Suggestions for CBAP® Exam Preparation

The following are recommendations from IIBA® on how to prepare for the CBAP® exam. Note that following these recommendations does not guarantee passing the exam.

·         Review the IIBA® BABOK®.

·         Review Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on the IIBA® Web site.

·         Review recommended resources on the IIBA® Web site.

·         Attend training, as needed.

·         Find opportunities in day-to-day work to practice tasks by following the BABOK®.

·         Find a Business Analysis mentor.

·         Join a study group.

·         Network on the IIBA® forum and/or attend local IIBA® Chapter meetings.

·         Review available study guide(s). 

The CBAP® exam is 3.5 hours long and consists of 150 multiple choice questions with four possible answers to select from. Some questions are based on “comprehension” (e.g., definition, recall, etc.) and others are based on “situational analysis” (e.g., given a scenario, which is the best course of action) where the applicant must do a bit of analysis to arrive at the answer. It is neither all of one type or the other but covers a range of Blooms Taxonomy.

Exam blueprints based on v1.6   exam versus new. v2.0 of the BABOK®:

13 6/30/2009

Click here to view the entire handbook now.

Please take 15 minutes to take the new IIBA BA role delineation task survey. You do not need to be an IIBA member to take the survey.  Your responses will influence the BABOK V2.00 new exam questions and knowledge area question percentages. Let your voice be heard. For more information refer to this blog http://blog.theiiba.org/2008/11/babok-version-2-task-survey-your.html

For the survey, visit http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=lukLKiuUOHaC5LQ13WcB3w_3d_3d  

The deadline for survey completion is December 17, 2008. 

 Some information from their web site (http://www.incose.org/):

The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) is a not-for-profit membership organization founded to develop and disseminate the interdisciplinary principles and practices that enable the realization of successful systems.

Mission
Advance the state of the art and practice of systems engineering in industry, academia, and government by promoting interdisciplinary, scalable approaches to produce technologically appropriate solutions that meet societal needs.

This organization was founded in 1990 and has over 5000 members worldwide. They have numerous chapters, a body of knowledge and a certification program. I reviewed the body of knowledge (G2SEbok) and it contains many of the same topics as the BABOK.

So the question is "What is the difference between a BA and a Systems Engineer?"

• Existing documentation (document analysis)  
• Job shadowing/observation
• Facilitated requirements work sessions
• Interviews
• User task analysis or process walkthroughs
• Surveys
• Conference calls using collaboration tools
• Prototypes
• Focus groups

These along with some others are mentioned in the IIBA BABOK^TM. The better understanding a BA has about the essential business operations, the more effective he/she can be in assisting the business to create more cost-effective, time-saving, and powerful solutions.  Write and tell us about which techniques work best for you and why.

The third major change is to separate the requirements planning and management topics. Planning becomes Business Analysis Planning as mentioned above. Requirements management gets combined with Requirements Communication. Although this combination is not as natural, these are two topic areas that are related and are small, so from a practical standpoint it makes sense for us to put them in the same chapter.

We would love to hear what BAs think about these ideas. Reply here or at the sites listed above with your thoughts.

So, be aware that the application itself is more important than the CBAP exam in determining your eligibility for certification. Below are some hints for developing an application that accurately describes your experience.

1. Be careful documenting your PM work. Although many of us have done PM work, that work does not count towards your BA experience. Be sure to describe planning activities that you have done as requirements planning, stakeholder analysis, scoping the area of study, or scoping the requirements elicitation process.

2. Be careful documenting your QA work. Although many of us have done QA work, that work does not count towards your BA experience. Be sure to describe testing activities that you have done as identifying test cases that assess business requirements met, tracing test cases back to business requirements, reviewing QA test plans, cases, scripts for adherence to business requirements, reviewing test results for adherence to business requirements.

3. Don't forget about usability work. Many of our organizations have just started using the word usability but most of us have been doing it for years. Whenever you have helped your team design a screen that is more intuitive for its users you are designing usability.

