Articles
How to choose the right BA Certification
by Ananya P. Co-founderThere are two types of business analysts. One who believes that
business analysis certifications add value. There are others who believe
certifications are mere marketing gimmicks. If you happen to be the second
type, I would urge you to read the blog that I wrote some time back on value certification
and then decide for yourself.
If
you have made up your mind to go for a business analysis certification, the
next level of the challenge comes, which one? There are multiple certification bodies
offering different levels of certification and which one would be appropriate
for me?
There are four most popular business analysis
certification bodies worldwide.
First one is IIBA Canada which has been very active in the
business analysis professional for almost two decades now and is probably the
number one certification body in terms of recognition.
BCS, the British Computer Society which is again a very
established institution with a long history.
Then
we have the German body, IREB. Although the focus for IREB is requirements
engineering, a large part of the work that we do as business analysts happen to
be requirements engineering and hence it is a certification worth considering.
The
newest entrant to the business analysis certification interestingly is from the
largest project management certification body, PMI USA. PMI
recognized the fact that business analysis plays a significant role in the
success of a project and they came up with a new certification for project
business analyst.
Sometimes people ask us if it is good or bad if
there are multiple business analysis certification bodies? This, in fact,
is a good thing to happen to the business analysis profession. With multiple
international institutions talking about business analysis, it improves the
organizational understanding about business analysis, how for business analyst
add value to the organization the project and overall demand for business
analyst skills will synoptic because of entry of multiple Institutions into
this area.
Aspects to consider while choosing the certification body
If you are planning to choose a certification, first
it’s good to understand how the certification bodies perform in different parts
of the world and what its focus is, therefore, this is described in the
image below.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UqJ_qCYbJi1EuY8VmN32fe8zLcUIp4HQreNcyX_26Ws/edit
What’s the focus of the
certification body?
This is because the focus determines how active the
body will be with respect to spearheading business analysis activities. If it
has 20+ focus areas, Business Analysis gets a very little attention.
Now if you look at the focus for the certification
body the focus can be quiet for example IIBA only focuses on business analysis
focuses on requirements engineering and please understand that requirements
engineering is a large part of business analysis so I really certifications are
still valuable for business analyst role is UK a very old organization has many
certifications under its belt including project management business analysis
Agile technical architect and a whole lot of certification is primarily focused
on project management Agile and business analysis.
Which is recognized in your part of the world?
All certification bodies are not equally popular
across the world. Their sphere of influence seems to be heavily influenced by
from where they originate. Since IIBA originated in North America it has a very
strong influence in US and Canada it also has a very strong influence in
Australia in India and Southeast Asia in the Middle East and Africa.
IREB being from Germany has a strong influence in
mainland Europe which is Germany Netherlands Switzerland and strangely another
country Malaysia and then South Africa
BCA is the undisputed leader in the UK. PMI PBA is
popular in USA, India and Middle East.
What kind of knowledge base the certification body provides?
Another aspect one should look for when choosing a
certification body is the amount of knowledge base that it provides in this
aspect IIBF provides tremendous knowledge base the IIBA online library has more
than 300 books on business analysis many audio podcasts and other resources
others are behind in terms of content. If you look at IREB, PMI or BCS, hardly
any business analysis content is available from these certification bodies.
How active is the certification body?
Another aspect one could look at is how active is
the community within the certification organization and from what perspective.
IIBA has many local chapters and has many local events happening throughout the
world as compared to any other certification body.
How big is the alumni network and where they work?
IREB occupies #1 position with 25,000+ certified
professionals. Next comes IIBA with 12000+ certifications. PMI is relatively
younger, so they have very a smaller number of certified professionals now. BCS
does not provide this data in the public forum, so there was no way for us to
get the numbers for BCS.
Does it offer multiple levels of competency assessment?
Another aspect you should consider is whether the
certification body offers multiple levels of certification currently other than
PMI others to offer multiple certification levels for example for I’ll be there
are currently 3 certification levels which are ECBA, CCBA, and CBAP and forth
one is proposed which is CBATL. Similarly, IREB offers fundamental and advanced
levels currently and plan to offer Expert level. BCA also has multiple levels
available. PMI has only one Level now.
Summarizing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rkDPRGdbMYdM19Ru56fLAIbJ8aovJP9ia-FGodNtCwA/edit?usp=sharing
Entry level BA
certifications
Now let’s look at the certification schemes
available for professionals at the entry level the three certifications one can
aspire for ECBA from IIBA, CPRE-FL from IREB Germany and Business analysis
fundamentals from BCS UK.
The certification fees are mentioned in the
following diagram and if you can see BCS are a bit more expensive than comes
IIBA and then comes IREB.
The
good part about the entry-level certification is they do not require renewal so
once you are certified in the entry-level certificate the certification stays
with you for your lifetime.
The recommended guidebooks for each of the
certifications are issued by the respective certification body. So ECBA is
based on the Business analysis body of knowledge (BABoK from IIBA). CPRE is
based on Software requirements Engineering by Rupp and Kohl, and BCS
certification examination is by Business analysis fundamentals by Deborah Paul
and others. ECBA is conducted in a proctored model whereas you can appear CPRE
and BCS in paper format or by going to Pearson Vue examination centers.
All these certifications would require anywhere
between 60 to 100 hours of preparation depending on your own understanding of
the subject. A word of caution here, although IREB says there is no work
experience needed for the CPRE-FL certification, it is quite unlikely that one
would be able to complete CPRE without any business analysis experience. CPRE
examination format is quite tough and we wouldn’t recommend anybody less than
one and half years of experience to attend CPRE.
Here is the summary
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11rpBM2zmSorLDR4myqXFDczH_Q1R9kI82OfZeLfuMyc/edit?usp=sharing
Advanced level BA
certifications
Coming to the advanced level BA examinations, there
are two major ones, CBAP from IIBA and PMI PBA from PMI. CBAP requires you to
have 7500 hours of business analysis experience in last 10 years. PMI PBA
requires a minimum of 2000 hours of business analysis experience in last 8
years Plus 2500 years of business project management experience.
Coming
to the educational Mid-level BA certifications
Coming to the middle-level options, it’s mostly CCBA
and there is hardly any choice there. CCBA requires about two and a half years
of business analysis experience before you can go for the test.
expectations, IIBA does not have any educational
expectation whereas PMI-PBA expects you to be at least a high school graduate.
Both certifications require you to go for a 35-hour
instructor-led training.
PMI-PBA does not require you to provide any
reference where is CBAP expects you to provide two references with respect to
your BA work experience.
Exam fees are little different, for CBAP it varies
from $505 to $575 depending on which part of the world you live in and for
PMI-PBA it’s about $400.
Here is the summary
https://docs.google.com/document/d/118DT3weWC3xhKGXFmgKYRDoHzDSio5WQ9AF95FBu_1M/edit?usp=sharing
Hope this blog gives you a good idea of the best certification
scheme that you can consider for yourself. We would be glad to hear from you.
About Adaptive US
Adaptive
US provides CBAP, CCBA, ECBA, and other business analysis certification
training online and consulting needs for Individual or
Corporate either online or offline. Adaptive US is an endorsed education
provider of IIBA®
Learn
more about this training here: http://www.adaptiveus.co
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About Ananya P. 
Co-founder
4 connections, 0 recommendations, 19 honor points.Joined APSense since, June 1st, 2018, From Edmond, United States.
Created on Oct 1st 2018 04:45. Viewed 1,061 times.
