Frankly, if you’re a genuinely top-notch BA with a broad knowledge of the profession, the BABOK may NOT have a lot for you. The primary audience is people getting started in the profession, or people who have been doing it for a while but not been exposed to the full range of the job. It helps those people understand what they need to learn in order to be a reasonably well-rounded professional able to work in most industries and on most projects. But eventually, you’re going to master what it has to offer and move beyond that.

The IIBA is an effective body for rallying BAs and sharing knowledge about best practice on certain aspects of what some BAs do. And for that, it’s great.

Saying that, though, I would not want a business to dictate who and what a BA is about. Do we really want the day when the market says I only want an BA as defined by IIBA? What about those who are not IIBA cerfitied? Will the day come when they won’t be considered BAs?

And this is the argument being had amongst BAs right now — asking the question about who we are, what we do, the activities we undertake, the roles we perform, and the titles we’re given. Unfortunately, the BABOK only represents a small portion of what many of us consider to be BA-work. Yet, it’s approach is that, if you do the BABOK test you’ll be certified as a BA. And it’s this that just seems wrong.

I just don’t think that the BABOK has all the answers.

M

Cheers

Despite what you seem to believe, the IIBA is a non-profit organization that has not made a dime of revenue from the BABOK or from this Business Analysis symposium that has you so upset (we’re not even involved in the latter as an international body). The BABOK was developed entirely by volunteers who contributed considerable time and effort to develop it out of a desire to benefit the BA community, and have not been paid for their time. Over a hundred and fifty practitioners of business analysis have been involved in the development and review of the current edition. The IIBA Board of Directors are all volunteers who devote an average of 10-15 hours a week to the organization above and beyond holding down day jobs and are not recompensed in any way for doing so.

I’m saddened that you felt the need to impugn our motives, instead of assessing the value of what we’ve developed. In fact, the primary motivator for the formation of the IIBA was not training providers seeking to sell courses, as you seem to believe, but employers who felt that they needed a set of standards for business analysis practice and training so that they could reliably find and assess skilled candidates for their jobs. Most of our funding comes from memberships and member payments, and it’s still the case that we rely far more on employers of business analysts for institutional support than any other group.

For the record, and in the interests of full disclosure, I will state that I am the only member of the IIBA’s management team who is paid by the IIBA (for managing its information technology) although I still devote considerable unpaid volunteer time to the organization, and worked as a volunteer for four years before taking on this contract role.