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Business Analyst

A Business Analyst has the primary responsibility of increasing value within a business. This is done by identifying problems or inefficiencies and proposing solutions to these problems.

The International Institute of Business Analysis defines the role of the business analyst as follows: "A business analyst works as a liaison among stakeholders in order to elicit, analyze, 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."

The Business Analyst Role

Business Analysts are key resources within many types of business organizations. The essence of this role is the analysis of business problems and the design of solutions to these problems. The work of a Business Analyst could easily be compared to the work of a building architect, since Business Analysts create diagrams or models that are similar to construction blueprints, as a part of their work. The models created by Business Analysts are frequently converted into engineering instructions for new or improved business process or systems. Optimally, the business solutions designed by the Business Analyst will allow the business organization to realize increased efficiency and higher productivity. While it may not be realized by their professional colleagues, the Business Analyst provides the intellectual power needed to drive the functional and operational segments of a business forward to new levels of efficiency and innovation.

Business Analysts are often found within the information technology group of a business organization, since information technology usually plays a central role in any solution designed by the Business Analyst. When a Business Analyst works within an information technology group, it is often under one of the following organizational titles: business systems analyst, business systems consultant, business process analyst, functional analyst, requirements analyst, systems analyst, systems architect or technical analyst. Any of these titles are appropriate for the business analysis role within this group, because the Business Analyst typically acts as an internal technical consultant to the developers and engineers in this group and serves as a facilitator for the construction of the solutions designed by the analyst. In some cases the analyst will work with both the internal technology group within a business operation and external vendors or suppliers, who may provide portions of the solution or the entire solution that the Business Analyst has designed.

Many analysts also work in areas of a business that exist outside of the information technology group. For example, Business Analysts are often found within the financial, legal, human resources or marketing segments of a business, which provides the functional leaders within these business areas with a direct resource for the analysis and resolution of business problems. Business Analysts who work in other sectors of a business typically have professional titles such as benefits and compensation analyst, competitive marketing analyst, compliance analyst, decision support analyst, ecommerce analyst or risk analyst. In addition, due to the linking of business processes though enterprise resource management or planning systems, analysts in different functional areas of a business may be required to collaborate in order to develop enterprise wide business solutions.

Business Analyst Responsibilities

A Business Analyst has a wide range of responsibilities throughout the course of development and delivery of a business solution.

Creating Requirements Questionnaires

A Business Analyst is responsible for asking the right questions, in order to uncover the requirements for a business solution. A Business Analyst frequently uses requirements questionnaires as a tool for gathering requirements. A requirements questionnaire includes questions regarding the goals, values and concerns of business stakeholders, who are the individuals within the business organization that may be either positively or negatively effected by the implementation of the business solution. The requirements questionnaire also includes questions about the current business environment that allows the Business Analyst to determine if any technological constraints will apply to the solution developed.

Conducting Requirements Interviews

A Business Analyst is required to gather information about the business environment through direct contact with the members of the organization who have a stake in the development of the business solution. A Business Analyst frequently meets one-on-one with various business stakeholders, in order to gather information about the needs of the business, which is used to develop the high level list of requirements for the business solution.

Data Analysis

After a Business Analyst has developed a high level list of requirements for the business solution, the analyst will present this information to the business stakeholders for review. The stakeholders must make a business decision: either to pursue the business solution proposed by the Business Analyst or to request the development of an alternative solution to the business problem. In order to make an informed business decision, stakeholders will require an analysis of the data for the proposed solution. Likewise, a Business Analyst is often responsible for data analysis for the proposed business solution, which normally includes an analysis of the development costs and the business risks (financial, legal or otherwise), associated with the business solution recommended by the Business Analyst. The results of the analysis will be documented by the Business Analyst in a feasibility or risk assessment document. The business stakeholders will review these documents in order to decide if the proposed solution provides the business with a good return on investment and has a limited level of risk to the organization.

Requirements Analysis

A Business Analyst will use the facts gathered from requirements interviews to create use cases or storyboards, which are models that describe existing processes, events and outcomes in the business environment. Once a Business Analyst has a working model of the existing business environment, the next task to be completed is the functional gap analysis, which is the process that identifies what should be changed or added within the existing business environment, to solve the business problem at hand or achieve the results desired by the business. The end result of the functional gap analysis is a detailed list of the requirements needed to construct the solution to the business problem.

