Business Analysis Knowledge for Salesforce Experts, Fifth Edition
Salesforce Business Analysis, Now with Certification!
Salesforce business analysis took a quantum leap in 2022, introducing the Salesforce Certified Business Analyst credential. As Salesforce customers need more sophisticated custom solutions, they need sharper business analysis. Organizations will look for Salesforce Certified Business Analysts to help them get their solutions right the first time.
Contents
Salesforce Business Analysis: Knowledge for Salesforce Professionals
Get Started as a Salesforce Business Analyst (Trailhead)
Assessing the Risk of User Stories and Releases (Elements Academy)
Learn Salesforce Agile Practices (Trailhead)
General Business Analysis: Curated BA Knowledge
Capturing Requirements and Generating User Stories (Elements Academy)
Bridging the Gap to Business Analysis Success (Bridging the Gap)
Requirements In Depth (Karl Wiegers)
Process Mapping: Illustrating Processes for Stakeholders
Salesforce Business Analysis
The Salesforce Certified Business Analyst Credential
Get certified as a Salesforce Business Analyst! The credential can expand career opportunities if you have a little Salesforce business analysis experience. If you have a lot of experience, the Salesforce Certified Business Analyst credential makes it official!
The Salesforce Certified Business Analyst FAQ offers a high-level overview of the new credential.
The Salesforce Certified Business Analyst Exam Guide. has more specific information.
Take a deeper dive with our Certified Business Analyst Exam Resources
Get Started as a Salesforce Business Analyst
For Salesforce professionals new to business analysis, Get Started as a Salesforce Business Analyst introduces business analysis concepts and skills in a Salesforce context:
Salesforce Business Analyst: Quick Look
Learn what Salesforce business analysts do and the skills they need to succeed.
Admin & Business Analyst Job Comparison: Quick Look
Learn what Salesforce admins and business analysts do and how their roles differ.
Essential Business Analyst Skills
Explore fundamental skills that drive successful projects.
User Story Creation
Discover the importance of user stories and learn how to write them.
Strategies for Presenting to Executive Audiences
Learn how to effectively present to executives.
Process Mapping for Business Analysts
Use process mapping to improve business processes.
Business Analyst Best Practices
Improve your skills as a business analyst with pro tips from the experts.
Assessing the Risk of User Stories and Releases
Elements Academy’s Assessing risk of user stories and releases course introduces “risk of change”, how to apply it to your Salesforce solution change process, and assess the impact of changes. It covers assessing the risks of user stories and releases:
Review backlog of user stories
Connect a story to Salesforce metadata
Perform impact assessment
Classify risk
Plan release scope
Learn Salesforce Agile Practices
Agile software development needs business analysts to continuously discover customer needs, write user stories and collaborate with product owners. Trailhead has a trail for agile software development, Learn Salesforce Agile Practices. It includes two modules:
Salesforce Agile Basics
Learn why Salesforce adopted agile, basic concepts, and lean principles
Scrum and Kanban at Salesforce
Discover two workflows Salesforce teams use for agile development.
The Learn Atlassian Agile Practices trail provides a more general overview of agile development.
General Business Analysis
Capturing Requirements and Generating User Stories
Elements Academy’s Capturing requirements and generating user stories shows how to reduce the risks of misunderstood requirements and defective solution design in five modules:
Capture what users want
Understand what users need
Understand the underlying process
Understand the data model
Capture user stories
The course requires free registration. It uses process maps and data models extensively, so Elements Academy recommends taking its Business process mapping and Data modeling courses as prerequisites.
Bridging the Gap to Business Analysis Success
Bridging the Gap offers business analysis courses, including the free How to Successfully Launch Your Business Analyst Career for signing up. The Business Analyst Blueprint® Certification Program focuses on earning an Applied Certification in Business Analysis™ (ACBA).
Bridging the Gap also offers a variety of templates. Beyond checklists, the templates guide requirements discovery to cover business needs.
Bridging the Gap’s blog offers many informative free articles about life as a business analyst. They also have Agile Business Analysis Archives.
Laura Brandenburg, Bridging the Gap’s founder and CEO, wrote the book How to Start a Business Analyst Career. In this video, Laura discusses business analyst training vs. certification with Salesforce Business Analyst thought leader Toni Martin.
