How to Become a Great Business Analyst: Career Know-How, #1

Introduction

I am writing this book because over the years many have approached me for advice on how to be a proper Business Analyst. Having worked in the IT industry for over 15 years in different roles, from developers, business analyst, project manager, product manager, head of RnD until I started my own IT business, I have come across all sorts of professionals with different attitudes, behaviour and skill sets over the course of my career. Therefore I felt there is a need to prepare some written notes to share with those who are in need to learn more about the role of a Business Analyst, or those who are interested to start their career in this path. 

One of the topics that remained heatedly discussed was the role of a business analyst, apart from the project manager. If you come across any forums that discuss these roles, most likely you will find two camps in the discussion, with the developers complaining about these roles and whether they are really necessary in a project team setup; likewise, you will find the other teams consisting of project manager and/or business analyst strongly defended their roles. The technical camps will argue that the development team would be much better without them since developers can also take up the job as well. However, I beg to differ, not as a supporter of the BA/PM camp, just that they still haven’t worked with outstanding business analysts or project managers. 

First of all, we need to understand why this is happening and why I think every role is vital for the success of the project.

What is a business analyst? What do they do?

A business analyst’s key role is to assist in identifying business areas that can be further improved to generate maximum business values to the organisation. The business analyst will usually review business processes and data gathered from the business users in order to propose changes that will increase the efficiency of business operations as well as to meet the business goals set by the top management, e.g. cost saving or digitalisation of business operations. Once the proposal is ready, business analysts will have to work closely with various stakeholders, from the top management who will usually be the project sponsors, to the development team that will build and deliver the solutions and the business users who will be using the new solution.

Once the solution has been delivered, the business analyst will have to go through the same cycle again to review the success of the solution and identify if there are any further improvements or changes required to the solution to achieve maximum business values. They are often the go-to person when the business users or developers are having questions