - ASCM website in order to do the eligibility check and result is usually almost immediate.
- Setup timelines: you will need around 100 hours to be truly prepared for the exam. Can you do with less? Of course, you know yourself better than I do! Still that's what I heard from multiple people and it also worked for me. I did it in 4 months, and the average seems to be 6-7 months. Ensure you will have the time available!
- Buy the APICS Study System: I am not sponsored by APICS, yet there will be little chance you get approved unless you use their system. The exam has some very specific language you need to get used to. There are also some questions which are more their perspective than absolute truth, and therefore it is important to learn it. If you go through one of the certified partners, they will probably make this systems part of their offering; if not, you can buy it directly from the CSCP certification website.
- Pre-Test: in order to create a baseline for yourself and understand your strengths and weaknesses, run the pre-test once. You don't need to do it in one shot. Once you complete it, you should have a good snapshot that will help you prioritizing your studies.
- Read: start by reading the 3 book (almost 1,000 pages!). Module 1 is Supply Chain Design, Module 2 is Supply Chain Planning and Execution and Module 3 is Supply Chain Improvement and Best Practices.
- Go through classes or study groups: I have found that doing official training offered by one of APICS official providers helped substantially. I do understand it may not be possible for all to pay for classes, and in that case consider forming a study group to go through the chapters together. As a reference, I leveraged the services from Advance Operations Management School and our instructor was Sergio Vacca.
- Run the Chapter Quizzes: using the Study System, go through each chapter quiz after going through the chapter in the class or study group. At this point you should have read the chapter once and discussed it once, so your score shouldn't be terrible. You may still be below the 80% mark, and that is absolutely ok - keep going!
- Re-read: yes, you got it. Go through the books once more.
- Run the Module Quizzes: as you re-read, every time you go through the chapters re-do the Chapter Quiz, and then do the Module Quiz at the end. At this point, your Chapter Quizzes scores should be very high and the Module Quizzes will be either average or high, depending on your strengths.
- Schedule the exam: at this point you should be almost ready to take it, then it is important to book a date. If you leave this to last minute you may be frustrated with bureaucracy or availability issues. I had to do the exam on-line - will add an extra paragraph about that in the end. Early scheduling of the exam will help keeping up with the motivation and having a clear path. They use Pearson VUE as a test provider and I recommend you go through their website to check test center availability in your region early on.
- Run the Practice Test: continue re-running all Quizzes until you have scores above 80% in all of them. At the same time, don't do them more than 3 times and try to give some time in between, because you will remember the answers and that's not learning! Once you get to 80%+ score, go for the practice test. This will not only test your knowledge, but your ability to sit tight for hours... it is about knowledge but also discipline and focus. Plan to do it twice, with 2-3 weeks space in between.
- Focus: re-read the chapters you are having most trouble with. Consider reading and taking notes or summarizing, also asking colleagues questions if you are still having trouble. I had big issues with 3 chapters and felt that finally understanding them enabled be to get the score I needed in the exam.
- (optional) 3DMall Business case: this is a very nice experience through the APICS Study System; it presents a fictional company and asks questions based on the scenario. This is nothing like the exam. However, it will re-enforce key concepts and put you to do some practice with the knowledge you have acquired... and hopefully prepare you further for real-life conversations and how to connect the dots!
- Prepare for the Exam: as for any exam, take a couple days to rest before taking the exam. There will be nothing you will learn in the last night that will be useful for you!
- Take the exam... and celebrate your victory! (in my case with a lot of chocolate)
What is difficult about the exam?
The exam is rather simple: multiple choice with four different options. Questions are rather short (in general). You will need to do math, but it is very, very little (unfortunately!). If you focus on understanding the concepts you will not have to remember the formulas, the calculation will be very obvious for you. Now, simple does not equal easy!
Around 40% of the exam will be very similar to all the pre-tests and quizzes you did already. Not exact same questions, however similar enough for you to remember and get the closest similar answer.
The other 60% will be novelty. Part of it (maybe 20%) will be straightforward questions about the concepts, usually something that was very obvious from the material.
The other 40% of the questions would be entirely new and putting multiple concepts together. These are the most problematic ones. You need to really understand the topics and pay a lot of attention to the English used in the exam. Very frequently two answers will look like exactly same in terms of correctness, and this is how I try to answer them:
- Identify keywords that frequently make the answer wrong, like "always" or "never". The exam (and in my opinion life) is very careful with extremes and usually prefers balanced views.
- Identify keywords from the material, like "collaboration" or "sharing". Supply Chain Management, especially nowadays, requires a lot of good exchange and frequently the right answer will talk about it.
- Find answers that include other answers. Sometimes it is not that obvious, but if you stretch the thinking a bit you will find the relation between them and which is the right one.
- Read the answers once and again. A couple times I excluded the right answer during the first scan because of some wording.
- Be careful to consider the perspective! Maybe the exam is asking about market research and there are options talking about customer research, very close yet not the same.
- Customer always comes first. For that to happen the company must remain profitable. I suggest you also keep these perspectives for your business life!
Extra Paragraph on the OnLine Examination
Due to COVID, all testing centers were unavailable in a range of 100km from where I live. Therefore, and since I didn't want to wait, the only option was to take the online option, which implies running the test from your house or office under very, very strict rules.
Give you an example: I had my hand over my mouth for 30 seconds, and a chat popped-up with a person asking me to stop immediately! There is a good reason for them to be strict - they are not there to check everything and people may be trying to cheat. It makes it however quite uncomfortable for the ones just trying to do the exam.
You will need a very quiet place where no one will be able to disturb you for almost 4 hours. They are clear in the rules, that they cannot even hear other people talking (open-office is a no go!).
You need to be away from windows and will have to take pictures of the place before taking the exam (they will assist you with the process and it is very easy). They will also demand that you show the environment over video once they analyze the pictures, and all that happens during the check-in for the exam (therefore be there 30 minutes before the exam as suggested by the team).
Once the exam starts, you cannot make sounds or have food with you. Take into consideration that you cannot have a bathroom break, therefore go before the exam and take it easy with the water during the exam! (trust me, it became an issue after 3 hours...)
What is your journey looking like?
Relying on the knowledge and experience from others helps me going through certifications like this. Hopefully this summary gave you a few hints and will support you to achieve your goal... now it is your turn!
What are your recommendations for cracking the CSCP certification? Why did you do it in the first place? Can you have these steps helping you with other certification programs you are going through? Was this article helpful to you?
Let me know your thoughts through comments or direct message.
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Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/1001-steps-crack-certified-supply-chain-professional-eduardo
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