PCS program endorsed
UD receives certification for business analyst training program
10:10 a.m., June 20, 2011--The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) has formally recognized the University of Delaware's Division of Professional and Continuing Studies as an Endorsed Education Provider (EEP). The designation recognizes that UD's Business Analyst Certificate is aligned with the IIBA's content guidelines for preparing business analysis professionals.
"Business analysis is definitely a growing position and a growing field," says UD's Business Analyst Certificate program director Scott Fabel, a corporate training consultant with Computer Aid, Inc. (CAI) with over 16 years' training experience working with Fortune 1000 companies.
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According to BPMInstitute.org, business analyst practitioners are poised to have a dramatic impact on organizations’ abilities to create more responsive business models.
"I think business analysis as a field today is where project management was 20 years ago," Fabel says, adding, "A variety of professionals were fulfilling project management functions, but 'project manager' wasn't likely to be their title, and there wasn't formalized training or credentialing for the professional skill set they were using. That's where business analysis is right now, but it's changing fast."
Research shows that the "IT-business divide" is most often to blame when IT projects fail to deliver expected results. According to Meta Group Research, now a part of Gartner, "Communication challenges between business teams and technologists are chronic -- we estimate that 60-80 percent of project failure can be attributed directly to poor requirements gathering, analysis, and management." A recent FederalTimes.com article reiterates, "Better requirements are increasingly being recognized as solutions to program failure."
The business analyst fills this key role, with the position's primary focus on eliciting, analyzing, communicating, and validating requirements for changes to business processes, policies and information systems. While job titles may vary, the business analyst's contribution is to facilitate communications among an organization’s stakeholders in order to find out what their needs are, and to turn those needs into measurable IT requirements and solutions.
UD began offering the Business Analyst Certificate in 2007, and currently offers the program through a partnership with CAI, a global IT services company headquartered in Allentown, Pa., with its regional office in Wilmington. CAI is also an IIBA Endorsed Education Provider.
The IIBA itself was founded in 2004, and has been successful in developing standardized content guidelines for business analyst training. It credentials business analysts, certifies training programs, and administers certification exams for the field. The two professional IIBA designations are CCBA (Certification of Competency in Business Analysis) and CBAP (Certified Business Analysis Professional). Certification requirements in addition to passing the IIBA exam include experience, continuing education credits, and references.
In spring 2011, 13 students successfully completed UD's Business Analyst Certificate offered by the Division of Professional and Continuing Studies. The following class members received their certificates on June 2: Ericka Aparicio, Derek Armah, Shirley Cornelius, Milagro Girtain, Simon Grajczak, Hamid Khan, Richa Mahindru, Gregory Marsh, Kevin McGill, William Speaker, Wanda Midgett, Bernadette Weekes and Sonya Williams.
The next offering of UD's Business Analyst Certificate begins Sept. 8 and will take approximately three months to complete. For more information, visit this website, call 302-831-7600 or write to continuing-ed@udel.edu.
A free information session for this program and other UD professional development certificates will be held Thursday, July 21. (Register and pay in full for a fall 2011 certificate program at or before the July 21 information session and receive a 10 percent discount.) For more information or to register for the information session, visit this website.
Article by Nora Riehl Zelluk