Stakeholder Analysis

A Business Analyst will use the facts gathered from the requirements analysis activity to rank and classify business stakeholders, based on estimated impacts to individual work processes, which in turn sets the expected level of involvement for each stakeholder during the lifecycle of development for the business solution. Early identification of all key, primary and secondary stakeholders is important to the successful implementation of the business solution.

JAD Session Facilitation

A Business Analyst often gathers and defines the detailed requirements for a business solution using JAD sessions or Joint Application Development workshops. JAD workshops encourage an iterative approach to the design and development of a solution, meaning that the solution is created and refined in several recurring cycles until the desired result is achieved by the business organization. This approach is advantageous because it provides constant feedback between the business users and the solutions developers, which helps to ensure that the final solution built will meet the business needs and solve the business problem at hand.

Business Analyst Deliverables

A Business Analyst provides a variety of deliverables throughout the course of development and delivery of a business solution.

Project Charter

A summary of the business solution development project. The Project Charter is typically developed by a project manager, but may also be developed by a Business Analyst working in a project management capacity.

Business Requirements Specification

The requirements of the business that relate to the underlying business problem to be solved. Business requirements are specific to the quantitative operational aspects of a business, such as production time tables, production quantities, or levels of service delivery. Example: Reduce customer hold times for all inbound calls by 20%.

Functional Requirements Specification

The user requirements for the applications or systems that are included in the business solution. Functional requirements include user input data requirements, system processing requirements and system output data requirements, including report production. The content of the functional requirements will vary significantly depending on the type of business solution that is under development. Functional requirements are typically developed using business use cases.

Non-Functional Requirements Specification

The requirements of the business that are not user specific. Non-functional requirements pertain to aspects of the business solution at the global level, such as system upgrades, system reliability, system maintenance, system compatibility and data integrity or security.

Interface Design Specification

The requirements of the business that affect the presentation or user options for the applications included in the business solution. Interface design requirements are often closely related to the underlying workflow or business processes included in the business solution. Interface design requirements are typically developed using mock-ups or wireframes, which are visual representations of each user interface included in the business solution.

System Architecture Specification

The requirements for the framework or structure of the applications, data and systems included in the business solution. In many cases, these requirements will be developed by a systems architect, however in many cases a Business Analyst will develop the system architecture or system interface requirements, functioning in a cross functional role, as a Business Systems Analyst or Business Data Analyst. System architecture requirements are typically developed using system use cases and system data flow diagrams.

Business Process Specification

The visual representation of the steps required to deliver a product or service within a business organization. Business process specifications outline the flow or sequence of tasks completed by various actors within a business process. A Business Analyst will develop both "as-is" business process diagrams which illustrate exiting business processes, as well as "to-be" business process diagrams that illustrate the new business processes required for the business solution.

User Test Case Requirement

The requirements specific to user testing of the business solution. User Test Cases are used to reproduce the conditions that will exist when the solution is implemented, in order to determine if the solution will provide the results expected by the business. A Business Analyst reviews the requirements for the solution, in order to develop a set of test cases for the functions the solution has been designed to handle. When the test cases are executed, any unexpected results generated by the solution will be logged and tracked using a defect management process, which will vary by the organization. Ultimately, the execution of the test cases will allow the Business Analyst identify any gaps in the required functions or business processes which were omitted during the development process or which were included but found to function incorrectly. The end result of the user testing process is the resolution of all functional deficiencies, in order to deliver a solution that the business will accept as complete.

How the Business Analyst Role Benefits Businesses

A Business Analyst plays a key role in the success of any business, since the the leading cause of project failure is defective requirements or a lack of requirements, which are both a direct result of the execution of a project with out the benefit of a well qualified Business Analyst. The following list provides some of the key talents that a quality Business Analysts will bring to an organization, playing a primary role in the success of the business:

How to Become A Business Analyst

A Business Analyst plays a vitally important role in the delivery of solutions to a wide variety of business problems. Key functional skills needed by a Business Analyst include:

As technology continues to advance and the business marketplace becomes more and more competitive, the need for highly skilled Business Analysts will grow. Business Analysts who have 21st century skills, in the following areas will be in high demand:

In addition, organizations with the need to modernize their operations, such as businesses in the health care and energy sectors, will provide many opportunities to Business Analysts in the future.

