Dear Diary: The application is now finished and after having it reviewed a couple of time by an official CBAP, I’m waiting on the results to return. I’ve documented over 11000 hours for the committee to pick and choose from for acceptance, so there shouldn’t be much of a problem. Reviewing the BABOK in the last few weeks has become overwhelming. How am I going to process all this information?
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Lucky me! After picking up the BABOK 1.6 and studying for several weeks, I found out that the new 2.0 version would be coming out. After much thought about which one to review, I decided that in order to give myself enough time to study, I’d have to switch to the 2.0 and start over. Not the optimal solution, but I figured that all the knowledge acquired isn’t wasted. I’m studying something I’m passionate about, so no waste!
Dissecting the BABOK is no small task. It’s packed with information that is pertinent to what I do and also necessary to understand in order to pass the test. One of the things that I have had to struggle with is to remind myself what the goal is here. While I DO want to become a better analyst and the information is very valuable, the short-term goal is to pass the test. When I tell my peers what I am doing, they generally respond that I should have no problem passing, as I’ve been an analyst for many years. What I’ve found is that despite this fact, my experience in years doesn’t necessarily equate to performing my duties properly or mean that I’ve adhered to the tenets of the BABOK. This realization has forced me to clear my mind of preconceived notions about what I know and don’t know. I’m not going to be able to skate through a section just because I’ve done it before.
Tackling the bounty of content started pretty easily. Read, underline, memorize, repeat. But I soon realized that I could execute this action over and over and not necessarily retain the content. I had to take a break and do some research in learning styles. What I found was that different people learn in different ways. Some retain more audibly, some visually, some by the action of doing. I had to create a plan for learning that would align itself with my learning styles and afford maximum retention of the content. I decided that since I had no time limit to meet, I would undertake a multi-fold path to learning the material. I began by creating and reviewing a series of flashcards that provided out of context quizzing of the content. I signed up for a CBAP Prep Class online that formally reviewed the content in an interactive environment with others studying for the exam. This allowed an exchange of ideas for discussion and highlighted the areas that I didn’t understand well or had misconceptions about. It also shed light in areas of confusion of the BABOK content. I began to post messages and respond to others’ messages in online forums about the content for additional exchange. I copied by all the diagrams in the BABOK by hand and cleared out the information so I could go back and fill it in from memory. I started a CBAP Prep Study group to enhance the review of the content with others in a more focused fashion.
I’m still in the middle of all this, having just finished the class work. My goal is to have completely immersed myself in the BABOK world in different ways in order to retain the information in various ways. My ultimate objective is that the BABOK will become second nature to not only my brain, but the way I work…..not the result of a memorization and regurgitation process. In that, I will have achieved the short-term goal of being able to pass the exam and the long-term goal of instilling this material in my professional life.
I am completely drowning in BABOK and hope this effort pays off.
