There are plans to establish a South African chapter of the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) in the first quarter of 2007, according to Steve Erlank, MD of the Faculty Training Institute (FTI).
Erlank, who recently attended the World Congress of Business Analysts in the USA, says there is a worldwide shortage of good business analysts (BAs).
"They are in increasingly high demand as organisations recognise the need for people who can link IT projects to business strategy and objectives. The IIBA was established to develop and maintain standards for this emerging profession, and promote the development of the BA profession."
The IIBA has prepared a Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK), which is now in its final draft stages, and established a Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) qualification. The first 16 entrants sat this exam during the World Congress.
Erlank says the IIBA's Executive Committee "has given us a very strong mandate at the Congress to help start a South African chapter of the IIBA. There are also chapters starting up in Ghana and Nigeria and we hope to be part of a strong African sub-region. For the chapter to be effective, it must represent the business analyst, first and foremost, but also create opportunities for any stakeholder who can contribute positively to the growth of the profession in SA, including software vendors, training companies, consulting firms, employers and other professional societies."
"We are currently calling for expressions of interest," says Erlank, "and are in the process of forming a working committee of key stakeholders who will do the preliminary work leading up to a formal launch. The initial team is coming together and we hope to have our kickoff meeting in the next six weeks. Thereafter, the process will be taken forward by the chapter membership and its elected committees."
On the agenda of the local chapter will be to organise a coherent programme of seminars and workshops for its members, to motivate for local examinations of the CBAP qualification, and to develop a strong community of practice of professional South African business analysts. Imminent projects are to contact South African IIBA members in the next two weeks, and to launch a membership drive on behalf of the IIBA."
Erlank says there is a substantial difference between "the professional business analyst and the individual who just does some kind of requirements work. The main focus of the IIBA is to gain recognition for business analysis as a profession in its own right."
A professional BA, says Erlank, "is a trained, experienced, multi-skilled individual who operates within a community of peers, has one or more professional qualifications, and belongs to a professional society that has a code of ethics and prescribes a body of knowledge for that profession."
FTI trains a large number of South Africa's business analysts - 1 000 over the past five years - and was one of the first training providers in the world to get Charter Endorsed Education Provider status from the IIBA.
"Our diploma content already has a 90% fit to the BABOK and we're satisfied that our qualifications, and our delegates, are world-class," says Erlank. "South African BAs are second to no one of the global stage. We believe the interest, passion and growing professionalism of local BAs will make the local chapter of the IIBA one of the most dynamic in the world."
Interested parties can visit the preliminary pages at http://southafrica.theiiba.org/.
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Faculty Training Institute (FTI) is a private training company that specialises in offering world-class career-oriented training courses for professional knowledge workers, mainly in the corporate world. Focusing on mid-career rather than entry-level training, FTI specialises in project management, business analysis, systems analysis, software engineering, IT management and e-business training. It offers a variety of training options including public or in-house, part-time or full-time courses.
FTI was founded in 1989 by five experienced lecturers from the Department of Information Systems at the University of Cape Town, who perceived a gap between the technical or entry-level training offered by most private training companies, and the longer degree programmes offered by tertiary institutions. During the past 17 years FTI has expanded its successful product offerings from the initial two diploma courses into growing range of diplomas and short courses that serve the career needs of corporate South Africa.
In October 2006, FTI was awarded Charter Endorsed Education Provider status with the International Institute for Business Analysis. It is one of a handful of training organisations worldwide that have achieved this status.
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