Don’t Know What & How to Study and How to Apply for CBAP Exam?

I have received many requests from individuals who want to apply for CBAP Exam, but they have confusions in how to apply & especially what and how to study for the exam.

Conclusively, most of us who are motivated to become a CBAP and are looking for some path to be followed in order to attempt the CBAP examination. So here we are, this article is meant for everybody who is looking for the clear path or road map to become a CBAP.

However, if you already know "how to apply and what to study for CBAP exam" but still not able to appear in exam, then my article on “CBAP Yet? Start Preparing & Get Certified” will definitely help you out in identifying the common issues that we face whenever we want to appear in any exam.

Let’s start from 2^nd part “How to Apply For CBAP Exam?”

Following are the steps for CBAP Application & Exam Process:

1.  Applying for CBAP Exam (CBAP Exam Application)
2. Paying for CBAP Exam Application
3. Registering For Exam (Paying for CBAP Exam Fee)
4. Preparing For The Exam
5. Taking the Online Exam

Applying for CBAP exam is the hardest step, not because of its complexity, but because it’s a first step. So first thing first, there is no fees for filling the CBAP Application, you can fill the application, identify the professional references without paying any fees, but your application will be pending until you pay the application fees. So that is the point to start, as there are no risks, so just fill the application and make sure your experience & qualification is in match with the IIBA requirements. Following is the link to CBAP Application Form

http://www10.iiba.org/source/iiba_cbap/signup.cfm

Further you can apply for CBAP exam without buying IIBA membership as application fee (125$) for Member & Non member is same. Once you applied for exam after filling the examination fee, IIBA takes 1 week to confirm you whether your application is successful or not. Once it is successful, you will have 1 year from that date to pay the exam fee (325$ for Members & 450$ for Non Members) to appear in the exam, whereas I would suggest to buy the membership first to save 75$ (as for Pakistan and most of the Asian countries the membership fee is 50$).

Before applying for CBAP Exam Application, make sure that you should:

Have minimum 7500 Hours of BA Work experience aligned with BABOK Guide in last 10 year

Here 7500 Hours refers to approximately 3 years of working experience, which should be directly aligned to Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK), which means you should have applied the tasks & techniques that are mentioned in BABOK. 

Further, while filling the application, you have to segregate your total experience in an organization in term of percentage allocated to each knowledge area of BABOK (BA Planning & Monitoring, Elicitation, Requirements Management & Communication, Enterprise Analysis, Requirement Analysis, and Solution Assessment & Validation), e.g. if you have worked for 1000 hours in a company on different projects, then you need to segregate, how much time you have spent on each knowledge area in terms of percentage. Also you need to identify the tasks that you have done in your experience for each knowledge area, and this is a little tricky part as in CBAP Online Application Form, there are some tasks given which doesn't  pertains with Business Analysis Body of Knowledge and if you click on these to mention that you did those tasks in your experience, then the relevant portion of the experience will be deducted from your overall total experience. E.g. created service level agreements, created project charter, develop test cases and others are not considered as BA Tasks and if you mention them they will impact your overall count of experience.

Following excel sheet will help you in identifying those areas which are not relevant to business analysis and should not be identified in experience while filling CBAP Exam Application.

Here one important point that need to be notes, is after filling the experience in term of number of hours and segregating the same into knowledge areas and identify which tasks is each knowledge area you did in your experience, you have to make sure that total number of hours for overall experience are minimum 900 for at least 4 knowledge areas i.e. in your overall experience you should have at-least 900 hours of experience in at-least 4 knowledge areas

Following excels sheet will help you in filling the experience part of your application

http://www.4shared.com/office/_Eiz9fmi/CBAP_app_data_v2.html
(Red tasks are irrelevant to BA, Orange are some what related and Yellow are BA related, whereas unfilled / white tasks are also BA Concerns)

http://www.4shared.com/file/pugMyv_-/CBAP_Application_Spreadsheet.html

Fulfills Education Requirement

You should be high school passed out in order to apply, whereas graduation is not required as well as not experience deduction as well. i.e. if you worked for total 10 years and did your graduation after 5 years of experience, in that case your experience will be considered for 10 years (non deductable)

Fulfills Professional Development Requirement

You should have attended a Business Analysis Training of 24 hours (minimum) in last 4 years. But there is no requirement of 24 hours of single training, i.e. if you have attended 2 trainings of 12 hours each, it will be considered as 24 hours in total, the only point is it should be relevant to the role of Business Analyst or its underlying competencies as per BABOK last chapter.

Trainings related to CBAP preparation, or any training that is directly link with business analysis skills are accounted for training hours, whether it is internal or external. E.g. if you attended a course of Microsoft Visio for Process Modeling or MS Project 2010, which is conducted internally in your organization, you can add this in your education requirement and same will be considered.

Fulfills Professional Reference Requirement

You should provide details of 2 professional references (email, phone & mailing address). As you will be filling the CBAP Exam Application and whenever you will define the Professional References, email will be sent to the individual with a link of online website (survey type) which will consist of some basic business analysis skills & experience related ranking, and the references individual need to rate you on those skills. As they will submit their responses you will be able to see the same as completed on your CBAP Application screen.

