Business Analyst - Who?

Business Analyst is a new-economy job in a company that acts as a liaison between business people who have a business problem and technology people who know how to create automated solutions. The Business Analyst is a key facilitator within an organization, acting as a bridge between the client, stakeholders and the solutions team.

Business Analysts are responsible for identifying business needs, requirements, and requirements management. Specifically, the Business Analyst elicits, analyzes, validates and documents business, user, and functional requirements.

Business Analyst must be able to build a cohesive team and possess a strong customer focus. On a project, Business Analysts work closely with the Project Manager and assist with the project planning. They are responsible for the requirements planning and with the gathering and analysis of information.

The Business Analyst documents the business requirements which express what actions the business must take in order to resolve a business issue and deliver work products through the project lifecycle.

Business Analyst will collaborate with business stakeholders throughout the organization to ensure high quality, on-time deliverables and seamless communication. They usually work across a wide variety of roles, developing a diversified skill set which can lead to high level positions within a company.

What is Business Analysis?

Business Analysis is the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies and operations of an organisation, and recommend solutions that enables the organisation to achieve its goals.

Business analysis focuses on identifying requirements in the context of helping organizations to achieve strategic goals

  • Business analysis involves tasks that include investigation, scoping and definition of requirements for new or altered systems
  • Business analysis is an important part of the system design process; business analysts along with system analysis identify the needs or requirements of the clients
  • Many business analysts often perform several of these roles, and therefore this position is best filled by an individual with a broad skill set.

Business analysis is distinct from financial analysis, project management, quality assurance, organizational development, testing, training and documentation development. However, depending on the organization, a business analysis professional may perform some or all of these related functions.

 

Why Business Analysis?

To understand the structure and the dynamics of the organization in which a system is to be deployed To understand current problems in the target organization and identify improvement potentials To ensure that the customer, end user, and developers have a common understanding of the target organization

Business Analyst needs to be business savvy and have a very good understanding of technology. While it is helpful for a Business Analyst to be familiar with the industry in which they are working, industry specific information can generally be acquired while working on a project.