CBAP Application Worksheet

By / BA Certification, Career Strategy

How many of you have gone through the CBAP application/handbook only to get overwhelmed by the CBAP application – especially the part where you need to provide your work history details? I am sure several of us have done that.  I too have been guilty of procrastinating, mainly because of the daunting task of first finding the time to document all my work history, and secondly, actually doing it. After waiting for the “the right time,” I decided to commence the process by tackling one step at a time.

I decided to use any free time that my schedule allowed – no matter how little, to get the process started. And as it often happens, after I got done with it, I thought, “gosh, this wasn’t so bad – I wish I had done this sooner!”  It was actually very invigorating and motivating. That’s when it dawned on me what an excellent idea it would be to share my experience and the template that I had created to structure my thought process, with my fellow BAs so that a larger group could benefit from my efforts. And then what else could be a better place than Bridging-the-Gap to share this – I have grown so much with the help of this blog, its members, its experts: Doug, Michelle, Linda, and last but no means the least, Laura!

(By the way, for more advice on getting your CBAP, check out Laura’s 8 Steps to Becoming a CBAP resource page.)

The worksheet that I have provided here is a template to help you capture information about your projects as they pertain to your CBAP application. The way this worksheet was planned, it allows you to work in in bits and pieces. So even if you have 20 minutes every day, I believe this worksheet will allow you to capture the required information and any related thoughts that come to mind, thus allowing you to keep the process going.

There are 6 sheets in the attached worksheet:

  1. Start – Provides an overview on how to use this worksheet.
  2. Projects – Allows you to list all your relevant projects and the associated details required for the application.
  3. Project Tasks – Allows you to match your experience with the tasks defined in BABOK.
  4. Org Info – Allows you to collect details about the organizations where you have performed these BA tasks and information about your project contacts.
  5. Questions – Allows you to capture questions as they arise in your mind. There will be several questions that will come up in your mind while you are working on your application. This space will serve as a placeholder before you can draft an email to IIBA.
  6. To Do List – To keep the application process on track. Write down the things that you need to attack to keep things moving for your CBAP application.

When I started this document for myself, I only had the Projects and the Questions sheet. I worked on my worksheet in bits and pieces over the span of my three weekend travels, and I am glad that I decided to forge ahead rather than waiting for a big free slot of free time, else I could have never finished it.

So my two cents would be to begin working on your CBAP application as little or as much you can every day! If you can set aside a dedicated time, that is superb, but if not, don’t prevent yourself from putting in those few minutes every day.

I hope this template serves as useful to you as it did to me.

>>Learn More About Becoming a CBAP or CCBA

Interested in becoming a CBAP or CCBA? We cover 8 steps to the CBAP certification, that will take you to just learning about the certification to successfully sitting for the exam.

Click here to read the article

30 thoughts on “CBAP Application Worksheet”

  1. Nasir

    Hi Disha,

    If you can help me out regarding the 21 hours course for BA for the application submission to IIBA. I have checked many institutes are offering the following courses however, its very expensive. If you or any one know about the institute offering the following courses with the reasonable prices. Thanks.

  2. Saurabh

    Disha,

    Thank you for sharing the spreadsheet. Looks real useful to me!

    I am preparing for CBAP now and this will certainly help me in getting the ‘work history details’ together when I decide to submit the application.

    Would have liked to hear more of your experiences though.

    Thanks a bunch!

  3. Vikas P

    Hi Disha,

    Your template provided me with much needed guidance on where to start.
    Thanks for the awesome work.
    Just out of curiousity, I am currently in a Techno Functional (IT with Supply chain and order to cash processes as my strong point in functional…i can never be a finance guy ) role in an oil service company for 3 years now (Total experience is more than 5 years). Do you think the CBAP certification will provide me that much needed boost to progress further?

    Thanks again.
    Vikas aka the confused guy

  4. Bonnie

    I just figured out how to open the spreadsheet. For those of you still having difficulty, if you save the file to your desktop and then right click on the zipped file and select Open With and choose Microsoft Excel, it should work.
    Thanks!

  5. James

    Hello Disha,

    I, like others on this thread, can’t seem to open your zip file with Excel ’07. I am seeing three folders and then an XML Document. Please, if you don’t mind sending me your workbook to me, I would greatly appreciate it. jamescou@gmail.com

    Regards,

    James

      1. James

        Hi Disha,

        Thanks for the quick response. I am already using Excel ’07, and don’t have admin rights on my office computer to install the compatibility pack either… :-/

        I’d really love to check out your workbook though..

        Thanks!

  6. Bob Savage

    Disha, thanks for this. This is the part of the CBAP that I am most anxious about. BTW, I downloaded the file, and it seems to open with no problems under Open Office 3.3.

  10. Asif A.

    Thank you, Disha, for going through the pain which resulted in a work of “art” sourly needed by majority of us who would be none-the-happier in putting it to work. The file is quite extensive and does a nice job in capturing key aspects that are needed in gathering a landscape picture about the BA, the project, the organization, etc. Nice work and wish you all the best.

  11. Ganesh

    Thanks Disha! I am able to open the template.

    Guess it was created using Excel 2007. The file is stored in CBAP_Application_Template_v1.0-For-Bridging-the-Gap.xlsx, format. If this is true, then, users with 2003 will not be able to open.

    1. Disha Trivedi

      You are right Ganesh, the worksheet is saved in Excel 2007 and if I were to save in in 97-2003 format, it will lose some features. I will try to look into a workaround. Thank you for leaving your comments.

  12. Elizabeth Barr

    thank you, thank you, thank you. You are right about the application being intimidating. It takes too long to do online without interruptions so this spreadsheet approach is terrific. I have been a business analyst for 5 years and an systems analyst for 6. Now I need the certification to prove that I can do what I am paid to do. This spreadsheet will definitely get me on the road to certification faster.
    Thank you, Betty Barr

    1. Disha Trivedi

      Hi Elizabeth,

      I am happy to see that the worksheet is of value to you. My whole purpose behind sharing this was to reduce the legwork involved in organizing applicant’s work experience. Do keep in mind though that in addition to working on this in multiple sittings, this worksheet will also give you a good idea of how many hours you have accumulated in each of the KA. This should very helpful in determining if you meet the minimum hours requirement. Although I should say that depending on which task you have allocated your hours to, they might get deducted based on whether they are BABOK aligned tasks or not. However, this worksheet does give you a good base to begin with.

      Good luck and please feel free to let me know if you have suggestions on improving the worksheet.

      Disha

  13. Pam

    I’m unable to get the worksheets opened when I use your link. I get xml files that are zipped and I can’t get them to open. I have excel 2007.

    Would you please email me the worksheets?

    Thanks.

  14. David Smith

    Disha

    Thanks for sharing. I have been able to download and open in QuickOffice on my iPhone. It did appear to lock up but restarted my phone and it’s OK.

    Regards, David.

  17. Disha Trivedi

    I had someone else try it for me, and I too was successful in downloading the excel sheet. Do you want to give it a second try? Try doing a right click, and do a “Save Link As”. Let me know if that doesn’t work for you.

  18. Disha Trivedi

    Hi Rachit,

    I can surely email you the worksheet, however, in order to prevent this problem from happening to others, can you please share what error message you are getting? Also, what version of Excel are you using?

    Thank you in advance!

    1. Rachit Gandhi

      Disha,
      Actually, the download is happening properly in zip format but when I open it or unzip it, some 3 folders are appearing and all the other files are in xml format…(I tried it 3-4 times) so I do’nt think I would be able to download it in this format…Pls. if you can send it via mail, it would be nice of you.

      Thanks & Regards,
      Rachit.

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