CBAP / CCBA Certified Business Analysis Study Guide 2nd Edition

Its a book. Lots of words (I expected that).

In some ways, this book is what the BABOK should be. There are many instances where the authors simply condense sections of the BABOK in helpful ways, and some cases where they expand on sections to make them more applicable and easier to understand as applied to actual project work.If you are preparing for your CBAP, there are a couple of things I did that helped me pass that you may want to consider (along with a few observations).1. Take advantage of the “recommended technique” sections that follow most task descriptions. If you are less familiar with certain techniques, the deep dive can be helpful. Having said that, there’s not a lot of detail (or not what I would want) on UML or other modeling techniques.2. Take advantage of the practice tests at the end of each section (they offer additional practice tests online as well). Be aware of the following: Questions in the book do not mirror the question style find on the CBAP exam. They are more knowledge-based questions in the book. If you’re looking for questions similar to what you might find on the CBAP test, look elsewhere. Still, to test your knowledge, the questions here have value. Beware that there are typos in the answers at the back of the book. For example, if you answer A, the back of the book may say the answer was B but then go on to give the description of answer option A so be sure to read those.3. I usually read a portion of a chapter in this book, then jumped over to the BABOK and read the parallel portion. This helped amp up my understanding even more.4. I agree with another reviewer that the headings and organization of the book sometimes leads to confusion as to where you are in the hierarchy of the outline. Indenting, font changes, font sizes, something like that could be helpful to visually allow the reader to keep track of where you are.5. This is nit-picky but several times the authors asserted that transition requirements are born out of the Solution Evaluation knowledge area. Though the explanation makes sense, the BABOK does not say this (that I could find) and it seems like transition requirements would be more likely to be a byproduct of Strategy Analysis KA, where the business need/business requirements are defined. This point is not going to be “on the test” but in terms of better understanding, I wish they would have expanded on that a little more.Overall I recommend this book as a guide/commentary/explainer to the BABOK. It helped me prepare and succeed with my certification on the first try.

It's a good study guide with easier explanations and understanding of the knowledge areas although I did find the layout a bit difficult to read as the elements or other listings are not numbered but bullet points - personal choice. Working alongside BABOK which made it easier to read and follow. Like the examples, would have loved if the whole study guide was based on a case study

Thank you for this book!

I have been using the study guide and its mock exams to prepare for my CBAP certification. There are several points which I wish to feedback to the authors and the mock exam service providers. However, the service provider is making it hard for me to provide my feedback. For example, they have an online form to submit feedbacks which I used. The form requires several fields to fill up and it took me some time to collate the information such as the book and the specific location in it that I wish to feedback on.The response from wiley.com is again to ask me to reproduce the same information that I have painstakingly furnished in the online form which upon submission did not forwarded me my inputs. To feedback all these information again, I would need to re-spend my time all over again.Therefore, I think it is more productive for me to enter my feedback here and later Goodreads; and it is up to Wiley.com to take note of it or otherwise. At least, potential purchasers would also receive my feedback too so that at least my effort is not in vain, unlike mine that went to Wiley.com.Firstly, I have discovered questionable answer keys in the mock questions that Wiley.com has been turning a deaf ear to my enquiries. I will list them here in due course while I am reading the book for my upcoming CBAP exam.One of them is for the answer key to Chapter 4's Q16. The answer key given is merely "C.Requirements tracing may be done at the individual requirement level, at the model level, at the package level, or at the feature level." with no accompaniment of any backup sources.Secondly, there are errors in the main session in the book.Table 9.23: BPM Methodologies - process throughput was printed erroneously as process throughout. In the same paragraph, it says that the processes produce throughout. It should be throughput too.Some terminologies seems to be those pre-dated edition 3. For example, the answer key to assessment test's Q29 uses the wordings from edition 2 rather than 3.The answer key to the Assessment Test's Q35 says that the reference is at Chapter 7, i.e. for Solutions Evaluation. However, it should be Chapter 6 (RADD) instead.

Great resource for preparing to take the CBAP or CCBA.

Just what I wanted

Read this book cover to cover. It helped a lot in my effort to pass the CBAP exam but didnt make me feel confident. I bought another book and a set of tables and was able to pass the CBAP.