Aarthi Success Story: Her Journey to Clearing the CBAP Certification

In today’s success story, we will discuss the experienced business analyst, Aarthi. She is a talented and smart business analyst who recently cracked the CBAP certification. Her motivation and energy to do something extraordinary make her a powerful figure in the corporate world.

Let’s move ahead and learn about CBAP certification and how Aarthi was able to crack it in spite of her hectic daily work schedule.

Before moving into it, if you are an upcoming aspirant and want to learn more about CBAP or ECBA courses, we provide material and online sessions on CBAP certification courses and ECBA certification courses. You can visit our website to know more about it, and if it aligns with your preparation, you can purchase our courses today to fuel your certification journey.

Background

Aarthi is a business analyst professional who recently cracked the CBAP certification examination. It is one of the most challenging examinations in the domain. She is currently working as a senior BSA in a management consulting firm in Canada. She has over 12 years of experience in IT and has progressively transitioned from a dot net developer to a business system analyst role.

She has worked on large-scale enterprise applications across various industries and domains, such as artificial intelligence, mining, banking, healthcare, and insurance.

See also Chidimma Success Story: Her Journey to Clearing The CBAP Certification

When Did She Plan to Do CBAP?

She decided to pursue her CBAP certification last year in the summer. She also took formal training from Techcanvass to earn her PDUs in the spring of 2020 and submitted her CBAP application in June last year. However, due to work commitments, Aarthi cleared and attempted her exam in June this year.

CBAP Preparation Journey

She says,” it’s quite challenging to balance your work, family, and CBAP preparation.” She started preparing two months before her exam due date, which was in June, and she started preparing in April & May.

She used to dedicate approximately an hour or two during the weekdays listening to the class recordings first, followed by the chapter readings, and around 6-8 hours on weekends. She says she used to attempt knowledge area-specific tests after each chapter revision and of course the case studies. She also took two days off from work before her simulation, before the exam due date. During those two days, she gave a thorough reading of BABOK and even attempted full-length simulation tests from Techcanvass just right before her exam.

Overall, she spent around 160-180 hours on her CBAP certification. This includes the training session from Techcanvass, which she did last year.

Know more about the RIGHT WAY TO PREPARE FOR THE CBAP EXAM

Most Challenging Part During the Examination Drill

Apart from balancing one’s work priorities during the preparation and also the overwhelming BABOK syllabus that we have with six knowledge areas, each with respective inputs, outputs, elements, and tasks, there was another main challenge she faced during the preparation time.

The exam timeline on which she was about to appear caused her a bit of stress as she has to revise everything again. However, she thanks Techcanvass LMS, which is so well structured that she could complete her revision properly. It has so much material there to prepare. She started listening to the recordings for each knowledge area and then started referring back to notes.

She also mentions,” I only gave one reading of the BABOK, and I started to test my knowledge area. So, I noticed I was still scoring around 40-50%. So, I knew there was something wrong with my approach while answering the questions. And I noticed that i was relating the solutions to what I practice daily in my job function., so which might not have been the best solution from BABOK's perspective. “

After this, she changed her strategy to stick to BABOK’s perspective, and then she gave two thorough readings and noticed that she scored around 80% in each knowledge area. So this boosted her confidence, which is how she proceeded in her preparation.

You may also read Business Analysis Body of Knowledge Guide (BABOK Guide)

How was Her Exam Day?

Aarthi explains that she was a bit tensed and stressed on the day of the exam. She was feeling like she forgot everything even though she gave a thorough reading three times. And to add to that stress, she went for online proctored exam because she was a bit hesitant to go to the exam center during covid.

So Aarthi was very much overwhelmed by the online proctoring as the proctor asked her to scan the room 2-3 times during the exam. And during the examination the proctor was asking her to remove her hand from her face as it was blocking the view. Therefore, Aarthi feels that going to the designated test center would have been a better option.

Tips & Tricks for CBAP Aspirants

The advice that Aarthi wants to give to the CBAP aspirants is not to procrastinate while giving the examination because it will cost them double the time and energy.

Also, stick to the BABOK guide because if you don’t, there is no point in learning and understanding things. BABOK has its way of reading and proceeding with the necessity. Do read the BABOK properly to execute your preparation.

Never apply real-life business analyst practice that you use at the workspace.

Go to designated test centers and write your exam offline, if possible. That will help you understand the different environments and give your best during the exam.

Use acronyms for the tasks for each knowledge area. Once you understand it, you will go with the flow.

You can find more Tips to Prepare for CBAP Exam

Value Add for the Aspirants

Aarthi shares that the CBAP certification has added value in her career and life as she has gained that knowledge and has aligned herself with the best industry practices for business analysis profession.

She also mentions that it helped in her career growth. Moreover, she says that a CBAP certification gives you recognition among your team members and peers. She also mentions that she is able to leverage and apply the BABOK concepts and techniques in her daily life at work place. Therefore, she believes that CBAP Certification does add value to the career and life of the aspirant.

Also read What Is The Value of CBAP Certification?

Life after CBAP Certification

Aarthi mentions,” Life is great after doing CBAP certification. I’m very proud to be a CBAP, and I can feel a sense of accomplishment. And all thanks to IIBA and Techcanvass. And i’m successfully progressing in my career path, and I can apply all my learnings, insights, perspective, and even the techniques I learned through my CBAP journey.”

Conclusion

CBAP certification has added value and perspective to Aarthi’s life and made her what she is today- a great business analyst.

We hope Aarthi’s story helped you gain insights into CBAP preparation properly. Suppose you are an aspirant who wants to go for these certifications. In that case, we provide the best study material with a proper question bank and 200+ MCQ questions to accelerate your CBAP certification preparation.

You can avail of CBAP certification courses to understand the structure of the exam and get the best material to accelerate the preparation.