“What & How To Study for CBAP Exam?”

Once your CBAP Exam Application is approved by the IIBA you can appear in exam within 1 year the date of application approval. My suggestion would be to pay the exam fee as you receive the application approval and schedule the exam in 2 months time.

First thing is to study Business Analysis Body of Knowledge, if you are member of IIBA you can download the BABOK from downloads area of members. I would suggest to read this book at-least twice before going for any other book, read the book in a way to understand major concepts of how each input is link with tasks and how tasks are linked with techniques and how techniques are linked with outputs and how specific techniques can be applied in different scenarios.

Mind Maps are very effective tool to memorize the relationship between “Knowledge Area, Inputs, Tasks, Techniques and Outputs). The best Mind Map CBAP Preparation I have found so far is by “Brain Hunt Consulting” you can search and download the same for free on internet or download the same from shared folder on our yahoo group. My recommendation is to print out those important maps and paste in your study room  (where you will be spending two hours daily as per my previous article of “CBAP Yet? Start Preparing & Get Certified”. Looking at those mind maps frequently really helps are a lot in clarifying the relationships & understanding the core concept.

Further, read the book “CBAP Certification Study Guide by Susan Weese & Terri Wagner”. This book is highly recommended for CBAP Exam preparation and consists of everything that you need to pass the exam. It consists of practical problems and sample exam questions that will give you an excellent head start. The book is completely aligned with the following exam pattern (Knowledge area and percentage of questions that will be appear in exam)

Knowledge Area	% of Questions in CBAP Exam
Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring	19.33%
Elicitation	14.00%
Requirements Management and Communication	16.00%
Enterprise Analysis	15.33%
Requirements Analysis	19.33%
Solution Assessment and Validation	16.00%

Please note that due to rounding error, the percentages above do not quite add up to 100% without rounding up

Sample Exam Questions are easy way to fulfill the knowledge gap & emphasize on areas that are over looked in the study. You can find 1,000s of sample CBAP & CCBA Exam question on our study group. Chapter wise sample questions are also available, try utilizing them to test your grip on the subject on completion of each chapter.

“Giving the CBAP Exam”

I would recommend taking 3 days off from your work and starting 3^rd review of BABOK before 2 days of exam. Don’t worry, by that time you will be enough prepared for the examination. As recommended earlier you should pay the exam fee just after getting approval on Exam application to make the ball rolling. Further you have to schedule the schedule the exam online through Prometric Center’s website. You have to schedule your exam minimum 1 month before (due to some local policies of Prometric centers). Choose the nearest possible location and visit 2 days before the examination to make sure that you know the exact location and different ways & modes to reach in case of any contingency.

With this Best of Luck for your CBAP Exam. Let me know if you want to know anything related to CBAP or CCBA Exam Application or Preparation.

References:

CBAP Handbook by International Institute of Business Analysis http://www.iiba.org/imis15/CMDownload.aspx?ContentKey=450701bb-477c-4371-8a11-0e38fd203327&ContentItemKey=5bed644f-ec17-4960-bb82-c055e388dede

IIBA BOK Mind Maps by Brain Hunt Consulting Limited www.brainhunt.co.uk

Author’s Liability:

The article is written on personal experience and different sources on passing CBAP Exam. Methodologies and Recommendations Identified is this article are personal recommendation of author which is proven by experience but doesn’t guarantee passing of any exam.

CBAP Yet? Start Preparing & Get Certified

After almost 6 months of pause in communicating with Business Analysts of Pakistan. In last week when I asked a question “Have you got Certified?” to several people who has attended my Business Analysis Course, I got the answer NO.

And as a Business Analyst I asked WHY? And following were some of the comments I received on that question;

1. After a tough routine of office  & home not able to spare time for preparation
2. Every weekend I promise myself to initiate the study from next week but every time something pop up and I got distracted
3. I tried several time by opening a book on computer and even printed copy but was not able to get through.
4. There is so much to read, what to start first and how to go for it?

So, I tried to analyze the road blocks in preparing for Certified Business Analysis Professional Certification (CBAP) and came up with following root causes;

1. Lack of Motivation
2. Lack of Time
3. Lack of Concentration
4. Lack of Efforts
5. Lack of Will
6. Don’t know what & how to study and how to apply for CBAP

I have not considered financial aspect as no one has reported and also I believe that if someone wants to get certified the above mentioned root causes are more important than financial feasibility.

All the above mentioned root causes are highly integrated and have collateral impact on one another.  In order to get certified the entire root causes need to be taken care of. Let’s analyze the root causes one by one and see how we can overcome each one of them to become CBAP.

Lack of Motivation

We might be thinking that, we are already motivated to become a CBAP. Then why we are not attempting? Because there is another thing then motivation and is called, Affection. We want to become a CBAP because we like to be one, and that is not enough to motivate us to make the ball rolling. So what is required to be highly motivated to enable us to attempt for CBAP? According to Steven Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” in which he mentioned that “Start with end in mind.” and that is the thing required to make us motivated enough to attempt. Consider asking following questions from yourself to create the motivation (and record the answer on a paper for first 4 questions).

