My CIMA Operational Case Study Result.

I am excited to share that I passed the Operational Case Study this May with 125. I am very thankful for this score and even though I aim to improve and perform better in the MCS, I’m glad to see I scored above the pass mark with a comfortable margin. I scored strong in both technical and business skills however I got moderate in people skills. It is critical to note that at the operational level, leadership and integration skills are not separately gradable.

Below you can see my grade in detail:

I have previously made a post dedicated to my OCS revision strategy detailing step by step how I revised the material and prepared for the examination. Having received my grade now, I think that I can further attest to my recommended study strategy. To fully wrap up the Operational Level, I would like to share with you my reflections on possible areas of improvement.

• My performance in people skills needs to be improved in the MCS. I think the reason why I only scored moderate is because I didn’t tailor my answers to include specific considerations for stakeholders at the appropriate level. The biggest take away from this result is that people skills cannot simply be ignored. It is misleading to assume you are going to get this part right and instead focusing more time on technical material revision and pre seen analysis.
• People skills in the MCS carry a high 21% weighting on the overall mark therefore it is critical that next time I spend more time reading suggested answers and the examiner’s reports to get a feel for what type of consideration and communication is expected at that level.
• Going into Management Level, it is still unclear for me how to tackle leadership and integration skills. As I mentioned above these skills are not separately gradable at the Operational Level therefore students going into the MCS still have little knowledge about how these competencies are graded.

Above I attached my progress towards the CGMA certification. I can’t believe that I’m now officially halfway done. 8 exams passed in total (including certificate level) and 8 still remaining.

What’s next in my study plan?

Right now, my plan is to start Management Level in September (would be glad to start earlier but currently I study for all CIMA exams according to my tuition provider’s schedule). I’m going to study E2 i P2 simultaneously, then attempt P2 exam first around November/December and E2 second later in December. My F2 study will begin in December but I won’t sit for the actual exam until at least January/February so as of now, I’m not sure whether I will be doing the MCS in February or May 2020. If all goes well, I’m hoping to be done with Management Level by June 2020 and knock out the last 4 exams the following summer or alternatively by the end of 2020.