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….”
