Objective #2: Strengthen Business Analyst Skills

The second objective on my short term to-do list was strengthening my core BA skills.

At this point I've been in a Business Analyst role for almost 2 years - In that time:

• I've been a key contributor toward planning and executing ~7 major releases and countless smaller ones
• I've become so embedded with my customer and stakeholders that oftentimes I can articulate their requirements better than they can. 
• I've developed unmatched expertise on the program's operations, tools, and people.
• I've helped build incredible chemistry within my team.
• I've consistently met or exceeded ALL of my KRAs (key result areas)

The truth is (and I remind my team of this often) - I have no idea what I'm doing. 

My "formal" BA training was a handful of LinkedIn Learning courses I took back in 2022, and an Udemy crash course that my company had me take shortly after I was hired in 2024.

Everything else I know either comes from various mentors or has just been learned by doing.

 

As it turns out - that's enough to be a pretty damn good BA.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that my consistent success in this role hasn't been by luck or by accident - it's been a result of the fact that apparently I DO know what I'm doing.

But other than a handful of bullet points on my resume - I've got no proof.

 

The stupid thing is that I don't even really want to be a BA long term. It isn't a career path that excites me and it's not really in alignment with my goals for the future.

But I don't want to walk away from this career until I've unquestionably proven that I'm good at it. My experience and results matter - but only within the incredibly small circle of people who have seen and felt my impact. 

Even I am not always convinced that I'm all that good.

The imposter syndrome sneaks in and whispers in my ear that somehow everything I've done or achieved doesn't count. That there's some kind of asterisk on all of my wins that makes them faux.

I don't know if it will silence those voices - but strengthening my BA skills in a measurable way should at least provide some counterpoints when they start chattering.

I wrestled with the possibility that this was a distraction - why invest more time in a role that I don't want to pursue?

I came to the conclusion that to be successful in pursuit of my core principle - the tactical skills of a BA are a necessary supplement to the strategic skills I'm working to activate.

To do what I want to do - I need to be able to see the forest AND the trees. I need to have the credibility to take responsibility for the big picture while still being able to have productive conversations about how the sausage gets made.

My goal isn't to become a great PM or a great BA or a great process consultant - it's to mold the capabilities of all of those roles into a set of skills that can make a meaningful difference at ALL levels of an organization.

So what's the actual plan here?

Honestly? I don't really know. 

The obvious answer is pursuing CBAP or CCBA certifications - these are sort of the name brand BA credentials. 

But I'm genuinely worried that my whole development plan is turning into a weird credential collection game and I'm not convinced that's the right thing to do. I don't know that adding "PMP, CBAP, CCBA, LSSBB, MBA, etc" after my name is going to bring me any closer to addressing my core principle. 

Sure; all of those credentials will validate that I know some things - and they'll look great on my resume or on a business card. But I don't want to allow the credentials to become more important than the actual capability.

So for now, my plan is to hold off on formally pursuing CBAP or CCBA. I'm allocating time toward learning the content that is required to obtain those credentials - in particular the methodologies that I'm least comfortable with.

I'm going to be more deliberate in documenting my work on a day to day basis - I want to see more evidence that my positive outcomes are a direct result of positive actions. 

Right now my instincts tell me that I should focus on capability and leave the credential for somewhere down the line - but I'm open to having my mind changed.

How will I know when I've met the objective?

Objective 1 had a much clearer success criteria - "Obtain the PMP cert"

This one is a bit more abstract.

I'm not pursuing a certificate. I'm not trying to be the world's greatest BA. I'm not even trying to leverage this for a promotion.

There is not going to be a clear outcome or moment where I can say "Yes - I've done it."

But that's okay.

The purpose of this objective is to convince myself that I have this competency - and that means that I'm the only person who will be able to determine when I've satisfied the objective.

Here's what I'll be tracking:

• In the midst of high level strategy discussions - am I considering the tactical implications?
• How confident am I that I could perform as successfully in an entirely new domain?
• Am I consistently capable of fireproofing requirements - and aligning with my stakeholders on that objective?  

 

So that's Objective #2.

Strengthening my skills as a BA is obviously important for my current role - and is a vital supplement in pursuit of my core principle.

This objective has surfaced concerns about valuing credentials over capability - and that concern has motivated me NOT to pursue a credential in this area at this time.

For any BAs reading this who have their CBAP or CCBA - do you find they were worth pursuing? Did obtaining the certification make you a better a BA - or did you obtain them solely because you were already a good BA and needed the piece of paper to prove it?

For anyone else out there - how have you navigated pursuing credentials vs capability in your career? 

This tension is going to be an underlying source of dis-ease throughout my continued growth - so I'd be grateful for any perspectives that might help me out with this.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

CHG