Tim Coates

Lessons Learned:

1 - Thoroughly read (3 times) the ITIL® Practitioner Guidance from cover-to-cover;

2 - Underline all relevant concepts of 1 only in the last read;

3 - Build your own thorough MindMaps after 2 (don't use MindMaps from third parties; to make the concepts your own you've got to build your own MindMaps);

4 - Use 3 to own the ITIL Practitioner concepts;

5 - Using 3 and without looking at the solutions, do the first iteration of exam 1 handed out in the training without lookign at the solutions;

6 - Without looking at the solutions, auto-correct exam 1 handed out in the training sessions;

7 - Cross-check your solutions obtained in 6 with the official solutions;

8 - Using 3 and without looking at the solutions, do the first iteration of exam 2 handed out in the training without looking at the solutions;

9 - Without looking at the solutions, auto-correct exam 2 handed out in the training sessions;

10 - Cross-check your solutions obtained in 9 with the official solutions;

11 - Thoroughly analyse 7 and 10 by using the official reasoning handed out in the training session;

12 - Really understand the differences between your solutions and the official ones;

13 - Think deeply on the connection between the PMP and ITIL Practitioner Certifications because there are a lot of contact points the two (Communication, PMBok, DevOps, Lean, etc);

14 - Prior to the exam (two hours before), read your MindMaps once again (don't stay up all night cramming; it won't work) ;

14 - During the exam don't overthink the answer;

15 - In some situations the most encompassing answer is not the solution;

16 - Look for (related) key words both in the scenarios, sub-scenarios and the questions; not only God is in the details, but also the answer invariably is in the detailed phrasing;

17 - Control time (used smartwatch beep to control 1h passed, 2 h passed);

18 - Leave 20 m to spare (finished the exam in 2h30m; exam duration 2h50);

19 - At the end of the exam, don't make ever make corrections. Go with your gut instinct;

20 - Use around 30m to understand the scenarios and sub-scenarios to build the detailed MindMap for the exam (during the exam use the blank pages provided - to be shredded before you leave the exam room);

21 - Submit Online Exam. Good Luck!

This strategy was used to score 80% (32/40) in the exam.

NB: There are no exams available online. That means that the 20 points above are all you're going to have to get yourself exam-ready. As an alternative, you may think up your own strategy.… (plus d'informations)

I suppose that John Profumo might be the only viable contender with Jeremy Thorpe for the title of ‘Greatest British Political Scandal of the Twentieth Century’. The Profumo Affair certainly offers a cornucopia of those ingredients guaranteed to titillate enduring public interest: a beautiful woman of questionable propriety in thrall to a Machiavellian and mischievous Svengali following his own anguished social aspirations, a dashing, prosperous and successful government minister, a Soviet military attaché, a peer of the realm, some minor West London gangland wannabes and a sprinkling on intelligence officers. If this was pure fiction, readers would be nodding their heads in disbelief fearing that the author had seriously overegged his pudding.

It is now fifty-five years since John Profumo resigned from his post as Secretary of State for War in Harold McMillan's already faltering government, and his name has become synonymous with political sleaze. The basic story is well known: Profumo had met the young Christine Keeler at a house party at Cliveden, ancestral home of the Astor family and site of many political weekends at which prominent members of the Conservative government led by McMillan would gather to relax. Keeler had fled from her poverty-stricken home and, after time spent as a dancer in a Soho Revue show, had found herself living in the flat of society osteopath, Dr Stephen Ward. Ward was a strange character who moved on the fringes of the Cliveden set and was aware of, and occasionally present at, their extravagant parties. Christine Keeler was young, beautiful and available, and within a short time of their first meeting she had embarked upon a brief affair with Profumo.

Unknown to Profumo, however, she was also conducting occasional liaisons with Sergei Ivanov, a Soviet naval attaché on the staff at the Russian Embassy. Naturally it was not long before such a salacious situation came to the attention of the press and the Whitehall rumour mill. Profumo was questioned by several of his fellow ministers, but constantly denied that he and Christine had ever been more than just good friends, even going to the lengths of making a personal statement to that effect before the House of Commons. Of course, as we all now know, Profumo subsequently had to confess that he had indeed had an affair, and his resignation and removal from public life became inevitable. In the same way that it was the failed attempt at a cover-up that rendered the Watergate incident so toxic for President Nixon, it was essentially Profumo’s lies to parliament, rather than the affair with Keeler itself, that less his position untenable.

This book is the report of the official inquiry that was commissioned by Parliament and headed by Lord Denning, and it covers in great detail the events leading up to the resignation, considering the roles of Profumo, Christine Keeler, Stephen Ward, the police, the press and the security services. However, while it might be an official report, it is far from dry. Lord Denning has a lively (if often surprisingly grammatically dodgy_ style, and the pace of the story never flags. All in all, a very enjoyable, and very informative, book.… (plus d'informations)

I stumbled across this book when looking for books written by Lord Denning (see my post on The Discipline of Law).

This book is the official transcript of the investigation ordered by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan into the Profumo affair - the political and intelligence scandal in the early 1960s that helped topple the Conservative Party government of Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan. Involving sex, a Russian spy, and the secretary of state for war, the scandal story could just as well have been copied out of ...

Full review posted at BookLikes:
http://brokentune.booklikes.com/post/758284/john-profumo-christine-keeler-lord-d...… (plus d'informations)

On 14 February 1929, seven members of "Bugs" Moran's gang were stooped by two men in police uniform in what appeared to be an ordinary raid. The uniformed officers asked the men to line up facing a wall with their arms raised. At that point four more men cam in bearing machine guns and virtually ripped the gangsters apart with a hail of bullets. This was the infamous St Valentine's Day Massacre.

The police investigated but no arrests were made. Intriguingly the FBI did not become involved at this stage, principally as there was no evidence that the assailants had crossed a state border.

Roll on nearly six years, and in January 1935 (by which time the disastrous Prohibition period had ended) Byron Bolton is arrested in connection with a kidnapping. Having been tried and convicted he is then reported in the Chicago press as having admitted to being one of the six participants in the St Valentine's Day Massacre, and naming his fellow killers. The response of the FBI was to deny that Bolton had made such a confession.

This book does not seek to investigate the accuracy or otherwise of Bolton's alleged confession. Instead, it reproduces the various newspaper articles along with extracts from the FBI files, released under the American Freedom of Information legislation. This gives a fascinating insight into the FBI's methodology and into some of the idiosyncrasies of FBI Director, J Edgar Hoover.… (plus d'informations)