1. Why you want to become a CBAP?
2. What is stopping you to become a CBAP?
3. What benefit it will bring to personal life or personality (honor, prestige, satisfaction, success)
4. What benefit it will bring to professional life (promotion, better opportunities, recognitions)
5. What will be your feeling when you come of exam center as a Qualified CBAP?

Lack of Time

After answering to the questions of Motivation, all you need is schedule 1 hour (for 2 days) and 2 hours (for rest) per day, starting from today. Try to arrange the time of evening after your work and dinner. Try to make it simple e.g. don’t try to look for some library place which will take you another month to find. Don’t worry just schedule the time and see the magic of Motivation & Concentration

Lack of Concentration

Right now if you are thinking that you have a problem of Concentration & Focus i.e. you cannot focus on something for a long time especially books, let me tell you that research prove that every human being have this problem, so you are not the only one facing this challenge. All of us have this issue and it can be improve. According to the article of Mind Tools on “Self Mastery”, concentration & focus comes with practice. So may be when you are trying to read the book, you cannot sit more than ½ hour and get bored or sleepy, don’t be worried and try to improve your concentration by little increase e.g. try to sit the maximum time you can and read the book and note the time you spend, next day try to sit for more time than before, this way you can increase your concentration & focus from ½ hour to 2 hours & then 3 hours per day. Also consider reminding yourself on following before starting your studies.

1. Concentration & Focus is in your hand and you can improve it by practicing.
2. What is stopping you to become a CBAP?

Lack of Efforts & Will

Once you are aware of your motivation, scheduled time to study, trying to concentrate, it is enough to prove that you are putting efforts & you have generated high power of Will to achieve it. But you also have to remember the Concept of Will Curve, according to Mind Tools article on “The Flow Model”, the will power of an individual for some goal decreases as the time passes. Therefore, you have to get the maximum benefits out of your initial Will (i.e. before your Will start decreasing). If the initial stage of Will is used properly, it creates the stage for the Goal you set and even after decrease in Will you can carry on with the motivation to achieve the goal. Try doing the following to get maximum benefit of your initial Will:

1. Create a routine for reading by seating maximum hours possible every day (2 - 3 hours).
2. Tell your family, friends & colleagues that you are preparing and you will be attempting the CBAP in next 2(x) months
3. Update your Linked In Status as “Preparing for CBAP”
4. Put a stick note on your computer screen saying “Prepare for CBAP Daily”

Point # 6 “Don’t know what & how to study and how to apply for CBAP” will be covered in detail with help material in next article on July 6^th 2012.

If you find this article helpful, please don’t forget to give your feedback.

How to UAT (User Acceptance Test) ? Tips & Templates for Software Business Analysts

Dear All,

I have written an article on Testing of Software Application by End User i.e. User Acceptance Test (UAT). In this article I have focused on:

1. UAT Definition
2. Importance of UAT
3. Role of Business Analyst in UAT
4. Skills Requirement of Business Analyst For UAT
5. Common UAT Problems

Further, in this article I have also shared the important templates that a Business Analyst required in the process of UAT.

Please share your comments & feedback on the article, it will allow me to do better next time.

Click Here To Download Article & Templates

Requirements Modeling Diagrams

Requirements written in textual form found be to less understandable & create the chances of ambiguous requirements for stake holders, especially when the requirement is process related and have good amount of text involve, in that case Business Analyst must choose a requirement modeling technique that is best suited to model the specific requirement.

Some requirements can be model with Process Flow, some may require Use Case to become more understandable, and some may required ERD to understand the requirement.

All of them are requirement modeling techniques, and Business Analyst must choose the right modeling technique to make the requirement more understandable through diagrams.

For that purpose, I have found some useful diagram templates (Visio) & wanted to share the same with others, I'm sure those templates will give the head start to Business Analyst in creating requirement modeling diagram to make their requirement more understandable to stakeholders.

 

Other than that, there are many other requirements modeling technique available, please refer to IIBA Body of Knowledge Chapter "Requirements Analysis" for list of requirements modeling technique along with the usage instructions.

You can always ask me questions related to requirements modeling techniques. Other than that, I always welcome you to ask any queries related to business analysis, process improvement & re-engineering.

Download the requirements modeling diagrams template from the link below:

http://www.4shared.com/file/qrFUIQRF/Visio-Requirements-Modelling-D.html

Regular Batch of Business Analysis in Karachi

Certified Business Analysis Professional Course in Sir Syed University

Running Oracle 10g Forms on Windows Vista & Windows 7

Hey Everybody,

While going through the Oracle Technical forums, I have been seeing many queries related to Running Oracle 10g forms on Windows Vista & Windows 7, as J-initiator is not supported on both of them.

One of my colleague has implemented the solution. Attached is the zip file containing read-me file & a setup of JRE, go through the read-me file and install JRE to run oracle 10g forms on Windows Vista or 7.

Download Zip File Here

Or copy / paste following link in your web browser to download

http://www.4shared.com/file/ppqfLhRW/RunningForms10gonWindowsVista.html


Regards,

Abubakar Munawar