PMI PBA vs IIBA CBAP

by Ananya P. Co-founder

PMI has come up finally with a certification to satisfy the hunger of the business analysis community.

Of late, business analysis has been a very valuable skill to learn for the project management community as well due to the need for the PM to perform BA roles also.

The certification space for BA community has been dominated by IIBA with its certifications, CCBA (basic level) and CBAP (Advanced level). PMI has recently come up with a BA certification, PMI-PBA for business analysts. And all of us are aware of the market share of PMI for its most popular certification for Project management stream viz PMP. This gives rise to the dilemma for the BA community on which certification to go for in the current scenario.

Here is a small comparison of PMI-PBA and IIBA® Certification:

PMI PBA has come to market early in 2015 and is yet to gain familiarity with the market. Whereas IIBA has already got the early mover advantage and has been very popular in corporate and as well as among professionals.
However, PMI has got a huge following from the corporate and individuals for various project management related certifications (there are more than 600,000 PMP certified professionals worldwide). PMI PBA has relaxed the eligibility criteria by considering 2000 hours of Project management experience in the applicant’s career.

A detailed comparison of both the standards is available in the image given in this link

- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1LsXqTY60Hrurfwz0YUuCDoU8sprPbj5W

CBAP Recommended –

Pure play BA/enterprise level BA and planning to stay in the same path
Part of BA Center of Excellence/BA Competency team
If your organization has IIBA certifications as part of the competency framework

PMI PBA Recommended –

BA with a project or program management background/experience
BA with PMP certification
PMP certified professional /Project manager with BA responsibility
If your organization has a partnership with PMI
If your organization has PMI certifications as part of the competency framework

PMI-PBA is for business analysts who work on projects and programs and have project management experience in their career, whereas, in contrast, IIBA® looks at Business Analysis in a much broader perspective and covers activities that exceed project and program and applies to the entire organizational involvement/initiative.

Sources of Information for this article – www.IIBA.org and www.PMI.org