Some things related to Cisco certification this week caused me to remember a time about a year ago, right after I’d finished a 6 mile run. That run tied for my longest run in the last 10 years, typically only going about half that. While I was winded, it felt good, and I knew that I’d done 6 miles enough over the last month so that I wouldn’t even be sore in the morning. Then, the realization that the half-marathon I was scheduled to run was just a few months away – with many even longer runs in the plan if I was going to even survive the event. I knew I could do it, as long as I didn’t get hurt, and as long as I put in the miles, and as long as the time required didn’t get usurped by the other truly more important things in life, etc etc etc. And interestingly enough, the same kinds of thoughts and emotions hit me as I sat pondering the CCVP certification – which leads me to today’s post.
In short, for those of you who do think Cisco certs have value, are they worth it relative to the time, effort, and cost? Will you put in the miles, so to speak, to be ready for the race?
For this thread, I’m assuming that the certs have some value. In some of my past blog entries (for example, see here and here), we had some lively discussions about whether the certs had value for non-Cisco partners. For this week, let’s assume that Cisco partners are part of the equation, so that there’s some inherent value to the certifications for partners.
Just to narrow the discussion a bit, and make it more managable, I’d like to focus on the CCVP certification, and just on the cost side of the issue: the time/effort/money involved in preparing. It’s the same basic equation after my 6 mile run – you’ve got some related skills and experience – and you know you can do it – but is it worth all the effort? Getting a CCVP is not an easy path to follow, nor a short one, but there is some value in seeing it through. I’ll spend a few days worth of blog posts on the question.
Why CCVP? Well, just my personal whim to be honest, but I think it’s a good test case for all Cisco certs. There’s a lot of variety of topics within CCVP, so it’s likely that most candidates will have at least 1 exam for which they know almost nothing about it before beginning to study, but probably at least 1 exam for which they know a lot of it already. CCVP is also pretty valuable, at least in my opinion. And I’ve got to take a couple of the CCVP exams soon (CIPT and CVOICE) anyway, which is what got me thinking about all this, so I’ll track hours and expense just to show one example of the time and effort involved.
For background, here’s a brief list of the 5 CCVP exams. (You can also click here to see Cisco’s CCVP web page):
- QoS (Quality of Service – nuts to bolts router QoS, with some switch QoS)
- CVoice (Cisco Voice – voice theory and Cisco voice products besides Call Manager)
- CIPT (Cisco IP Telephony – all things call manager except gatekeepers and troubleshooting)
- GWGK (Gateways and Gatekeepers – both in detail)
- TUC (Troubleshooting Unified Communications, formerly known as IPTT)
I’ll look at several factors that impact the time/effort/expense for getting ready for CCVP, beginning with the part that should vary the most between different candidates: your current skill level. Obviously, someone who configures Call Manager every day will take significantly less time to prepare and pass the CIPT exam. So, just to add a little objectivity, I’m making up a way to assign skill points based on how much skill you have on the topics covered on an exam, as follows:
High skill level – 3 points
Medium skill level – 2 points
Low skill level – 1 point
No skills at all – 0 points
For example, I’d rate myself a 3 for the QoS exam, 2 for the Cvoice exam, and 1 for the CIPT exam, at least before I starting digging in on Call Manager here of late. I’ve worked with QoS in some way/shape/form most of my career, passed the exam already many times, and have written a book on the exam itself – but you don’t have to have that much experience with it to rate yourself a 3. Give yourself a 3 if you know at least something about most of the topics, and for several, you know it deeply, probably even deeper than what’s required on the exam. On the other end of the spectrum, I know Call Manager and IP phones enough to position, design, and be the geek on the pre-sales side of a deal, but not enough to go make it work once the sale is made – so I’d give myself a 1 on that one.
So, next post I’ll start breaking it down a little – but first, I want to hear from all you folks out there. Have you recently taken any of the CCVP exams, and can you give swag at how much time it took? Any of you prepping right now, and can make an estimate? Want to offer an opinion before I get into things next post? In all cases, give us a self-assessment of your skill level (0, 1, 2, 3), at the time before you started studying for an exam.
