The Value of Professional Memberships

I love the great questions I get asked, as it always feels like a self-reflection to think about asking that same question to myself and how I would answer. Like take, for example, someone was asking about IIBA, the International Institute of Business Analysis (https://iiba.org/), and the value of membership. If you don't have an active and thriving local chapter, one might question what is the value of an IBA membership? Now I'm personally passionate about the business analysis community, so there's part of me that this was a no-brainer. I'll personally be a part of whatever association supports business analysis work. But see right there - I already gave my WHY.

I have a why, a reason, an answer for the business value of IIBA membership. And that's what we want to do with any membership.

So let's continue, at least with the IIBA example, because that's an easy one because I know many of the benefits I personally experience myself. So let's take, for example, local chapter membership. I really appreciate that IIBA has combined the national and chapter memberships. So I pay one fee and I get the benefits of whatever is at the national level, as well as what's happening in the regional level. Again, delving further into the benefits at the regional level, my local chapter gives great discounts for members. Basically, you get to attend events for free. And these have been wonderful webinars where I can earn CDUs to maintain my certification as well as network and connect with a community here in Hawaii. Yes, there ARE business analysis professionals passionately working to deliver value here in the beautiful Hawaiian Islands!

Membership can be critical for obtaining and maintaining certifications

Okay, so there's another thing I just said: certification. Whether it's IIBA certifications or especially Project Management Institute (PMI https://www.pmi.org/) certifications, being a member is especially valuable when pursuing certifications. And I presume that the following would hold true with many other professional associations who have certifications that you wish to achieve. Check out the member and non-member pricing for both applications and examinations as well as maintenance of those certifications. An easy business case I give to people for joining the IIBA is that if you want to obtain your IIBA certification (and it doesn't matter which one...), the cost of membership the year you plan to certify is offset by both the discounted examination fees as well as the amount of materials you get access through with your included membership. So when people ask me about IIBA membership as it pertains to certifications, I always encourage the following:

If you plan to get a certification from IIBA (or any other association), the year you plan to obtain it, go become a member.

That's an easy business case because the return on investment (ROI) is easily done with pretty much just the membership discount for the examination. You then come out way ahead when you consider all the additional benefits you get by being a member, such as access to their materials, access to their webinars and recordings, as well as additional references and sources of information, such as, again, local chapters often offer study groups and other resources to help you certify. And even if your local chapter doesn't give offerings, by simply being an IIBA member, with the way their consolidated membership works, you get IIBA discounts at other chapters' events. So shout out to Vancouver's IIBA chapter (https://vancouver.iiba.org/) as an example, because when they do virtual events, I can attend them as an IIBA member. Or in similar fashion, here, the Hawaii chapter (https://hawaii.iiba.org/), had a number of people join us from Canada and Australia for one of our Hawaii chapter events.

And let's go back to certification a little bit more as it carries some more weight with it, because once you certify, you must maintain your credential. Now, generally with business analysis and project management or change management, those topics we often tend to do almost daily in our work that it can be pretty easy to get work experience to help maintain your credential. But I will shout out that membership in many professional associations is a great way to ensure you get your certification maintained so that you can continue to advertise that you are a certification holder. I'll give a separate example from another Association. I'm a member of the National Speakers Association (NSA https://nsaspeaker.org/), and that their requirement for certification-for their Certified Speaking Professionals (CSP) was to have attended at least one of their NSA events. Well, the difference in member and non-member pricing for one of the NSA events helped offset my membership cost.

So again, I'm looking at what I'm doing WITH that membership to get the value out of my investment.

What are you doing WITH your membership?

I think that might be the challenge. When some people are unsure about the value of being a member of a professional association is that realizing these professional associations are made up of other practitioners. People like yourself: people passionate about the topic area or subject matter expertise and often, many volunteers who spend their (I wouldn't say "free" time, but more spend some of their valuable) time to support the mission and vision of those associations.

