Instructor: Rob Snowden

CBAP Certification Prep Boot Camp

Part 1: Welcome to Boot Camp

We'll start the CBAP® Certification Prep Boot Camp with an overview of what "Certified Business Analysis Professional® " means—what it is and what it isn't. Under your instructor's guidance, you'll have a chance to discover some of the most important philosophies and aspects of the CBAP® examination, setting the tone for this fast-paced and interactive learning experience. And to get you ready for the workshop to come, we'll give you a preview of the CBAP® course content and our process for delivering a valuable learning experience.

  1. Components of the CBAP® certification
  2. Introduction to the CBAP® examination
  3. Philosophy of the exams
  4. Overview of CBAP® exam content
  5. Overview of the CBAP® Prep Boot Camp

Part 2: CBAP® Certification: The Credentials

Armed with a sense of what the certification is and a taste of the examination experience, you and your fellow CBAP course participants will then receive a guided tour of the CBAP® certification. We'll explore the certifying body—the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA)—and the requirements for certification. The CBAP course will take you through the application and examination processes, including tips, tools, and best practices for packaging your Business Analyst experience and education on the application. Next, we'll familiarize you with the professional standards and ethics of the CBAP® certification. And we'll conclude this module with a look at how the examination is structured and show you the best way to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your exam preparation.

  1. The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA)
  2. The CBAP® certification
  3. The certification application processes
  4. The examination processes
  5. The professional code of conduct
  6. The examination structures

Part 3: Business Analysis & Key Concepts Overview

Before we can focus on the Body of Knowledge, we will need to cover critical foundational material on the topic of business analysis. We'll start by providing an overview, including common terms, concepts, techniques, and models that all business analysts must know to pass the CBAP® examination. During this overview, you'll have numerous chances to demonstrate your own knowledge, learn from your fellow Boot Camp participants, and gain useful insights from your instructor. You'll also practice exam questions to test your mastery, help you identify weaknesses, and effectively plan for further study on these important and often underemphasized exam topics.

  1. What is business analysis?
  2. The role and competencies of the business analyst
  3. The Systems/Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
  4. Project & Requirements Life Cycle Management
  5. Project roles and competencies
  6. Requirements engineering basics
  7. Levels of requirements, tool, and techniques
  8. Perspectives, systems, processes, and actors

Part 4: The Business Analysis Knowledge Areas

At the heart of IIBA certification is demonstrated knowledge of the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® v 3.0 (BABOK®). In this section of the Boot Camp, we'll dive deeply into each Knowledge Area. As we cover each of these six subject-matter areas, we'll share the essential information you need to know for the CBAP examination. You'll come to understand the structure of the BABOK® and discover some practical tips for remembering what you need to know. And of course, the Boot Camp will help you continue to increase your comfort and confidence with the examinations through realistic practice exercises. Combined with the opportunity to discuss your questions, these activities will help you further refine your personalized preparation plan.

  1. Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring
  2. Elicitation & Collaboration
  3. Requirements Life Cycle Management
  4. Strategy Analysis
  5. Requirements Analysis & Design Definition
  6. Solution Evaluation

Part 5: Underlying Competencies

Having attained a deep knowledge of the BABOK® Knowledge Areas, you must still understand and know critical business analysis fundamentals. This module takes a detailed, structured look at the underlying competencies you need to know for the CBAP® certification.

  1. Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving
  2. Behavioral Characteristics
  3. Business Knowledge
  4. Communication Skills
  5. Interaction Skills
  6. Tools and Technology

Part 6: Techniques

A Business Analyst employs a variety of tools and techniques during a project to ensure successful results. Throughout the course, we will examine and study a number of these tools and techniques and learn the best time and place in which to use each.

  1. Elicitation & Collaboration techniques
  2. Diagramming and modeling techniques
  3. Root cause analysis techniques
  4. Acceptance and evaluation definition techniques
  5. Post-project assessment techniques

Part 7: Perspectives

Most projects use one or more perspectives that provide focus to the business analyst for tasks and techniques. We will examine several perspectives identified in the BABoK.

