BA Traces

What is Your Experience Worth?

2010-06-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

What is 20 years of experience worth? Some ways to think about it:

§ More recent experience is more valuable then older experience

§ Is it 20 years of experience or 1 year of experience 20 times? No easy way to know.

§ Clearly different employers will weigh those years differently depending on their current needs

§ Experience supplemented with current education improves the weightings

I propose you think of it as if it were a series of money payments in the future where you discount them to reach their present value. In other words your most recent experience carries more weight than older experience.

So you might calculate as follows:

Years	Past value	Discount value	Present Value
16-20	5	- 75%	5 * (1-0.75) =1.25
11-15	5	- 50%	5 * (1-0.5) = 2.50
6-10	5	- 25%	5 * (1-.25) = 3.75
1-5	5	- 0%	5 * (1-0.0) = 5
	20		12.5 years

Your 20 years of experience is now only worth 12.5 years. Of course, your weightings will differ.

If you have a break in employment, the calculation might look something like this:

Years	Past value	Discount value	Present Value
21-25	5	- 90%	5 * (1-.9) = 0.5
16-20	5	- 75%	5 * (1-0.75) =1.25
11-15	5	- 50%	5 * (1-0.5) = 2.50
6-10	5	- 25%	5 * (1-.25) = 3.75
1-5	0	- 0%
	20		8.0 years

A break in employment can have various levels of severity with respect to the freshness of you previous skills. Factors to consider include: stayed at home, changed specialty, worked in different industry, worked in a core corporate function, no continuing education, etc.

This sabbatical can be a good thing. When you return you can leverage your experience with a fresh outlook – the best of both worlds.

An older worker is never the same as someone just out of college, all other things being equal. Your most ancient experience still carries residual value today. You really do never forget how to ride a bicycle.

In Which Direction Should You Take Your Career

2010-02-14T12:48:00.000-08:00

In which direction should you take your career?

You can use a job board search tool to help you answer that question. How in demand are your current skills? What additional skills should be acquired or sharpened? I used CareerBuilder, but other boards should work. The results will tell you what current staffing requirements are popular NOW. You can get reasonable results, as long as you weed out the fads.

I work in IT (Information Technology) so I am interested in the current state of this field. This technique should translate to other professions.

Below is an example of the technique:

Search Term	Occurrences
Business Process Management	7199
Project Manager	6753
Business Analyst	5737
Use Case	1477
SAP	1012
Visio	920
SDLC	918
UML	447
Oracle 12	210
RUP	150
Rational Rose	40

It was surprising to me that there were more occurrences in job descriptions for “Business Process Management” than “Business Analyst”. BPM is an area I am seeking certification in, so this is reassuring. Learning that you are already doing all you can or learning you need to do more are invaluable insights.

Additional search terms can be found by looking at some of the jobs descriptions for additional required skills.

Here’s a different cut: LAMP (an acronym for Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and AJAX (an acronym for asynchronous JavaScript and XML) are popular web development technologies:

Term	Occurs	Term	Occurs
LAMP	170	AJAX	988

Linux	2647	Javascript	2227
Apache	646	XML	2382
MYSQL	778

PHP	696
Python	431
Perl	1151

MS Windows	1245

By the way, there is an interesting web site that looks at tools used in the top 10,000 web sites by traffic (see backendbattles.com ). Here you’ll see Joomla (a content management system) listed as number 18 in their list while in my search it showed up in 22 job descriptions. Plenty of growth opportunity for Joomla’s developers but not necessarily for me right now.

You are told that your resume should be targeted to the job you are applying for. Using this technique should give a good first approximation of either how to tailor your resume to the popular keywords (if you have the skill the employer is looking for), or to begin to get the training (if you lack the skill). In my case, I found that I needed to have Visio on my resume, and although I have Visio experience in my past – it was for a relatively short time and that skill may be a little rusty. So I’m using the available on-line training to refresh and make that skill current. Microsoft helps in that they can give you a 60-day trial copy. The Professional Service Group (PSG) of Mercer County, New Jersey may have a copy in their lab which I can use after the trial period is up, if needed.

Also, this technique should begin to insulate you from HR keyword search tools that are used to weed out applicants.

I think that I have only scratched the surface with this technique and I hope others who may do a similar analysis will publish their results by placing a link in the discussion blog,

CMM and CBAP

2009-11-26T20:53:00.000-08:00

I asked on Twitter:

Is a holder's CBAP less valuable if the holder's experience was gained at a CMM level 1 company; at only 1 company? #IIBA [10/23/09 via Tweetdeck]

Not being an expert tweeter, I don't know how to carry on a conversation using twitter, so I started this blog.

First I think it unlikely individuals will know the CMM level of their company. But given 5 levels, you are operating in a difficult environment (if the environment is level 1) and not as productively as possible. The CMM level is not under the control, in the short run, of the individual practitioner.

So to GreySkinnedBoy: If I thought I was at a level 4 or 5 company, I might want to find a way to get my resume to talk about all the great things I had learned, maybe brought about, and could transfer to a new company.

Part of the motivation for my thought pattern is the BA Benchmark recently published by IAG consulting. They maintained that a beginning BA at a level 4 company would be more productive then an experienced BA at a level 1 company. productivity is measured by: on time, on budget, with a validated solution. So I differ with ClearSpringBA.

Also, GSB, knowledge and application are not the same thing; it's the latter that employers pay for.

While I would love to pass a knowledge only CBAP, CBAP is stronger for the experience requirement, especially the requirement to cover 4 of 6 knowledge areas. But I think it could be further strengthened, by finding a way to strengthen the Organization Process Assets that lead to higher CMM, ie centers of excellence. I'd argue to add this as a knowledge area for future BABOK's.

Now it's your turn......

Flow Chart or Gannt Chart

2009-10-28T04:44:00.000-07:00

BP Logix in a recent webinar (How Lean & Nimble BPM Helps Analysts Drive Business Change) explored the capabilities of their product to support 2 different world views of process: Flowchart/workflow or Gannt Chart/Tasks.

I think BPMN is capable of handling more workflow patterns, ie milestone, than they indicated. But the ideas is interesting - maybe more about comfort level of designer and audience than any real difference in capability. Still my mind is open.

It seems that in a highly customizable world all processes could become projects!
Read about Gannt charts here. BPMN here. BP Logix here.

OCEB

2009-10-27T20:59:00.001-07:00

OCEB stands for Object Management Group Certified Expert in Business Process Management.

There are several levels of certification over 2 tracks: Business, Technical. There is no experience requirement, only a test

Topics covered at the Fundamental Level include:

Business Process Modeling Notation
Business Motivation Model
Process Quality, Governance and Metric Frameworks

Business Process Maturity Model
Six Sigma
Balanced Scorecard
COBIT
Basel 2
Sarbanes Oxley
Supply-Chain Operations Reference Model (SCOR)
Value Chain Reference Model

Process Basics

More is available at Object Management Group

Recent CMMI Data

2009-10-27T10:59:00.000-07:00

From:
RT @nseixas @CmmiRox from Twitter
Process Maturity Profile
CMMI® For Development
SCAMPI(SM) Class A Appraisal Results
2009 Mid-Year Update

The report can be found here

US seems to be behind:

67.8% of Non-US Orgs are at Level 3 or higher
48.6% of US Orgs are at level 3 or higher.

It takes time to make progress:

For organizations that began their CMMI-based SCAMPI effort in 2002 or later, the median time to move from:

maturity level 1 to 2 is 4 months
maturity level 2 to 3 is 18.5 months
maturity level 3 to 4 is 19 months
maturity level 4 to 5 is 13 months