Faculty Training Institute gains international recognition for business analysis qualification

Faculty Training Institute, the leading business analysis training company in South Africa, has been awarded Charter Endorsed Education Provider status with the International Institute for Business Analysis (IIBA). It is one of a handful of training organisations worldwide who have achieved this status.

The IIBA (http://www.iiba.com/) is a non-profit organisation that is rapidly establishing itself as the primary community of practice for business analysis professionals. The collaborative development of an internationally accepted Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK), which will set out business analysis best practice, is already in advanced draft stage.

From early next year, the IIBA intends to launch a global certification programme for the professional business analyst. Its Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) qualification will be based on the BABOK, which represents the current best practices in business analysis. So a business analyst holding a CBAP can be considered competent in a variety of roles such as systems analysis, business analysis, requirements analysis, process improvement and consulting.

FTI`s popular six-month, part-time Diploma in Business Analysis, which this year alone will graduate more than 250 new professional business analysts across SA, is one of the first such programmes to be approved by the IIBA worldwide.

"We are very excited to have received this recognition so quickly," says Steve Erlank, Managing Director of FTI. "We developed the original curriculum for our Diploma in Business Analysis in 1999, long before such a job role was widely understood, and before the evolution of the BABOK. It was a tough and sometimes lonely process. But our Diploma content, which already has a 90% fit to the BABOK, now means that the hundreds of business analysts who have worked so hard to pass our Diploma have skills that are already world-class and world-recognised. Business analysts with our diploma need stand second to no one!"

The CBAP will be, for business analysts, what the PMP certification (Project Management Professional) is for project managers. With the recent rapid growth in the number of PMPs being certified by the Project Management Institute throughout the world, including South Africa, the IIBA expects to see a similar trend for the CBAP.

"We already offer PMP exam preparation courses for our project management Diploma graduates. We intend to develop a similar workshop to help past BA delegates fast-track to the CBAP," says Erlank.

Trek to the summit

00Days

:

00Hrs

:

00Min

:

00Sec

FTI`s business analysis diploma is already standard training for BAs in more than 70 leading SA companies. "Some of our more forward-thinking and dynamic client companies have been training 20 new BAs a year for the last five years, and have developed, as a consequence, a powerful capacity to unlock value from their systems, processes, information, knowledge and operations. A properly trained, professional business analyst, who is deployed as more than just a specification writer, is a very powerful force for change.

Other organisations are realising that the business analysis role is an ideal way to effect transformation by fast tracking previously disadvantaged individuals into higher tiers of the business.

"We find that the demographic composition of our courses is very mixed, and there are no performance differences between genders or population groups," says Erlank. "We are already working with several companies to develop special BA development programmes to fast track transformation."

With a reputation for high standards, Faculty Training Institute (FTI) is not resting on its laurels. "We are about to launch an advanced qualification for business analysts that we believe has no equal anywhere in the world. It goes beyond the standards set by the IIBA and, because entry to the course will be restricted, at least initially, will produce truly exceptional business analysts indeed."

FTI is a 17-year-old training company that specialises in growing knowledge professionals.