Leading organisations in government and industry are putting scores of delegates through Faculty Training Institute's (FTI's) Business Analysis (BA) Diploma course.
And students are heaping praise on the qualification for accelerating their mastery of an emerging, multi-skilled discipline.
Emelda Marilele, an IT Diploma graduate from the Tshwane University of Technology, was employed in government as a junior business analyst in 2005. With a department of BAs around her, Marilele says her peers are so busy that mentoring was out of the question.
"I had some understanding of functional system specifications from my IT training, but I honestly couldn't sit down and go through the business processes, functional requirements, non-functional requirements and using the UML Standards myself."
Her employer sent her and 23 colleagues, as well as a trainer, on a fast-tracked, two-days-a-week course over four months (normally lasting six months, if attended one day per week). Marilele says the single biggest benefit of going was the course's structured approach, which gave students a cohesive, contextual understanding of BA. "I am now for the first time able to include functional requirements, and non-functional requirements using UML Standards in my analysis, which is a very important aspect of the job."
Had she not done the diploma, she reflects: "I would probably still have been doing functional specifications for maintenance, and not been active during the entire systems development life cycle in projects. FTI has taught me almost everything I need to know in the world of BA, and as a result, my employer has gained a lot of confidence in my abilities. This has really broadened the scope of projects I can work on."
Marilele adds that supporting materials, including research-centric Web sites, have helped a great deal, as have facilitation sessions, improving her knowledge, analytical thinking and confidence in real-world scenarios.
Jennie Mullins, a business analyst in the private sector, says her working experience as a BA in the UK, from 2000 to 2005, had left her "slightly disillusioned" with her career by the time she returned, as she found some companies did not employ any certain methodologies.
"It left me with a lot of uncertainty on top of the normal uncertainty of getting to know new customers and their business needs. Not only that, but I was also inexperienced and unpractised in the skills I had learnt at university, and did not have the confidence to use them when I was so junior. My experience over the years helped in the course as it solidified my knowledge, but at the time it was like changing jobs every six months."
She says the skills and methodologies employed in business analysis today had not filtered through to many practitioners and BA practices in its early days, and the absence of a standard approach in those instances left many BAs grappling with uncertainty when trying to determine clients' systems requirements.
She says FTI's modules were a respite: The course gave her what she felt was most sorely lacking in the job - standard approaches and methodologies to approach similar situations. "They give use case scenarios, or guidelines, on how to approach different kinds of situations. All situations would seem to differ, but there's a lot you can learn from their similarities," she explains. "FTI gives you a toolkit to glean information that is inherently complex and exists in disparate ways in people's heads."
Facilitation was another important teaching tool. "There's a practical component to everything, for instance, the visual communication (presentation) module. Other courses theorise about the best way to do things, but at FTI we actually did them in an open group environment, which is a great way to gauge your effectiveness."
Mullins says the business network of like-minded people she gained through attending the course was equally valuable. Asked if the course has broadened her professional prospects, she says industry interest in her skills has certainly heightened. "Even if you don't know the provider, one's work speaks for itself."
FTI's MD, Steve Erlank, says: "Despite its high standard, intensity and reputation for requiring commitment and hard work, more than 400 delegates from 150 different companies will graduate with this Diploma this year. We are fortunate to attract some really excellent BAs onto our courses. These comments are typical of how so many delegates have been able to use the course experience in many ways."
The BA Diploma has become de facto standard for professional BAs in many companies in South Africa. The Diploma is endorsed by the International Institute of Business Analysis and is about 90%-aligned to the IIBA's BA Body of Knowledge.
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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. Focussing 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 a 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 (IIBA). It is one of a handful of training organisations worldwide who have achieved this status. www.fti.co.za
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