# Six-Week Applied CBA Study Plan

This independent plan uses the Business Architecture Guild’s ten public exam domains as the controlling outline. It does not reproduce proprietary BIZBOK text or recalled exam questions.

## Before Week 1

Choose one familiar business or neutral case that can support all ten domains. Create:

- one notebook or digital workspace;
- a glossary of distinctions;
- an error log with columns for question, wrong assumption, corrected rule, and fresh example;
- blank paper or a diagramming tool for memory reconstruction.

## Week 1 — Foundations and Core Maps

**Domains:** 1 and 2

- Explain the purpose, scope, framework, ecosystem, and value proposition of BA in plain language.
- Build a small capability map, value stream, organization map, and information map for the same case.
- Write one sentence explaining the question each map answers.
- Drill capability vs. process, value stream vs. process, organization vs. stakeholder, information concept vs. data design.

**Exit test:** Recreate the four core maps from memory and explain their relationships without notes.

## Week 2 — Extended Maps and Strategy Linkage

**Domain:** 3

- Add objectives, stakeholders, initiatives, products/services, and policies to the case.
- Link each to the core maps.
- Identify one strategic objective with no supporting initiative and one initiative with weak outcome traceability.

**Exit test:** Starting from an objective, trace to stakeholder value, value stages, capabilities, initiatives, and measures.

## Week 3 — Related Disciplines and Performance

**Domains:** 4 and 5

- Compare BA with business models, process management, requirements, case management, and Lean/Six Sigma.
- Create a performance heat map with a defined question, rating scale, evidence, owner, and consequence.
- Practice choosing when an adjacent discipline should provide evidence or implementation detail rather than replace BA.

**Exit test:** Explain why a process problem may still require a capability, value, information, or organization diagnosis.

## Week 4 — Role and Governance

**Domains:** 6 and 7

- Write a stakeholder engagement approach for a resistant executive, a delivery team, and a peer architect.
- Draft a lean BA practice charter: purpose, services, intake, standards, repository, ownership, governance, and measures.
- Practice role scenarios involving facilitation, advising, persuasion, mentoring, and conflict.

**Exit test:** Explain how you would prove BA value before building an enterprise-complete repository.

## Week 5 — IT Alignment and Scenarios

**Domains:** 8 and 9

- Take three scenarios: strategic transformation, initiative impact, and tactical issue resolution.
- For each, identify the decision, relevant architecture domains, required linkages, and unnecessary artifacts.
- Trace one business outcome through capability and information impacts into application/data/solution architecture without collapsing the layers.

**Exit test:** Given a scenario, select the minimum useful BA package and defend what you excluded.

## Week 6 — Infrastructure, Integration, and Error Review

**Domain:** 10 plus all-domain integration

- Design a small governed knowledgebase: object types, relationships, definitions, ownership, status, source, effective date, and version rules.
- Review only errors and uncertain distinctions for the first half of the week.
- Rebuild the integrated case from memory.
- Use official readiness resources available to you and update the error log.

**Exit test:** Explain the entire case as one linked architecture and answer “why this domain, why now, and what decision does it improve?”

## Final Review Rules

1. Use the official exam domains and objectives as the blueprint.
2. Verify terminology against authorized current BIZBOK material.
3. Practice fresh scenarios rather than memorizing answer patterns.
4. Study wrong answers and uncertainty, not comfortable chapters.
5. Never use recalled questions or dumps; passing without durable understanding defeats the point.