Journey to CBAP® : Exam day- Prometric Goregaon Mumbai

On the Exam day:

Prometric Centre, Goregaon (West) Mumbai

My CBAP® exam location was changed from Andheri to Goregaon 10 days before the exam. I knew the Andheri site due to my PMP encounter earlier, but Goregaon site was completely new to me.  Prometric site gives you directions to the location. Only thing to note is that entry gate for all visitors is not the one on the map; here is how to approach the centre.

Techniplex Complex - Off Veer Savarkar Flyover, Goregaon (West), Mumbai, MH– 400 062,

Google map is bit off target, Techniplex is sprawled between gate 1 and 2, however in the map it goes bit out of proportion.

You need to enter from gate two -which is first right on the SV road (opp Jumbo wada pav centre). ’Elegance’ shown in the map is now ‘Mood Bar’. I came from Jogeshwari via western express highway, so turned left from Dindoshi flyover onto Veer savarkar road and then onto V Savarkar flyover. If you come from Goregaon Station, get on the West side of station and catch a rick to Hotel Grand Sarovar. You will be on SV road, keeping Hotel Grand sarovar on your right. Go straight through the square and take the first right mentioned above.

You can carry a small rucksack to centre; you get a locker key where you can store your bag. PAN card also works as ID proof. You can go inside the centre 45 mins before your scheduled time. You only get to carry ID and locker key inside the exam area – no hanky, wallet, coins nothing. Empty all your pockets.

Make sure you have a jacket with you. I was only wearing a Tshirt and the room was bit cold even for my 1230 afternoon session.

You can take as many breaks as you can afford from your time allotted – the clock keeps running on your machine. I did not take any break. I was let in bit early, may be empty slot, and started exam 15 min before schedule. Initial 8 slide training and 2 mins of accepting T&Cs was completed in a few mins.  Once the staff member logs you in, make sure you agree the T&Cs within two mins. You will lose exam fees if you don’t accept in that time as systems kicks you out of session.

You have 150 questions, for 3.5 hrs. I marked few for review at end, changed couple of answers (usually not recommended) and was out in 2 hrs 15 mins.  When you submit, you get a survey of 8 questions (which does nothing but raise the heart rate by few beats in anticipation J)

and then CONGRATULATIONS! you are CBAP. 

All the best!

Journey to CBAP® - The Beginning

It feels good to finally be able to say I am a Certified Business Analysis Professional™ (CBAP®). It is one of the elite certifications in the Industry and the best one for Business analysts out there. International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA.org) has been instrumental in getting the profession and the knowledge base together under one roof since 2006.

First and foremost - ‘why CBAP®’?

I agree with a certain view that certifications, in some cases, can merely be a piece of paper or a tag that gets you noticed on HR the radar. However, I have been an academician all my life, believing in books, courses, exams and certifications. It gives my learning a focus, structure and direction.  There is lot of material out there for business analysts – enough to confuse me for the entire life time. I wanted something standard that is widely getting accepted in the industry.

I had been following IIBA since I started my job as a business analyst. The day I reached the ‘Hour count’ I assessed what I had worked on, how much of my experience was in alignment with BABOK and what tools and Techniques was I comfortable with. I waited for another year assessing the usefulness and acceptance of CBAP® in the industry before taking the leap.

If you are of the view that it is not necessary to invest so much in the certification (apprx $500 US), it is alright. I know of some really good project managers who are without PMP certification and couple of excellent consultants, I worked for, are still without CBAP® certification. You can and should be doing well without CBAP®.  However, in tight and competitive job markets, certifications help you easily through the first few filters during the job hunt, apart from conveying your certain skills and relevant experience to potential recruiters.

The IIBA grind

1.       Be a member

Even if you decide against certification, you will still have access to a huge network and a vast knowledge base (articles, papers, forums) besides BABOK®.  It is way less than your pizza bills every month.

2.       Work on your application

Now that you decided to take the certification, the real test begins. Application process is pretty straightforward if you have the relevant experience, extremely difficult if you are trying to cook it up.

CBAP® Handbook on www.iiba.org is real reference for eligibility requirements,

o  BA experience: 7500 hrs across 6 Knowledge area

I was well prepared, with a record of my projects, activities performed, hours spent. Tracking IIBA since beginning a BA role helped. There are lots of templates available on internet that can help one prepare the application.  The templates focus on following lines of calculation,

§  Start and end date of each project – calculate no of working days.

§  Remove holidays and vacations from the working days

§  Calculate working hours. We don’t work on BA activities for 8 hrs a day – remove meeting times, breaks, other tasks etc.

§  Calculate BA working hours (working days from step 2 * BA hours in step 3) for each project and allocate to knowledge areas worked upon.

§  If you attended the IIBA endorsed 3 day CBAP training workshop from authorised education provider like Adaptive Processes, you are already familiar with the knowledge areas and activities. Skim through BABOK® before you start filling your application.  Pick only the relevant ones (and those tasks that you actually worked upon during the project). Your project reference should agree to what you have mentioned.

§  Total of more than 8000 is assuring, below 7700hrs is risky.  You might select some activities that are not BA activities. IIBA takes out such hours from your application.

o  Minimum 21 hours of Professional Development in the past four years

Refer CBAP® Handbook for what qualifies this requirement. One of the providers I have mentioned above.

o  Two references from a career manager, client or CBAP® recipient

Most important is start working on your references early. You need two references from Client, supervisor or a CBAP®.  Do not leave this for the last moment. You do not need to submit entire application for your references to be complete.  Reference process is immediately triggered once you submit the contact information for each reference. Your contacts get email from IIBA, they need to go to specific page and submit some information about you as a CBAP® applicant. It is better to inform your references before submitting their contact details, so they are ready to enter relevant information and the process is complete quickly.  

