BABOK

A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge^® (BABOK^® Guide) is the globally recognized standard for the practice of business analysis. BABOK Guide reflects the collective knowledge of the business analysis community and presents the most widely accepted business analysis practices.

BABOK Guide recognizes and reflects the fact that business analysis is continually evolving and is practised in a wide variety of forms and contexts. It defines the skills and knowledge that people who work with and employ business analysts should expect a skilled practitioner to demonstrate.

BABOK Guide is a framework that describes the business analysis tasks that must be performed to deliver a solution that will provide value to the sponsoring organization. Each business analysis task contributes to this overall goal directly or indirectly. Many elements of a task may vary, including the form those tasks take, the order they are performed in, or the relative importance of the tasks.

BABOK Guide describes the skills, knowledge, and competencies required to perform business analysis effectively. It does not describe the processes that people will follow to do business analysis.

According to Capability Maturity Model Integration, organizations interested in process improvement need to adopt industry standards from Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (and other associated references) to lift their project delivery from the ad hoc to the managed level.

BABOK Guide was first published by International Institute of Business Analysis^™ (IIBA^®) as a draft document version 1.4, in October 2005, for consultation with the wider business analysis and project management community, to document and standardize generally accepted business analysis practices. The first formal release was at version 1.6 in June 2006. Version 2.0 was released 31 March 2009. Version 3 was released in April 2015.

BABOK Guide is defined and updated by the professionals who use it every day and is under active review and consultation all the time. Prior to publication, BABOK Guide undergoes a full public review where any person can provide feedback and comment on the content.

Once the body of knowledge was established, IIBA created the Certified Business Analysis Professional^™ (CBAP^®) designation to recognise senior business analysts who could demonstrate in-depth long-term experience in these knowledge areas (5–10 years in a dedicated business analyst role).

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