Tips and Tricks, and the Way Forward

You have covered many topics throughout this book and learned how to deal with different challenges you may encounter during the review board. In this chapter, we will learn about an additional set of tips and tricks that can help you pass your review board exam.

It is true that this exam puts a lot of mental pressure on the candidate. However, the reward is equally worthy. Passing the exam grants access to an exclusive elite club and provides a significant career boost.

You have to prepare mentally for the exam. You need to go into your review board (or join it online) relaxed, fresh, and focused.

Have a good night's sleep. Put on your war helmet on the exam day. Find out what makes you energized and do it. For some, it is the feeling of being challenged. For others, it is the desire to prove themselves.

Your motives should be positive. The fear of failing is not a good one. You have to find something positive to push you forward...

The anatomy of a review board scenario

As you have seen in Chapter 12, Practice the Review Board – First Mock, and in Chapter 14, Practice the Review Board – Second Mock, the review board scenarios are usually structured in a specific way. They typically contain the following sections:

• Project overview: This section provides general information about the company (which is what the scenario all about), its services, pain points, geographic locations covered by the company, growth plans, and so on. This section is generally helpful for you to understand the bigger picture. It can also help you develop your initial understanding of potential actors (the group of users who would eventually interact with the solution).

  This section might include some important figures (however, this is not necessarily the only place where such figures might exist). We have learned from many previous scenarios that these figures could significantly impact the target data volume.

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General solving tips

Let's start with a set of general tips on tackling, organizing, and structuring your solution. We have come across many examples in the previous chapters. Let's go through a few more.

Go through the scenario and annotate first

This is something we've repeated many times in previous chapters. Before you start with your incremental solving, go through the whole scenario, take notes, and add annotations next to each requirement.

You won't get a printed version of the scenario on a virtual review board. You will get an editable Word document instead. You can highlight sections and add annotations on the Word document directly. You can also use different colors to annotate various topics, for example, potential LDVs.

This activity should help you during both the incremental solving and the catch-all presentation stages. The review board scenarios are complex and lengthy (as you have experienced yourself in the previous four chapters)...