  1. Agile
  2. Business Intelligence
  3. Information Technology
  4. Business Architecture
  5. Business Process Management

Part 8: A Guide to Success on the Exam

By this point in the Boot Camp, you'll have a clear understanding of the application and examination processes. Using our specially developed tools, you'll be ready to map out your experience and knowledge and know what you personally need to do to complete a successful application. You'll also have an individualized study plan to help you prepare efficiently and effectively for the examination. All that remains are a few final tips to improve your examination experience. In this final Boot Camp section, you'll get our best tips and tricks and have a chance to practice with a sample examination. As we wrap up our four-day journey, you'll put the finishing touches on your personal exam preparation plan so that you can quickly and easily study for your own examination.

  1. Review of key topics
  2. Key tips to remember for the exam
  3. Final test hints and tricks
  4. Practice examination
  5. Your personal preparation plan

Business Analysis in Agile Projects (ICP-APO)

Part 1: Getting Started

As we get started we will get to know each other and understand the objectives of the course. We will introduce the importance of Conversation in the Agile environment and how the Conversation can be managed for better communication and results. We will model the creation of Working Agreements that contribute to building trust on a team.

  1. Introductions
  2. Course Objectives
  3. Impact of other Domains on Agile Beginnings
  4. The Agile Conversation
  5. Working Agreements

Part 2: Agile Overview

You’ve heard it all before: “Agile means developing software without any documentation. Agile means developers decide on a product’s features. Agile is the same thing as Scrum.” Perhaps you’ve heard the most misleading concept of all: “Agile means we don’t do business analysis anymore.” Nothing could be more false.

Learn what Agile really is, what the variations and hybrids of Agile are, and how business analysis is critical to project success.

  1. Lean Beginnings
  2. Why Agile?
  3. Agile Manifesto & Principles
  4. Agile Practices

Part 3: Building an Agile Team

In Agile the Business Analyst has various possible roles from Voice of the Customer or Product Owner, member of the Customer side team, or member of the Development side team. In this section, we will explore how to create an effective Agile team with an Agile mindset and then see how the Business Analyst fits into this team framework and provides value.

  1. The Team as a System
  2. The Business Analyst

Part 4: Project Initiation

Agile follows an Adaptive, Just-in-Time planning model. In this section, we will learn how Adaptive Planning can better meet the customer’s needs and provide them more value with fewer resources by only elaborating requirements Just-in-Time.

  1. Five Levels of Planning
  2. Vision
  3. Themes & Roadmap
  4. User Roles and Personas

Part 5: Backlog Planning

The Agile vehicle of communicating requirements is the User Story. The Business Analyst is central in the process of writing and elaborating User Stories. This section will help the Business Analyst learn about User Stories and how to write and elaborate good User Stories.

  1. The Product Backlog
  2. Writing User Stories
  3. Guidelines for Good Stories
  4. Acceptance Criteria

Part 6: Managing the Backlog

After User Stories are written, they need to be prioritized and estimated. As part of the Customer side team, the BA has a major role in prioritization. As a member of the Development side team, the BA will contribute to User Story estimation. Both of these come with low cost, low waste techniques that allow us to do this quickly and get on to the important work of implementing requirements.

  1. Prioritization
  2. Estimating

Part 7: Release Planning

The Business needs to know when they will receive product deliverables. In this section, the Business Analyst will learn how milestones are set and how deliverables will be slated for a release with high confidence in meeting dates.

Part 8: Backlog Refinement

Backlog Refinement is where the Business Analyst is really worth their weight in gold. User Stories represent very thin statements of Customer wants and needs but they don’t contain the details until the development team is close to working on them. As the time to work on them approaches, the details need to be filled in and the Business Analyst is the central figure in requirements elaboration.

  1. Agile Documentation
  2. Requirements Elaboration

Part 9: The Iteration

When Requirements are ready to go – ready to go does not mean mountains of documentation. Much of the details are maintained as tacit knowledge with the Business Analyst and the others who have been involved with the Conversation. Continued collaboration is essential to turning what we’ve learned about the needs of the customer into working software. The Business Analyst is always there involved in answering real-time questions from the team.

  1. Iteration Planning
  2. Iteration Execution

Part 10: Inspect and Adapt

Agile is an Empirical Process for developing complex software. Essential to an Empirical Process is feedback loops. Feedback loops can be both formal and more informal. In this section, we will learn about the formal feedback loops that are built into the end-of-iteration timeframe for driving continuous improvement back into the process.

  1. The Iteration Review
  2. The Demo
  3. The Retrospective

Part 11: Agile Adoption

So you want to drive these concepts into your organization as you leave the class and go back to your work. This section will help you do that effectively.