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I'm Certified! (More so)
Oct. 30th, 2018 03:03 pmI just passed my ECBA certification, which means I'm a Level 1 Certified Business Analyst. Go me!
I found this course of study more difficult than ITIL, largely because of unfamiliar terminology. In Business Analysis, we elict requirements which are then modeled, verified and validated. "Verified" and "Validated" are different things with different meanings, which can be confusing. (Trust me. I got a few more gray hairs studying for this exam.)
Having said that, what I really got out of this course is an understanding of something that had been a mystery to me, namely the dreaded Project Nope. That's the one where, as you're getting ready to roll out a solution, the client / customer said "Nope! That's not what I wanted!"
I've always been baffled by how that happens. Now I know, or at least know one place to look. The requirements for the solution have not been validated. Nobody looked to see if Feature X actually solved Business Problem Y. Now, it's entirely possible other steps prior to that validation didn't happen, but had the validation been attempted it would have become clear that there was a disconnect between what we're looking to build and what we're looking to solve.
Again, as a project manager for mumble-many years, I had an instinctive understanding that one needs to actually make sure the solution addresses the problem. What I didn't have until today was the language to say "this is what wasn't done" in a manner that could easily be acted on. You learn every day.
I found this course of study more difficult than ITIL, largely because of unfamiliar terminology. In Business Analysis, we elict requirements which are then modeled, verified and validated. "Verified" and "Validated" are different things with different meanings, which can be confusing. (Trust me. I got a few more gray hairs studying for this exam.)
Having said that, what I really got out of this course is an understanding of something that had been a mystery to me, namely the dreaded Project Nope. That's the one where, as you're getting ready to roll out a solution, the client / customer said "Nope! That's not what I wanted!"
I've always been baffled by how that happens. Now I know, or at least know one place to look. The requirements for the solution have not been validated. Nobody looked to see if Feature X actually solved Business Problem Y. Now, it's entirely possible other steps prior to that validation didn't happen, but had the validation been attempted it would have become clear that there was a disconnect between what we're looking to build and what we're looking to solve.
Again, as a project manager for mumble-many years, I had an instinctive understanding that one needs to actually make sure the solution addresses the problem. What I didn't have until today was the language to say "this is what wasn't done" in a manner that could easily be acted on. You learn every day.
