COEPD – Center of Excellence for Professional Development Happy Learning
A Business Analyst is a Mediator or Connection between the Client and the IT Team.
His/hers job is to elicit (gather) information, Analyze it to find problems, understand process, Document the requirement, trends and things of that nature which can add great value to a business. They must be good communicators, flexible, analytical.
The following are requirements of a Business Analyst:
- Analytical Skills & Documentation skills:
A Business analysts must have analytical skills, along with rational/logic based and critical thinking. BAs must have an analytical approach to problem-solving. What differs a great BA from a good one is their ability to analyze the information and make better judgments.
The Analysis must be documented in simple & effective way to make the most out of it.
- Communication Skills & Teamwork:
Being able to communicate with the team is an important skill in business applicable to every role. But the ability to make others to achieve your company goals is even more important for certain roles. Business Analysts depend on data from other departments. They must spend hours in meetings, over calls or sending out an email to gather data – which is not only numerical. BAs’ must be social and must get what they need from others. The success depends on it.
- Creative presentation skills:
All the efforts especially Analysis will be wasted if it is not presented to the people who mustact on it. The insight that is produced by BAs is used by higher management, department heads, and others to drive efficiencies throughout entire departments. They must present information in such a way that it is easily understandable, the important information highlighted and the potential improvements are made quantifiable and measurable.
- Modeling skills
It is said that more visually interactive the Data or information is the more it is easy to understand the process, flow, activities etc. As a Business Analyst modeling skills are also most important requirement for a BA. A Business analyst might spend most of his/her working day doing modeling and their efforts can make a significant difference in the overall performance. But, it is a skill that is usually developed over time while working on the job and a few courses can help expedite the learning process. This is a very important quality of skill to have apart from the professional life as well.
- Business knowledge and soft skills to acquire it
As Business Analysts focus on different business functions simultaneously, we would not be able to do their jobs well if they didn’t understand the functions in the first place. This experience may be developed through on job learning but usually requires a naturally curious mind and the ability to examine others for information in a insensitive way. Business Analysts that get such insights from domain experts as well as the actual user and use that in their own analysis will add a lot of value to their analysis and be valued accordingly.
- Microsoft Excel:
In Today’s world MS Excel is widely used for Major Activities and it has become a necessity to be able to use it at least for basic task.
- Negotiation Skills
To fulfill the clients need is the basic task of any IT company, but it often happens that there are changes requested in the ongoing development. It ultimately affects the progress of the project and sometimes it impossible to manage the change request due to ongoing tasks. The negotiation skill helps to manage the tasks and customer for the changes requested.
- Degree’s and certifications
A Bachelor’s degree is required computers more preferred. There are certifications associated to the Business Analyst as a Career/Profession. Many of these are offered by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA).There Levels of the certifications like Entry Certificate in Business Analysis (ECBA), Certificate of Capability in Business Analysis (CCBA), Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) and many more specialized certifications.
