Prerequisites for Business Analysts

There is no defined way to become a Business Analyst ( BA ). Often the BA has a technical background, whether having worked as a programmer or engineer, or completing a Computer Science degree. Others may move into a BA role from a business role – their status as a subject matter expert and their analytical skills make them suitable for the role. Business analysts may overlap into roles such as project manager or consultant. When focused on specific systems, the term Business Systems Analyst may be used.

Business Analysts Life cycle

A BA does not always work in IT-related projects, as BA skills are often required in marketing and financial roles as well.

The International Institute of Business Analysis provides a certification program for business analysts (Certified Business Analyst Professional or CBAP), as well as providing a body of knowledge for the field (Business Analysis Body of Knowledge or BABOK).

A few consulting companies provide BA training courses and there are some consulting books on the market (UML, workshop facilitation, consultancy, communication skills). Some helpful text books are:

• 1. Customer-Centered Products by Ivy F. Hooks and Kristin A. Farry (Amazon, USA, 2001).
  
• 2. UML for the IT Business Analyst: A Practical Guide to Object-Oriented Requirements Gathering by Howard Podeswa
• 3. Writing Effective Use Cases by Alistair Cockburn
• 4. Discovering Real Business Requirements for Software Project Success by Robin F. Goldsmith.
• 5. Business Modeling with UML by Eriksson & Penker
• 6. Software Requirements, 2nd Edition by Karl E. Wiegers (Microsoft Press, 2003)

Read more information inside..

BA’s work in different industries such as finance, banking, insurance, telecoms, utilities, software services, and so on. Due to working on projects at a fairly high level of abstraction, BA’s can switch between industries. The business domain subject areas BAs may work in include workflow, billing, mediation, provisioning and customer relationship management. The telecom industry has mapped these functional areas in their Telecommunications Operational Map (eTOM) model.

Finally, Business Analysts do not have a predefined and fixed role, as they can take a shape in operations (technology architect or project management) scaling, sales planning, strategy devising or even in developmental process. Hence, they get a different name for the played role. Even the International Institute of Business Analysis and its associates have had several editions of the roles and responsibilities of a person undertaking the BA role.

Content credit : wikipedia.org