A business analyst is a generic term used by organizations to carry out a number of critical functions or tasks within a project. These could include:
- Requirement Elicitation
- Requirement gathering
- Requirement Documentation
- Data Analysis
- Requirement Analysis
- Testing or Quality Assurance Support
- Requirement Management
- Functional Requirement Analysis
- Prototyping or Wire-framing
- System Analysis
- Process Analysis
- Current State vs Future State analysis
And many more… but the real point to remember is that as a business analyst you will be required to have specific skills like technology comprehension, knowing the business domain and needs, good communication skills, ability to cut through clutter, decode ambiguity, mediate between different people or groups to get to a common ground, practicality and keeping the project teams focused and many more. So the question is, what is the most important skill to have as a business analyst at any level. If you are just starting out to be a business analyst it is that one skill that is key to success in this profession. From my personal experience I think it is being able to build a good solution concept/ map in mind and using that as a rudder to take the project forward. This skill is what has worked for me and the challenge is to progress towards the solution by assimilating different project needs and challenges including technology and people challenges.
Let me explain this with an example:
Business analyst Ram is in a project to develop a digital payment system. Ram must understand the domain and learn about the domain as much as possible. Ram must read up on the digital payment domain to understand the technology and business landscape, review competitor solution and gain a perspective of the trends and perspectives in that domain. If possible, get access to an application or product in that space to explore the domain further. This will help Ram understand the technology landscape.
Secondly and most important, he must understand who the stakeholders areand why they are investing money to into the solution. This helps in cutting the requirement clutter that may seep in because of different players in the project (Competing Priorities).
Ram must also understand the scope and time constraints of the project. This is key as projects tend to have scope creep at every step and from everyone involved. Business analyst play a key role in ensuring that they keep the scope in line with stakeholder expectations and needs throughout the project lifecycle.
Another key aspect is the level of experience or comfort that Ram has with the project team and the organization. If Ram is new to the team or organization then it is important to spend time to understand the process within the organization to execute projects. It is paramount to win the trust of the team and get to know the team members. This is very important and is a critical success factor for the business analyst. Simple things like reaching out and talking to people, helping different team members and partnering with them on their project deliverables will go a long way to establish trust. Ram must be approachable to all team members to answers any of their questions or concerns.
Understanding of project intricacies like team dynamics, capabilities and strengths is important. All of these will come through observation and listening to teams.
Understanding the project current state will help Ram navigate towards the future / desired state of the project. Understanding this aspect will also enable Ram to navigate the solution map by understanding the gaps and improvements needed in the current state.
Lastly another important aspect that’s impacting every business analyst and project team more than ever is the ever changing nature of legal and regulatory landscape impact on their project. Understanding this impact is key and to a large extent will drive the project solution path.
There are other factors like performance, security considerations, user access controls etc that have not been discussed here but are still very important.
A business analyst must be able to continuously build, deconstruct the project solution concept/ map with the skills identified above. It is very key that these soft skills are nurtured and strengthened in a business analyst’s career and this will enable the business analyst to advance his/ her career into technology and business leadership roles.
(Please note this blog has been reproduced from my wordpress blog site for wider reach since I realized that this site of mine has been operating for years now and must have a better search engine rank :)
