Following are questions that are commonly asked about one or more education offerings.
1. Does the TBM Council offer Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits for students that take its courses?
The TBM Council provides Evidence of Course Completion via email to all students who are present for all days of a course. For example, the TBM Executive Foundation course is two days, so students must be present and sign in for both days in order to receive evidence of course completion. We do not offer "partial" evidence. The evidence provides a complete description of the time spent in the class and the topics covered.
Students may then submit the Evidence to their certification authorities (e.g., PMI for Project Management Professional, state boards of accountancy for CPA, etc.) to get credit towards the re-certification. We are unable to guarantee that the course will count for credits; the determination is made by each authority. However, we have had students successfully submit our Evidence to receive credits for state CPA licenses and Project Management Professional, among others.
Note that different certifications or licenses often use different terms for continuous education, including Continuous Professional Education (CPE), Continuous Learning Points (CLP), and Continuous Education Units (CEU).
2. What is the cancellation policy for public (open) TBM Council classes?
Registered students may cancel without penalty up to ten days prior to the start date of a class. In doing so, those registrants have the option to receive a full refund or a credit for the same course to be used within the following 90 days.
Registrants that cancel after ten days prior to the start date of a class will receive credit for the same course. The credit must be used to register within the following 90 days.
3. Is the Certified TBM Executive (CTBME) exam part of the course?
The certification exam requires a separate fee that may be paid along with the course fee (at the time of registration) or separately. If you have taken the course but did not pay for the exam, you can do so here:
https://events.tbmcouncil.org/c/express/647e94dd-7f8a-4237-916f-e3ae1e0d9552
Please allow 2 business days to receive a link and access code for the exam after payment is complete.
4. Where can I find the course calendar?
You can find it here: https://www.tbmcouncil.org/events
Note that we are regularly update our calendar. At this time, there is no way to subscribe to updates (sorry!).
5. How can I get a course scheduled in my city or region?
We are always on the lookout for good locations to host classes. A variety of factors play a part, but the biggest factor is whether or not we believe a course will be cost effective. We need at least 15 paid students for a class to pay for instructors, travel expenses, facilities, food/beverage, and more. If you have a facility that you can offer to us to use for the training, it would help. However, we would be more inclined to host a class in your region if you can help us recruit a full class, such as by registering others from your own organization and by reaching out to colleagues in the area. If you have multiple colleagues from your company who would like to take the course, we would be happy to provide a group rate. We also provide up to two credits for hosting a course.
If you'd like to learn more, please reach out to Chris Kerr.
6. Can I get certified by the TBM Council without taking the course?
At this time, the course is a prerequisite for getting certified. While many professionals have strong backgrounds in IT financial management, IT service management, business relationship management, and related disciplines, few have practiced all the disciplines of the holistic TBM framework. We and our board of directors agree that the best way to learn the TBM framework is to take the course with experienced instructors and a room of your peers. The questions, exercises and dialog are as important to the education process as the core curriculum itself. Furthermore, at this time, our exam is not proctored and therefore cannot be the only assurance of a professional's education. As a result, certification candidates are required to participate in all 16 hours of training and to provide evidence of attendance (e.g., by signing the attendance sheet at the class).