4. Don't be afraid of Enterprise Analysis. You have probably done more Enterprise Analysis than you realize. If you have discussed possible project ideas with your business stakeholders and helped them determine if the project was a good idea (feasibility, alignment with business goals and architecture), you have experience in Enterprise Analysis.

5. Don't detail descriptions of specific projects. Although fascinating to you and your project team, the IIBA application reviewers don't need to know details about the application that you worked on. Describe projects with short, clear names that an outside reviewer would understand. For example: instead of saying: "The DEFSSC project interfaced the INCC system with the EFT outlink." Say something like: "The project involved linking the existing customer purchase system with an outside credit card processing service."

6. Do give specific examples of the types of requirements that you have elicited, analyzed, documented, communicated, and helped to implement. This should be the core of your application. Example: I developed a detailed business model of the payroll processing area by: interviewing 10 business stakeholders; developing a workflow model including over 15 diagrams; presenting the workflow model to the stakeholders; revising the model based on feedback; and obtaining approval of the recommended workflow changes.

7. Do document all of the work you have done in the last 10 years. Showing more than the required 7500 hours allows for a few items to be rejected but your application to be accepted. Document everything that you can.

8. Do enjoy the writing! How often do you get to brag about your accomplishments? Don't dread the writing, enjoy it! Good Luck, Barb

If you made it through the application process then you are half way home.  There is no need to get overly anxious about the exam.  But, since you are probably like me, you are still very anxious.  I hope the Q & A below helps relieve some of that anxiety.   

Q & A

Question: How many questions are on the exam and what is the format; multiple choice, true false, etc.?

Answer:  The exam consists of 150 questions and they are all multiple choice with four possible answers.  Only one answer is the correct answer and there are no multiple correct choices, i.e. one of the answers is not 'A and C.'

Q: How long are you given to take the exam?

A: You have 3.5 hours to complete the exam.  It took each of us at B2T Training between 2.5 and 3 hours to complete the exam.

Q: What version of the BABOK is the exam based on?

A: The exam is and will be based on version 1.6 of the BABOK until further notice.  As of 5/1/07 the IIBA does not plan on updating the exam until version 3.0 is released.

Q: Are all the questions taken directly from the content in the BABOK?

A: The short answer is no.  The test writers used the BABOK and the references listed in the BABOK to write the questions. 

Q: What question types were used?

A: The test writers used Bloom's Taxonomy as a basis to have varying levels of question difficulty. An overview of Bloom's Taxonomy can be found at http://www.coun.uvic.ca/learn/program/hndouts/bloom.html.

Q: Were the questions tricky?

A: I would not say tricky, but a large percent of the questions had good distractors.  This means that two answers appeared to be correct.  You have to take your time reading each question to ensure you understand what the question is asking and that you select the best answer.

We created a CBAP study group to discuss the BABOK in our organization. Here's how we structured it and what we learned:

• Assign each Knowledge Area to one or two BAs – they will facilitate the session on their KA
• Schedule 1 1/2 hours per session
• Schedule dates/KAs ahead to give everyone time to prepare
• Require participants to read the Knowledge Area before the session
• Present BABOK tasks and ask for questions/issues
• Presenter(s) shares his or her experience with each task and technique

Since everyone in our group knows each other we are aware other's experiences. Our facilitators specifically pointed out ideas in the BABOK that were different than our experience.

Q & A

Q: What materials are used for the study group sessions?

A: We built PowerPoint slides with highlights of each task/technique. The Atlanta chapter has been sharing slides so we did not have to start from scratch. My advice is don't just copy text from the BABOK onto a slide. Paraphrase and summarize the concepts.

Q: How often should a study group meet?

A: Our group met every two weeks. The schedule should be geared towards when participants plan to take the exam.

Q: Is anyone "in charge?"

A: Yes. One person must be the coordinator. He or she makes sure that facilitators are ready for each session, reserves the conference room or conference bridge, and monitors the meeting time.

Q: Who decides how topics are covered?

A: We just started at the beginning of the BABOK and went through sequentially. Don't forget Chapter 1 – it has important foundational information.

Let us know if you have any questions about starting your own study group.