You get what you give

With that said, many of these associations ROI increases the more you give. You don't just get from these organizations. The more you give, the more you do, the more you are active in the association is when you get the most out of it. Joining IIBA so that I may get a business analysis job is true for many. But you don't get a job just because you join. You get a job because you joined IIBA AND you read the body of knowledge. You get a job because now you know what the body of knowledge is,and you applied it to get a certification that helped get you that job. Or you found your local events and you went to the local in-person or online networking events. You then networked with other business analysis professionals and shared that you were interested in finding a business analysis job. THAT investment into the association is what gives that greater return of a valuable career opportunity period. But again, see this is about what you're doing WITH your membership. If you sign up and sit on the sidelines, you definitely will be hard-pressed to get your return on investment.

I couldn't believe how someone in one of the associations I'm in offered up his valuable time and told the group that if anyone wants to give him a call, he'd be happy to sit and talk with you and give some ideas and advice. Well, I emailed that person, and sure enough, within a few days, we had a one-hour phone call and he helped me really position what I was doing, what I like to do, what I want to do and what I need to do for my career and business. That chunk of time from that seasoned professional definitely was worth some serious costs if you had to pay it. But he gave it freely. He gave his expertise back to the association that I was a member of, and I, being an active member, took advantage of that opportunity.

But see that opportunity there. And just like any good business analysis, do your SWOT analysis. It's not about what opportunities that threat exist out there. It's about leveraging your strengths to take advantage of those opportunities and using those opportunities to improve your weaknesses into strengths. That application is where the value is, like all your business analysis work: the application of the business analysis skills, the mindset, the approach is where you return the investment and can truly draw out the value.

But life (and value) changes

Good questions are a technique you still want to use even around memberships and professional associations. Asking yourself what value you get from a current membership is a good thing you want to do periodically. And it's completely okay to say at some point that things have changed and you're simply not getting the value at this time. Your career, your location, family life, and more can all change. And whenever those changes happen, that's a great time to reevaluate your investments. Those changes are a great call to action. And it can compel you to ask one of the most important questions:

Do you know where you are investing in your career?

Both time and money, where are you investing in your career? Where do you enjoy spending time and money? I'm excited that I'm going to spend an afternoon at one of the local elementary schools to talk to girls who code as well as give a classroom presentation on the business analysis career. Super exciting! How cool is that? But I'm not getting paid for it, so I have to quantify that value investment. I don't do a lot of them, but I do some free events depending on the topic and format, because it challenges me, and it's my way of giving back. And again, I got that opportunity by being involved in an association where they shared an opportunity that they were looking for speakers to speak about women in tech careers, so I reached out! They of course said sure, we'd love to have you! Now will I do it every week? Probably not. I'm going to definitely question the value of that time and what I want to achieve. But will I stay a member of that association that found me that opportunity, probably for a little while.

The other thing - don't be afraid to test the waters. There's an association I'm really interested in, but I'm still not sure how interested. So I signed up as a nonmember for an upcoming event. I went ahead and paid the extra price to go to an event where I saw overlap of the topic with something of interest to me. I'll go to the event and decide the return on investment. I'll try it. I'll sample the waters. Maybe I'll go to a couple more events before I even start pursuing further membership. Because if I can get the value for going to things that interest me on a topic level, now I'm getting value from the association, but I don't have to do it as a member yet. However, like I said, do you know where you're spending your time and money period?

I have a list of all my expenses that occur annually. I was doing it once a year and moved to six months and actually even almost quarterly. I review all the expenses and ask what is the ROI of each of those investments. And things change of course. So now one of those expenses, I've found a new opportunity. One that would do the same output, but with a lot lesser price tag. So I'm contemplating now switching that membership to a different association because I will get more value for less investment amount. Higher ROIs are always great, but now again, I'm going to try this new option first before I cancel my current investment. I'm going to evaluate like a good business analyst and evaluate the options and what value each option gives for their investment costs. Then make an informed, data-driven decision.

So for those of you looking for associations to help boost your career, maybe even give you a new career, ask what you want out of it. And it's totally okay if it doesn't feel like a fit because it could be just right now it doesn't feel like a fit, maybe later. I like that idea - the not now. It's not a no, it's not a never, ever, It's simply not now. It might be too distracting from where you need to focus on right now and so you might find a better fit with something else. So don't be afraid to say no and ne unsure. But when you do find what works, then consider how much you can invest in it so that you maximize your returns. Membership should always be about ROI. But you have to be the good business analyst to identify what the true value is.