Business analysis cuts across many functional areas of a business, which often blurs the lines of responsibility for a Business Analyst. This is partially a result of the fact that the business analysis role is not readily understood by many members of the business organization. Subsequently, a Business Analyst may be asked to handle tasks that would normally fall upon a project manager, when acting as a liaison between non technical and technical members of the organization. Tasks that may fall upon a Business Analyst that would normally be handled by a project manager include: meeting scheduling, project issue tracking, project budget development and coordination of user training for newly developed products or systems. In addition, the increasing need to cut costs and streamline business operations is increasingly affecting the responsibilities of the Business Analyst within organizations.

In recent years, the Business Analyst role has slowly started to evolve in to a hybrid position, with a requirement for a combination of analysis, design, administrative and project management skills. Due to this progression, new professional titles such as project analyst, project engineer, and project solutions analyst have emerged to describe the hybrid business analysis/project management role. When an analyst is found in one of these hybrid positions, it is often an opportunity for growth and higher visibility across the organization. This is because a Business Analyst without project management responsibilities usually only has a horizontal level of interaction with various functional business leaders within an organization however the addition of project management responsibilities usually creates a vertical level of interaction between the project analyst and executive leadership within a business organization. Subsequently, these hybrid positions may be more desirable for some Business Analysts who aspire to higher-level technology or systems management roles within an organization.

If business analysis is the career direction you are inspired to take, there are several pathways into the field. Since problem solving is a key requirement for the business analysis profession, the most common pathway into the field has traditionally been through the profession of software development, also referred to as computer programming. While software development experience provides the technical knowledge required to design a solution, an ability to adeptly communicate with key players within a business is a skill that some software developers simply lack and also have no wish to acquire. For example, a Business Analyst must frequently communicate with members of a business organization who may in some way be disgruntled about the changes which will occur as a result of the implementation of the business solution brought forth by analyst. Subsequently, strong communication skills, with attributes of professionalism and diplomacy are needed by the analyst.

Many software developers, who are highly capable in the technical and creative aspects of their work, would have no interest in the politics that are often involved in organizational change and subsequently would be less likely to possess the communication skills needed to thrive in a business analysis role. Based on the overall requirements of the business analysis role, it can be concluded that strong communication skills are ultimately more critical to the successful outcome of a business solutions project than a technical skills alone. Subsequently, in many cases the best Business Analysts are former software developers who were mediocre at software development and who have better communication skills than software development skills.

Since it the operation of a business must be understood before a business solution can be developed, another pathway into the business analysis profession is through an operational support role. For example, a client services representative who is familiar with all of the processes involved in the residential relocation division of a real estate company might be well suited to function as a Business Analyst in the development of solutions within the business to optimize the delivery of relocation services to the organization’s client base. This is an example where knowledge of the business is the key to qualifying for a position as a Business Analyst. When the business problems to be solved exist in niche segments of an industry, having inside knowledge of the business operation is even more of an advantage for migrating into a business analysis role. For example, specialized areas of the health care industry, such as pharmaceutical sales or medical claims management would be ripe areas for an operational support professional to look for opportunities of promotion into a business analysis role.

Regardless of the pathway taken into business analysis profession, the career choice is one that offers increasing levels of challenges and opportunities for advancement. If a Business Analysts gets bored with working at the same type of company or within the same industry, opportunities always present themselves which will allow the analysts to work in a different business or industry due to the transferability of the skills that most analysts possess. In addition, the increasing availability of contract and temporary employment opportunities have also provided further opportunities for Business Analysts to work on a variety of different problems in a variety of different industries, which provides professional growth and the ability to gather new skills. In the final analysis, if you have a passion for problem solving, communication and creativity, then a career in the Business Analyst profession may be a very rewarding choice for you to consider and eventually pursue.

Business Analyst Salary Information

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