Techcanvass is publishing series of posts, written by CBAP certified professionals to share the experienced of professionals in getting CBAP certified. This CBAP certification journey Manoj Kulkarni is sharing his experience.
Manoj Kulkarni is a Consultant at Capco with experience in fixed income, equity derivatives and credit risk management. He holds a Master’s degree in Finance.
Manoj CBAP Journey…
After having worked as a lead business analyst for around 8+ years on the professional front, I was wondering, is there was a way to get my business analysis skills validated by professionals and gain more insights into the day-to-day work I was doing.
Having gone through a series of interactions with numerous professionals/stakeholders regarding CBAP, I decided to go for it.
Well, I have always operated on the DCS principle, i.e. D stands for Decide on what you have to do. Then C stands for Commitment to your time/money/energy and finally, S stands for success which you strive for.
Let me share with you my journey of getting CBAP certified. I have drafted 7 steps to take you through certification journey.
Step 1: Ascertaining eligibility
Your work experience should meet Business Analysis Requirements – ensuring you meet the eligibility criteria.
This acts as a filter point in order to check if your current work is exactly what a BA does? And this also helps you to answer many questions which revolve around case studies based questions.
If you meet the eligibility criteria, then you can opt to become a member of IIBA. You will get access to BABOK guide (current version is 3.0
Step 2: Getting your hands on BABOK guide
Going through BABOK V3.0 –
This exam is completely based on the captioned book, you have to go through this book line by line and word by word, there is no shortcut to this. The questions might be from any part of this book and can use any of the concepts and scenarios. The questions, I was told, are going to be case studies based.
Ideally, you should be going through the book at least 3 times.
Read More – CBAP Practice Questions – BABOKDrills
Step 3: Undergoing training
Earning PDU’s (Professional Development Units)
This comprises of having minimum hours of classroom training required before you take up the exam. Many IIBA endorsed institutes do provide this and that will be one of the requirements to be fulfilled. You need 35 hours of PDUs for CBAP and 21 hours for CCBA.
Checkout – CBAP Certification course from Techcanvass
Step 4: Study and Preparation
Prepare, prepare and prepare- that’s the mantra. It’s like going back to your classroom days. Go through the training program, you have opted for. After the session, revise the chapters and read additional study resources. Solve simulation of questions chapter wise.
As I am working (like you), managing time for study is tricky but making use of weekends and on weekdays after office hours should come in handy.
It’s a good idea to devise a target for the exam date and then plan backwards so that you can be more focused. I did the same and that helped me get focused. I bought access to additional resources like study guides and practice tests. You can purchase these from Watermark Learning or Techcanvass.
I also started to take the simulation exercises chapter wise, and keep checking my score until it hit a minimum of 80%.
Once I covered all the chapters, I went for full-length simulation exams. These served as mockup exams before taking the mains.
You are bound to get some of your answers wrong, make note of these incorrect answers. I followed a tick back method to keep track and to analyze the approach taken to solve the questions. This was a great help in a quick concept review.
Read More – A Guide To CBAP Exam Preparation
Step 5: CBAP Application Submission
I actually completed step 5 and 6 earlier to keep me focused on my preparation. You can do it after you start feeling confident about your preparation. The application form is available on the IIBA website.
You need to fill in the required number of hours from your work experience. You also need to provide 2 names for your professional work as references, they can be your reporting manager and a CBAP professional who is known to you.
Step 6: Schedule your exam
This is important, as it gives you a target date and brings focus to your preparation. Please make sure that you always have sufficient time in your hand before booking your exam date as this gives you enough room for your preparation.
Also Read – Sankara Raman Venketaraman: IIBA-CBDA Certification Journey
Step 7: Taking the exam
Attend the exam with confidence and try to keep your calm. I found the questions a bot tough initially, so didn’t spend more than 4 minutes on one Q. I kept on going further and answered the questions, I was confident about. You can mark the questions for review, and can come back to them when you have got more time for review.
Hope this will help us you all to nail CBAP. All the very best!
Thanks,
Manoj Kulkarni
About Manoj Kulkarni
Manoj Kulkarni is a Consultant at Capco with experience in fixed income, equity derivatives and credit risk management. He holds a Master’s degree in Finance.
He is a Solutions-oriented and practising business analyst. A CBAP certified professional having more than 9 years of hands-on experience in Investment Banking-(Capital Markets), Fixed Income Settlements-Mid office, Risk Management and Complex Derivatives.
He is an MBA in Finance with 18 Finance certifications on various NSE Modules to date. He is also a Cambridge University Certified in Business English.
Currently working with Morgan Stanley on Statement and Confirms space. Prior to Capco, he also worked with the other Investment Banks such as CITI Group & Nomura.
