In the modern workplace business titles often has
little meaning and bears little resemblance to the work that is
performed by an individual most of the time. Titles are often the
result of a manufactured career path with each succeeding level
(and title progression) designed to boost and inflate the ego of
the fortunate incumbent.
Ego and business confusion aside, it still is a
complex exercise to define exactly what makes a Business Analyst.
The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) defines the
role of the Business Analyst as follows:
A business analyst works as a liaison among
stakeholders in order to elicit, analyse, communicate and validate
requirements for changes to business processes, policies and
information systems.
The business analyst understands business
problems and opportunities in the context of the requirements and
recommends solutions that enable the organization to achieve its
goals.
(BABOK
ver. 1.6 – IIBA)
In the execution of their duties, the business
analyst will work with a wide range of stakeholders from executives
to business participants to developers. This requires, not only a
wide knowledge of business strategy, business process and
familiarity with the technology systems environment, but also a
range of soft skills necessary for managing the interactions
necessary to perform tasks efficiently.
As the above-mentioned definition infers, a
business analyst is primarily a communicator and as such need
excellent communications skills. Although a large portion of the
average business analyst’s time involves preparing
bulletproof documentation, the most important part of their work is
time spent in communication with a subset of their stakeholders in
order to extract requirements, and then presenting those
requirements to the audience from where it originated and sometimes
to an entirely different set of stakeholders.
Apart from excellent communication skills, the
business analyst has to have an appropriate set of skills to
methodically extract, analyse and validate the requirements from
the stakeholders.
Effective requirements elicitation focuses on
pinpointing the problem, or scope, understanding the different
options available for solving the problem, or scope and then
selecting the solution, that ecologically makes the best sense.
(Ecology in this context refers to a solution that is good for the
business, or systems environment targeted. Ecologically sound
solutions also minimize impact on the environment while delivering
maximum value.)
Business analysis and communication skills aside,
business analysts must be completely at home with the environment
within which their work is performed. They must focus on and
understand the business models used by the enterprise, and how the
environment in which the enterprise operates affects those business
models. In addition, a detailed understanding of the technology
systems, which support business, is crucial. In some cases, a
thorough understanding of the technology platforms and development
technologies within which their systems are deployed may be
required.
A brief profile of the business analyst may look
as follows:
“A self-motivated individual who can
comfortably work in a diverse business and systems environment with
a wide- ranging audience from executive level to business and
technology stakeholders.
Excellent communication, leadership and
management skills is not negotiable. Detailed knowledge and
experience of business analysis approaches and methods is
required.
The incumbent should be able to sell concepts
and solutions to their audience and as such should have excellent
interpersonal, sales and negotiation
skills.
It is expected that the incumbent will develop
detailed knowledge of the enterprise business models, its systems
and the technology environment within which he or she will
operate”.
Considering the mix of skills necessary for to be
an effective business analyst, we need to look for that most
elusive of human creatures: The generalist which, when required,
can focus on the detail of the business and technology with all the
attention of a specialist.
And of course, we may be tempted to add to the
above profile:
“Should be able to leap tall buildings
and save mankind from whatever may threaten
them….”
