- the job titles on your work history do not reflect your experience in business analysis (they include other titles such as programmer, software developer, financial analyst, etc.) and/or;
- you spent many years doing business analysis work for one company (perhaps even with the title of BA), but never obtained post secondary education, and is finding it difficult to get your resume noticed by other companies.
So is it a good idea to get the CCBATM certification? There are many good reasons to obtain a certification; Adriana points many of them out in her article so I will not repeat them here. However, I am often asked this question by BAs with no or less than one year of work experience. They clearly do not meet the requirements of the CCBATM certification; so what is the alternative for them?
The alternative to a certification for someone who is just starting out their BA career is a “certificate” from an education provider that you have completed some training in a specific area. It is advisable to get your training from an Endorsed Education Provider (EEPTM) of the IIBA so that you know that what is being taught is in line with the IIBA Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® (BABOK®). One other recommendation for those just starting out their BA career, go ahead and join the IIBA now. Just putting your IIBA membership on your resume shows your dedication and passion for the BA profession. It also gives you an excellent talking point during interviews.
As you are beginning your career as a BA, concentrate on improving your BA skills and gaining experience in a breadth of BA tasks and techniques. Remember, work experience can stand alone on your resume; a certification (or certificate) can not.
You have probably heard your parents or grand-parents talk about when they were younger and how they had to walk to school, up hill both ways. When they shared this story with you it was to prepare you for times when things weren’t so easy and to provide you with their knowledge and advice from their hard earned experience. I wish that someone would have shared the list below with me earlier in my career. It might have saved me a few grey hairs and sleepless nights. I have to admit, I have been guilty of a couple of these in the past, but that’s why it’s called experience.
Today I look at the Business Case from a different perspective, that of Project Management. I have been involved in organizations that did the Enterprise Analysis activities that identified a business need and built the business case for a solution. The business case was brought before, and received the blessing, of the IT Governance body and a new project was born. It was then turned over to a Project Services team whose first task was to create a Project Charter.
So let’s take a look at these reasons. First, creating a BA Center of Excellence would allow the organization to use their BA talent in a more strategic role within the organization. It would allow them to move their BAs among the business units within the organization with a much less learning curve. BAs leaving the organization don’t take valuable business knowledge out the door with them and just as important, new BAs have a much shorter ramp up time to become effective to the organization. I believe once organizations realize the value that developing a BA Center of Excellence can have on the organization, they would all want one.
I had lunch today with one of our Cincinnati customers and he made the comment that his company had eliminated a lot of costs via their IT applications. He also said there was no more low hanging fruit in their IT applications. Everything is integrated and there are no easy changes. I laughed and said there is nothing easy any more; even my easy button quit talking!
Happy New Year!!! Welcome to a new year, new decade and a new beginning.
I feel ComputerWorld did not put enough emphasis on Security; this without doubt will be the biggest challenge for IT executives in the coming years. Open-source software may be an innovative money saver, but IT professionals still have concerns that networks could be vulnerable to viruses, cyberattacks and other intrusions.
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Seems like it has been a while since I have had a chance to do a post. For the last 3 weeks things have been absolutely crazy in our IT consulting world, but in a good way. We had a chance to go to the
Its good to see Cincinnati and Dayton area companies starting to embrace open source as an alternative to custom application development. As an IT Strategy consultant, I can say there is a place for both.