Adriana Beal, a Bridging the Gap contributor, wrote an excellent book, Tested Stakeholder Interviewing Methods for Business Analysts.
Requirements In Depth
Dr. Karl Wiegers created Process Impact to highlight his many Business Analysis and Project Management articles. These articles emphasize the discovery and specification process more than communication (soft) skills.
Dr. Wiegers recently published the book Software Development Pearls: Lessons from Fifty Years of Software Experience. Timeless Pearls of Requirements Wisdom covers the key lessons about requirements curated by Dr. Wiegers.
Dr. Wiegers has written two authoritative books about requirements, Software Requirements (co-authored with Joy Beatty) and More About Software Requirements. These books dive deeply into discovering, creating, and managing requirements. Dr. Wiegers also wrote Successful Business Analysis Consulting for experienced business analysts looking to move from employee to consultant.
Software Requirements covers agile software development in chapter 20. It also touches on agile aspects of:
Agreeing on requirements (chapter 2)
The business analyst role (chapter 4)
Vision and scope (chapter 5)
International Institute of Business Analysis
The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) offers these business analyst certifications:
Core business analysis certification levels
Entry Certificate in Business Analysis™ (ECBA™)
Certification of Capability in Business Analysis™ (CCBA®)
Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP®)
Business analysis specialties
Product Ownership Analysis Certification (IIBA®-CPOA)
Agile Analysis Certification (IIBA®-AAC)
Business Data Analytics Certification (IIBA®-CBDA)
Certificate in Cybersecurity Analysis (IIBA®- CCA)
IIBA requires work experience to earn certifications for a good reason. Certification is no substitute for experience, where you work with customers to start making their solutions a reality. You get more benefits from what you learn to prepare for certification exams than the certification itself.
IIBA publishes the Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® (BABOK® Guide). It is the most comprehensive source of business analysis information in one place. The BABOK Guide is a valuable reference, especially if you anticipate working with enterprises with formal procedures, such as large corporations.
IIBA recognized the significance of agile software development and published the Agile Extension to the BABOK® Guide. It introduces three agile horizons:
Strategy - understanding and achieving business goals
Initiative - defining and delivering a solution satisfying a business need
Delivery - understanding and fulfilling requirements mapped to business goals
Like the BABOK® Guide, the Agile Extension to the BABOK® Guide extensively covers techniques to apply to solution discovery and design.
Process Mapping
Trailhead Business Process Mapping
Salesforce introduced the Business Process Mapping module to Trailhead in 2021. It connects business analysis with solution architecture through process mapping. The module deeply delves into creating process diagrams, guiding a business analyst or architect on the relationships between process steps, inputs, outputs, and resources. The trail also covers the purpose and scope of a process map and stakeholder engagement.
Elements Academy Business Process Mapping
Elements Academy’s Business Process Mapping course defines business analysis and highlights why it’s crucial for strong architecture. The course shows some specific benefits of process mapping, including “Engaged stakeholders lead to better feedback.” Better stakeholder feedback enriches the understanding of what a business needs, resulting in a solution better fulfilling the requirements.
Purposeful Architect Process Mapping Overview
Check out our map of nine articles about process mapping:
Blazing a New Process Mapping Trail
Salesforce’s Business Process Mapping Trailhead module connects business analysis with solution architecture through process mapping.
Elements Academy Highlights
Elements.cloud’s Academy includes a Business process mapping module showing a simple means to create process maps.
Mapping Out Complexity
Purposeful Architect’s introduction to process mapping.
The Process Map and User Story Tango
Process maps help develop user stories in an extended format and find process gaps.
Thoughtful Process Mapping
Tailoring process diagrams for specific stakeholders to engage them and streamlines process map review.
Process Mapping the Big Picture
Starting a process map at the business program level ensures thorough process coverage.
Leveling Process Maps
Clarifying a process map by adding levels of process diagrams to reduce the steps per diagram.
The Art of Connecting Process Steps
Connecting process diagram steps with informative labels to create meaningful process diagrams.
Decision Analysis and Modeling
Showing all possible outcomes of a decision with decision trees and tables to ensure coverage for every scenario.
Do you have a favorite source of business analysis not included here? Please leave a comment, and we’ll check it out.