As study techniques go, re-reading the BABOK and re-taking practice exams has to be an assumed activity, but another effective technique is to review material with other like-minded analysts. The more environments in which I can work to absorb material, or even present it, the better it is for me. Luckily for me, my work environment is very supportive of the certification effort.

Objectively speaking, it’s essentially a question of “investment”: If the organization has financially committed to the exam, endorsing its value in the workplace, then it makes sense to sanction work-hours for study. Happily for me, mine has.

There are a few types of support an organization can provide:

- BA Manager: Call review meetings yourself.  My manager scheduled a series of meetings with the analyst team, expecting those of us who participated in the boot-camp to lead the meeting and review the material.  Having our manager schedule our meetings encourages our other analysts to attend, and gives the whole process added validity. Expecting us to explain the material helps ingrain it in our heads for a far more thorough understanding, but it also serves to introduce our colleagues to the material, hopefully engendering buy-in and support. It also helps us discuss what techniques might work in our particular projects.  The meetings are structured such that someone who attended the boot-camp reviews a chapter of the BABOK, and then the rest of the team may quiz us on the book. Puts us on the spot, but it ends up as a discussion and is very helpful.

- Project Manager: Make room in your project plans.  PM’s setting “official” time aside helps keep our effort from adversely affecting projects. PM support is important for the “political” factor as well – if the PM’s didn’t set time aside then tacitly they would appear to consider the time spent on the material not as important as other work. In our case, it helps that the BA manager is an influential member of the PM team who is a strong advocate for business analysis and his group.

- Colleague: Bring project experience.  Colleague interest, support and feedback is great, but participation is key for good, “sticky” review sessions.  It helps those of us planning to take the exam absorb the material, and it helps everyone apply lessons of the BABOK.

You: Permit yourself to take the time in your own schedule – at work and at home. This is for your organization as well as for your own career. On a personal note: Tell as many people as possible; the more who know you are studying, the more supportive they are apt to be. And if you follow a schedule at home, it will be more predictable for people who rely on you to predict when you are available.

Good luck!

In retrospect, taking this class was a good decision and I’ll explain why here.

Environment:

We had 4 students in the class.  It was small enough to keep us moving, but most important was the variety of people from different backgrounds and project environments actively participating in the class. This was was INVALUABLE. Not only because the anecdotes supporting BABOK material was varied and interesting (thereby supporting the lessons), but also because it veritably forced us to use the IIBA terminology. Every organization has its own words for titles, job functions and tools, but in the end, it’s usually about the same thing.  Interacting forced us to USE the IIBA terminology to relate to each other instead of just committing it to rote memory. For me, that make for stickier lessons.

Instruction:

Our instructor was engaging and knowledgeable.  Though I expect my instructor to know the material fluently, (which she did), what made her great was that she encouraged participation and employed a variety of techniques, and this brought the BABOK material home much more effectively than if she had simply stood at the front of the class and read through the material. By fostering an open,  collaborative environment, we were able to share ideas and areas of concern, learning from each other.  Remember your fellow analysts are resources for learning as well.

Material:

The course material was cogent and well organized. We received a printed copy of the BABOK (handy because it’s large and a bear to print out), slides (handy for taking notes), practice exams (handy for obvious reasons explored below) and a study guide (also handy). Giving us this much variety covering the exact same material struck me as overkill until I reviewed my experience with my classmates. Whereas I took notes almost exclusively in mye BABOK, others took notes on their slides, or in their guide. Having a variety of delivery methods helped make the material accessible to a more diverse group.

Practice, Practice, Practice:

We had three different categories of practice exams.  One to kick off the class (possibly to humble us!), then chapter reviews, and finally a full-blown, 150 question exam at the end. This helped to remind us that the class was not simply to review and share experience, but to pass the CBAP exam. It was great for baselining our comfort levels with each Knowledge Area, and for group review with what was missed, and why. Though we were introduced to the class as “this is a boot-camp, not an introduction to the material”, administering section exams, and a real, timed dress-rehearsal helped drive that lesson home.

Lastly, a shout-out to aspe technologies.  Your staff worked with my org’s various levels of approval seamlessly (at least it appeared so to me), and you were accessible and pro-active. Thanks.

Finally, this is not a commercial for the organization who delivered the boot-camp.

However, I believe a class of this variety is a good idea, IF it has the following attributes:

1) A supportive and diverse environment with analysts from different backgrounds and organizations

2) Quality instruction that engages everyone

3) Variety of (even redundant) delivery methods for the material

4) Practice questions

This three-page form outlines the IIBA’s professional standards in the form of responsibilities to being a Business Analyst as certified by the IIBA.  It outlines responsible professional practice, and responsible advancement of the profession.  It also outlines responsibilities to clients and to the public. It’s an interesting read, boiling down to: don’t lie to the IIBA, don’t misrepresent yourself to anyone else for that matter, don’t break the law and don’t take bribes. Fair enough.

After the mistake with the check(s) (and the clearing up of said mistake), I was surprised I had forgotten something else and asked them to recheck, which they did; no luck. No matter – I printed and signed another copy, had a friend capture it on his cell phone camera for me and email me jpgs, and now we’re back in business. The only thing worrying me is they still haven’t cashed the (rather large) check. And time is ticking down to the end of June.

Sufficing to say – the lesson I’ve learned here is MAKE A CHECKLIST. And check off the items as you put them in the envelope. It is an easy way to save you about a week.