It took me 3-4 days to get the application acceptance from CBAP®, though IIBA mentions minimum 10 working days when you submit your application.

3.       Scheduling your exam

Once the application is approved, it is easy to follow the instructions in the email, pay for the exam and schedule it on the Prometric site. Payment for the exam is by PayPal, so if you do not have PayPal account you will end up paying some $11 more. Additionally if you pay by international credit card from India, you will also have FX charges on your card.  

Choose a day and time for your exam and get cracking with the preparation, if you haven’t by now.

All the best!

Journey to CBAP® : Prepare for Exam

I was fortunate to get through the exam and no, I am not being modest.

I was careless enough to leave the preparation for last month. I registered for the exam on 6^th of Nov and scheduled it for 26^th of Dec. All through November, I only managed to read the BABOK Chapter 9 on Techniques.  I am ‘sit for hours- finish the topic’ kind of a guy and didn’t have time at a stretch to pick other chapters for reading. ‘Techniques’ is a collection of 34 different topics which I thought was ok to begin with - lucky stroke of brilliance I should say!

As I neared the end of Techniques, the calamity struck. I started spending hours at office and didn’t touch the book for 10 days in a row. Knowing that it is a tough one to crack, I tried to reschedule the exam on 20^th of Dec and was told that I would have to pay again, so I decided to give it a shot.

I think it was to my advantage that I had great guidance from Adapative’s Trainer and paid good attention during the workshop. I could read the BABOK only once before my exam. Few days before the exam, I kept BABOK aside and went through all questions from the workshop presentation and a few on modern analyst site. Fortunately, I remembered the 450 mock questions from my workshop provider and went through some of those on the site. This helped while reading the BABOK later; I read the BABOK based on how questions are formulated and not how material was presented. 

Eg. Inputs and outputs to a process are sometimes asked in a different manner.  Sample question:

Annette is working on an analysis that will help her convince her manager to provide her with an assistant. She has asked HR for the salary details of that designation that she can use in her analysis. She is using ___ technique to deliver __

Few confusing (may be because I wasn’t well prepared) options in the answer i.e.

·         Cost benefit analysis, return on investment

·         Cost benefit analysis, Business case

·         Cost benefit analysis, Resource requirement

·         Decision Analysis, Business case

I mentioned lucky stroke of brilliance for this reason. The technique was decision analysis which involves CB analysis. Remembered my Trainer saying ‘stick to BABOK language’ J so Technique was obvious.

Some of the other areas you need to prepare well on,

1.       Maslow’s hierarchy (i.e. X expects a pat on the back and career growth from something he delivered, he is also expecting an invitation to join a clubhouse in the vicinity, what step of need hierarchy is he on?)  - not in BABOK

2.       BATNA (Best alternative to a negotiated agreement) – some scenario of agreement and then someone backtracked, as a negotiator what do u do?  - not in BABOK

3.       Stakeholders are not accepting something that you delivered based on formally approved requirements, what had gone wrong? – If formal approval was validation output then before that we must have messed up verification – ans could be ‘incorrect structure and format of requirements doc’.

4.       Functional decomposition vs. WBS : you can get twisted questions on these terms i.e 4 definition combinations are given, pick correct one.  It could also be reversed  i.e if I am doing ‘A’ -what is it and if I had done ‘B’ what would it have been?

5.       Purpose of a technique in the specific activity. i.e. why Metrics and Key Performance Indicators are used in validating requirements?

6.       Questions needing diff between waterfall and agile – i.e. whether to use Use case, User story or use case diagram in particular project situation given.  Study SDLC methodology and approach relevant to BA.

7.       Should have clear understanding of Use case, User story, Scenario, Alternate flow, exception flow, Use case diagram, extend include etc.  

8.       Perfect understanding of Business, Stakeholder, and Solution requirements. No term like component requirement, project requirement or end user requirement – used to confuse in the exam. Stick to BABOK terms mentioned in the book.

9.       Direct definitions from glossary i.e. Requirement is ___; Allocation of requirement; Glossary; Actor etc..  Answer choices may not be as mentioned in glossary but you need to select the best match or most relevant answer (though ‘best match’ is not mentioned in the question), which works if you have not learnt all definitions by heart but have understood the concept thoroughly. J

10.   Stress on Monitoring solution, feasibility study.

11.   Very confusing questions (again my bad prep I guess) on managing BA performance and techniques used – not direct but options can be all similar except minor word play. Based on Variance analysis.

12.   You might get a page long scenario, about a BA doing some analysis and producing some deliverable, which can be repeated multiple times, each time with a different question. Only benefit is you don’t have to read the page every time – just check key details are same and mark all questions for review at end.

13.   Input and output is easy after one reading, focus more on element and technique for each activity. I tried to create a big memory map on paper linking activities and their i/p, o/p flowing to relevant activities. Helped me a lot in getting the bigger picture.  Know enough so that you can eliminate 3/4: It is difficult to remember all the inputs, output, elements and techniques related to a task.

14.   You might also get exhibits (images which open when you clicked on ‘exhibit’ button). Cardinality for ER diagram, Extend/Include question, force field diagram (i.e. what is depicted in the exhibit given?), some table used for true false –possibly RTM without header.

Even though I did not study enough, I would recommend reading BABOK a good couple of times, workshop handbook- if provided, Susan Weese/Terry Wagner Study guide – for practical references. Some of the CBAP® education providers give you access to online tests/prep questions. I think at least 200-300 questions if you have reviewed (in my case) or attempted (recommended), it is sufficient.

All the best!