CBAP and Me: Why I'll Have to be Dragged Kicking and Screaming to Study for that Test

It must be me. Companies are all piling on and requiring CBAP (Certified Business Analyst Professional), offered by the IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis). Check this out: IIBA CBAP Stuff.

Excellent work (I surmise it's from the IIBA BOK or Body of Knowledge) and an interesting summary of requirements gathering.

See, this is why I didn't take the PMI (Project Management Institute) test for PMP (Project Management Professional) . After going through the boot camp and finding out what that test was really all about, I didn't say no, I said Hell No.

That test is a measure of how much you can memorize about processes and procedures you wouldn't use on a project in a million years. Yes, having a methodology is a good thing since it can be the backbone of projects you come into cold. But more often, the PMs I see using the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) are much more concerned about keeping their Microsoft project plan nice and neat and pretty much leaves the real work to the project team.

Obviously there are exceptions and there are some really dynamic PMs around.

So I looked over the CBAP requirements.

Modeled on PMI. It takes about three days just to finish the application.

So I really have to wonder if memorizing really tells your client or your end user that you are an effective and ethical BA. Wouldn't previous folks with which I've worked be a better read on how well I do my job?

Is this CBAP stuff going to help me create a gaps analysis? Vision Statement, Statement of Work, Status Report?

Will it certify I can help a developer on a spike/sprite and research quickly and efficiently?

And what will a CBAP certificate on my desk (we don't have walls or cubes) certify I can write an acceptance criteria on a User Story? Identify controls with the UxD expert? Model Workflows? Group the workflows into scenarios with the designer? Setting up a a one to one mapping of my Actors to her Personnas?
And, oh yeah, I'm hearing these certificates are now good for Agile methods.

I think mentoring folks who want to become BAs is a better idea. Have them, I dunno, research and write some use cases? Listen to how they question end users and stakeholders- create questionaires- create a risk or a couple of communications plans. During the project are they quickly and efficiently revising the artifacts?  Are they doing sanity checks against the end user and business requirements?

So instead of memorizing, I'll learn what my client needs, how the end users will use the software, run JAD (Joint Application Design) meetings and work with the UxD expert to figure out how we're going to meet the stakeholder's requirements in the best way for end users.

In Agile, everyone on the team can and do help out where ever they can. I'll do that and help let the Devs develop.

I think that kind of study time is well spent.