BA certification - what are the benefits?

As a Business Analyst I have wondered what are the benefits of BA certification and who is benefiting? To try and work that out I thought about the reasons why BAs should be certified.

Is it to measure the ability of the BA to do the job? Is it to try and get some consistency in the quality of analysis that is being done? Is to to increase the status of the profession?

Then I look at 2 certification schemes available to BAs: the ISEB Diploma in Business Analysis from BCS and CBAP from IIBA and here is the thing: I have yet to see a job that has a mandatory requirement to hold either of these and yet if certification was proving the ability of the holder to do the job and ensuring consistency in quality of deliverables surely the employers would be demanding their employees have the certification?

Now I look at various functional requirements that exist for these certificates and I find (amongst others):
1. both require passing exams
2. both require money to be paid to the accreditation organisations for the exams.

Let's take the subject of exams first. I have a mathematics 'O' level I got 30 years ago that I am pretty sure I could not pass now. What does that mean? It means that 30 years ago I knew enough to be able to pass a mathematics 'O' level and not much more. Worse still: suppose I had an accident and became brain dead on a ventilator: I would still be more eligible academically than the mathematically brightest but unqualified candidate for a job that demands a mathematics 'O' level. This illustrates the absurdity of exams.

Now exam fees. I can see why exam fees are needed: someone has to pay for the provision of the administration of these exams.

But no jobs demand these particular exams and anyway exams (agruably) prove very little and may rule out otherwise excellent candidates!

So to summarise: someone has to pay for the provision of something no jobs demand and which seem to prove very little anyway.

As a Business Analyst if this was a project I was analysing requirements for I would raise the issue that there does not appear to be any inherent benefit for the expense - unless I was working on the project for BCS or IIBA!!! :-)

I would be extremely interested to learn about a justification for exams and the current certification programmes - has anyone any views on that?

Guy
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Slurpeeking,

Great point well made: certificates probably do help in selection of candidates for interviews, and I have seen that in action myself.

Of course, the question arises about whether they should help in the selection of candidates for interviews and I tried to illustrate the problems I see with that using my brain dead but qualified mathematics candidate vs mathematically bright but unqualified candidate.

So from a practical "how do I get an interview" perspective I totally agree with you: certification does not ever harm in my experience and it almost certainly helps.

But is that the best way to select candidates for interview? Even employers don't seem to think so as it is only ever a desireable attribute whereas relevant industry experience is most often mandatory: if certificates were so good at identifying great BAs wouldn't employers insist on them?

Guy

Hi Larimar,

Thanks for your comments and I agree with all your points and would like to add a couple to them:

1. IIBA certification requires renewal (as I understand it please correct me if I am wrong) which also requires ongoing payment to renew...in whose interest is that?

2. Preferences are as you say preferences and so I am expecting any certification to only influence outcomes when a CV is borderline - i.e. a minority of cases because most of the time a CV is a clear "accept" or "reject".

3. The principle of what is - in essence - arbitary certification (i.e. it has been designed by parties with no other authority than what they have taken on themselves and so have no more 'right' to define certification standards than I do).

4. There is no driver for certification: no country has laws that say BAs must be qualified, employers don't demand it, given two random BAs to assess I could not predict which has a certification and which doesn't and don't know of any way that would predict (so there is no material significant difference between a BA who has certification and one who does not).

So just as a BA, I wonder what the objectives are for certification and whose objectives they are.

Having said all that and as I said before, certification will not harm and it might help in getting interview - I just wonder about the principles of it all...

BTW: I have not made up my mind on this either, I am curious and wanted to get some other views to progress my thinking on this...

Guy