Also, the IIBA has been helpful and responsive through this process so far, and I have no complaints. I was alerted when they received my signed code of conduct form, Here’s hoping they accept my application and this blog evolves into one focused on passing the EXAM, not just the application process.

The first part of this was determing the version of the BABOK upon which to be tested.

I chose 1.6

The new version, 2.0, is released and will replace 1.6 as the tested version soon – As of this entry, I have through the end of this month (June) to take the exam and have the Agency pay for it.  Hopefully I will qualify and take the exam in short order – I’ll be studying like a rabid monkey until then.

The application can be filled out online, or downloaded… I opted to download it, as I had heard some issues with saving application data.

The application is expected to take around 20 hours to complete. First, it asks for general personal contact and educational  info, then contact info for references, the usual… Most of the 20 hours, however, is focused on cataloging past work to the tune of 7500 hours; the IIBA also requires you to break your work experience into the BABOK knowledge areas in terms of percentages, and asks to deduct time NOT spent on project work..

It was a major effort in approximation on my part – I wasn’t going to catalog 10 years of a career on this form, and I certainly had no real scientific data for the percentage of time I spend in “Requirement Communication” versus “Requirement Elicitation”… So, I simply went about cataloging and estimating the categories of work in reverse-chronological order; the IIBA is mainly focusing on work in the last 5 years or so anyway…

References – if you are completing your application online, I suggest you contact your references (the IIBA requires 2) before filling out the application- the IIBA site immediately sends an automated email requesting a reference. If you have not spoken with yours first, this could be awkward.

In my case, I printed the form, and hand-delivered it to one reference.  For the other, I pre-filled it (mainly as a joke “You think I have 4’s and 5’s EVERYwhere!! You think I’m TEH OSM”) and e-mailed it. If that person is to be believed, he changed nothing on the form, which prompted me to do a quick (and THOROUGH) re-scan just to be sure I didn’t put something snarky in there that the IIBA might not agree was very funny. My references both signed their completed forms, and returned them to me, their signatures across the seal of the envelope.

Fees – the fee structure had me stumped enough to have to re-do it. There is a fee to review the application and a fee to take the exam.. You may pay them both at the same time, but careful if you are already a (paying) member of the IIBA.. I sent my $450, then realized that that didn’t quite cover everything if I was a NON-paying member of the IIBA, so became a paying member online.. They were very accommodating regarding updating my exam fee paperwork, which was nice. If you choose to pay the $95 to become a member, you’ll save about $35 (at last count) by being a member and paying the reduced fees.

So now: I wait.

The next step is to hear from the IIBA regarding the status of my application. If (once) approved, I select an exam date and location, and I get registered for that. Hopefully the fees are done; I’m counting on work paying for this stuff – it was “IMPLIED” but not exactly PROMISED..

I followed this field out of joy; and as I grew more senior in the role, it became increasingly frustrating that the role itself was relatively undefined (relative to project management and the hallowed PMI), and therefore usually assigned to projects at the last minute with ill-defined roles &/or scope, which is, in effect, respected less.. (And don’t get me started on “paid less”.. As a lousy negotiator anyway,  over the years this has led to a substantive slothfulness in my salary growth, but that’s not my main concern); my main concern as a member of the Business Analyst community is elevating the role of “Business Analyst” from the product design equivalent of “Do you want fries with that”, or (to quote Dilbert) “I think mauve has more RAM”, to where it belongs – a role every bit as critical as project management, with techniques every bit as refined as development staff, and skills that can make or break an organization.

Early in my career, joining business organizations didn’t really give me the exchange of ideas and techniques that I needed. I continued to re-invent the wheel, and did it awesomely every time, of course… Tho I could have used some guidance, my hard-won battles in the trenches helped me develop my skills perhaps more deeply than if I had been told how to handle things.. (But that may be ‘just me’; I’m usually the type to not take other peoples’ “lessons learned” without my own validation.)

With this in mind, years (and years) ago I joined the IIBA. The organization was in it’s infancy I didn’t feel like it had much to offer me at the time; it was young and newly organizing itself, and I had my own battles to fight with my career (actually “working”). But I kept in touch.

I joined my local chapter a few years ago, and was relatively active until our monthly meetings just got too far away for me to reliably attend, and I let my membership lapse.  I gave it a disappointing year, then got more active in the local governance hoping to make a difference.. Then gave up. It was in good hands, though – the new president is capable and dedicated, but I haven’t been to many meetings; I don’t need seminars on how or why or when to ask “open ended” questions – So maybe the meetings were simply geared to someone more entry level. In any case, I stopped going, with the idea in mind that I would (will) when “things” calm down. However, my belief that the IIBA and the BABOK are valuable persists.

Recently, my organization agreed to fund a boot camp and taking the exam, so I’m back in the saddle toward certification. The BABOK (Pronounced “Bay-Bock”) is an interesting set of vocabulary, and seems to validate various activities in my career. What it does not teach, though, and what I’m unsure COULD be taught, is “having a clue”. Memorize the BABOK all you want, and you will learn skills to make you a serviceable analyst. Without a clue, though, it will never be the art it should be.

First, for the immediate future, it shall catalog my process of getting CBAP Certified – the application process, study process, that kind of thing.  At the end of this process,  I plan to joyfully announce my successful completion of the exam, god-willing; tho I know the IIBA frowns / prohibits one from discussing actual exam questions.

Next, and thereafter, it will catalog my application of the IIBA’s Knowledge Areas to real-world examples, where names will be changed to protect the innocent.

So without further ado…