Recently I engaged in a brief Twitter dialog with @edilorenzo and @GreySkinnedBoy about the relationship between your BA experience and the maturity of the organization. To be more specific, the dialog was about CBAP-related experience and maturity as defined in terms of CMM.
@edilorenzo question was “Is a holder’s CBAP less valuable if the holder’s experience was gained at a CMM level 1 company; at only 1 company? #IIBA”.
@GreySkinnedBoy replied”#CBAP gained at CMM 1 company is not devalued, as it speaks of their knowledge and how to apply it #IIBA #baot” and then “however experience gained at CMM level 1 company does not have same value — should we put #CMMI levels on resumes? #IIBA #baot”
My tweet was “i would think more valuable. if you can be a BA in a CMM1 you can do it anywhere (though you may not like the relative order)”. Part of my perspective here is building a software organization from the ground up, aiming to create a reasonably mature practice out of relative chaos. I was consistently recruiting individuals that could create value and achieve results regardless of the processes in place (or lack thereof) and could help us build more mature practices. I was looking for people who understood the fundamentals of their discipline, how to apply the fundamentals in largely various situations, and how to contribute to incremental improvements.
@edilorenzo disagrees with my brief tweet and summarizes his response in this blog post, essentially saying that a BA in a level 1 organization is not as productive, thereby inferring (I believe) that their CBAP experience is also less valuable.
As I retrace the dialog, I realize I focused on the value of the BA’s experience over the value of the CBAP. Big oversight. So let’s take a moment and talk about what the CBAP represents of the individual BA. At it’s most fundamental level, the CBAP represents that you, as a professional, have a certain amount of work experience doing the activities outlined in the BABOK and that you can successfully represent your understanding of the BABOK by passing a test.
I would contend that your understanding of the BABOK is not valued more or less based on the maturity of the organizations within which you worked. Indeed, it would seem to me that representing your understanding of the business analyst fundamentals in this way is designed specifically to level the playing field amongst business analysts with diverse backgrounds.
As to the value of the 5+ years of business analyst experience you are representing by becoming a certified business analyst professional, I would contend that this requirement is also designed to level the playing field. Your experience must represent BA activities as outlined in the BABOK. If you successfully held those responsibilities why does it matter the maturity of the organization? What exactly is different about writing a requirements document in a CMM1 organization versus a 3 or 4? If you have the appropriate BABOK-defined experience, you are qualified for the CBAP.
So I recant my Tweet. I don’t think the maturity of an organization makes your CBAP-related experience more or less valuable.
As a further note, unless the CBAP stands alone, unqualified by “how you got there” it’s destined to become less of a valuable credential itself. Let’s leave those qualifications for the context of specific organizations, specific positions, specific managers, and specific candidates. This is the stuff that belongs in the messy process of matching a candidate to an open position not the evaluation of one CBAP over another.
Your turn.
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By Laura Brandenburg. Laura Brandenburg is an independent business analyst mentor and consultant. She hosts this blog as a forum for business analysts to build on each other's experiences. To stay up-to-date on the latest from Bridging the Gap be sure to sign-up for our free eNewsletter and receive a free primer titled "3 Career Habits of Successful Business Analysts." View more blog posts by Laura Brandenburg |
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I think my motivation in the original tweet was to foster interest in CMMI in the BA community – improve the BA process not of the individual BA, but of the organization they belong to. Not doing so increases the likelihood of failure no matter how good the BA. Having projects fail with CBAP holders is not healthy for the profession.
There are 2 important external inputs to BABOK knowledge areas – Enterprise Architecture (3 KA’s) and Organizational Process Assets (5 KA’s). These then are obvious candidates for future extensions and in the case of the latter one which we should seek to effect sooner than later.
Hi @Edilorenzo, thanks for your comment. Interesting take. I do see quite a bit of acknowledgment of CMM and definitely process improvement among business analysts. I actually think it’s BAs who start at what would be considered a level 1 company who make the most inroads in terms of overall process improvement for their organizations.
Laura
As a software development firm owner, I would prefer a CBAP that has experience in several organizations of various maturity levels. A person of this type should have a good understanding of when you need to hold firm on the rules when to toss the BABOK out the window.
While I’m obviously painting with a very broad brush here, my assumption would be that someone with only CMM lvl 1 experience isn’t going to understand the benefits of creating a structured environment and executing a disciplined strategy. Meanwhile a CBAP with 10 years at a telco will have a tendency to seek out organizational constraints to provide context. As such, they aren’t likely to come up with any original ideas anytime soon.
Hi Scott, Good point. I had a notion (which I hadn’t shared in this post) that experience within only mature organizations was somehow limited. I think this perception was also at the root of my original tweet. If you’d only worked in a structured environment, you’d have a limited view of how to create change and do top-notch BA work. I like the phrase “tendency to seek out organizational constraints to provide context”…I’ll need to save that one. It captures this idea that to be a great business analyst you need to not only be able to do BA work in a disciplined environment but create discipline in otherwise chaotic environments and you are often not doing this through process but through people.
The more we write, the more @edilorenzo and I are on the same page after all.
Laura