How to become a business analyst?

Business and Analysis

We need to understand the terms ‘business’ and ‘analysis’ before we dive into the details. If you know these terms, you will be able to understand what you need to do and what skills and knowledge you require to become a business analyst.

• The term ‘business’ means a set of activities or tasks performed by an industry or organization to achieve its goal of producing goods or services, which is nothing but the process if it is sequenced.
• ‘Analysis’ means a detailed examination of these (‘business’) aspects with an understanding of the big picture. If you have the ‘business knowledge’ and skills to ‘analyse’, you become a business analyst.

Generalist BA vs Domain Specific BA

There are also ‘generalist business analysts’ who are in a position to understand whatever ‘business’ they deal in very quickly by using their ‘analysis’ techniques. We also have a business ‘domain-specific business analyst’ who has expertise in the specific industry’s business processes or activities and uses that knowledge to apply ‘analysis’ techniques to perform the job. For example, somebody with knowledge of banking, retail, or insurance can take this route

Five dimensions

There are five dimensions that a business analyst has to look at. 

• The first dimension is knowledge of the business processes of the specific business domain.
• The second dimension is analysis skills, which involve understanding the big picture, breaking down the big picture, and linking those elements. Using this analysis, identify the problem and brainstorm the solution.
• The third dimension is understanding software requirement gathering techniques, which include leading requirement workshops, documenting requirements, and understanding different types of requirement documentation
• The fourth dimension is a basic understanding of different technologies and where they can be applied. There is no need to know coding or in-depth technology, but a BA should be tech-savvy.
• The fifth dimension is obviously your communication skills.

You may not have knowledge or skill in all five dimensions. Don’t worry, even if you don’t have any of these things! No business analyst will have the perfect skill set of all five. You need to start with these two very important dimensions: business process knowledge and requirement techniques! If you don’t have any, try to acquire one of these dimensions to start with, and you can start learning the other three.

Note: Usually, requirement and analysis skills are grouped together and called “requirement analysis.’ But it is broken down into two parts in this article: requirements techniques and analysis skills. Requirement skills can be learned from books, courses, and workshops. Analysis skills are more of a thinking process than a piece of knowledge.

A brief description of all of the five dimensions:

1. Business process knowledge: A software requirement is developed for a specific business. Knowledge of specific businesses is one way to get into the business analyst path. If you are already working in a specific business area, whatever the role, or as a business process associate, there are avenues to understand the business process. Use that option to understand any specific business process thoroughly. For any specific domain, you need to focus on the concepts, processes, and products or services that the industry provides. Very importantly, the geographical nuances of that specific geography need to be taken care of. If you are not working in any specific business area or are a fresher, there are many free courses or books available to gain knowledge, which are referred to in the sections below this article. 
2. Analysis skills: When you refer to any business analysis courses or articles, it would have been mentioned as ‘requirement analysis’ skills. It is a combination of requirement-gathering techniques and an analytical mindset. In the dimensions above, the requirements and techniques are given separately. This ‘Analysis’ skill is a way of thinking and it encompasses from BA perspective:
   • Understanding the big picture
   • Breaking down the big picture
   • Linking those functional elements to make it a process
   • Identification of the problem
   • Ideating the solution

These skills help a business analyst understand the scope of the project and relate it to the business process. A good business analyst looks at the big picture from end to end. For example, a software engineer has been given a requirement to develop a certain function. As per usual software practices, he may look at what the input is, what logic to apply, what output it is generating, and whether it impacts any other function. But a business analyst has to look at the end-to-end picture within a software project and beyond sometimes. For example, if you have a project to develop a billing system for a retail merchant, he has to look at the end-to-end process, right from inventory stocks, how they are classified, how they are identified, the master price list, etc., to break it down. The ability to visualize the end-to-end process by linking those functions, identifying the gap or problem, and ideating the solution is also the task of a business analyst. 

3. Requirement techniques: Now-a-days, there are many free or paid courses and certifications available to understand requirement techniques. The Internet is flooded with many books and courses. If you are a new business analyst, understand the fundamental concepts of requirements, choose two techniques of requirement practices, and be thorough with them. For example, agile requirement gathering involves writing user stories and an agile way of working. Another might be writing use cases. It is not possible to know all the techniques to start with. However, focus on one or two techniques and be thorough with them. If there are no practical opportunities, the aspiring BA should be clear on concepts and practices. 
4. Tech-savvy: It has always been an argument about how much a BA should know about technology. Even though a business analyst is not going to program, technology knowledge is required to some extent, as the core function is to bridge the gap between business and technologists. Many projects fail because the focus is only on business and they misunderstand the capabilities of the technologies used in the project. A mindset of “My job is to gather only functional requirements” and I am not concerned with the feasibility of implementation has to be avoided to become a successful BA.A business analyst should know the following aspects:
   • Technologies used in the software project
   • Capability of those technologies and their application
   • Interconnected systems in relation to a function and its technology
   • Data required from or to interfacing systems  
5. Communication skills: No need to elaborate on this. A business analyst has to interact with many stakeholders, and it is important that he communicates in crisp and clear terms the thought process to appropriate stakeholders at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way. This soft skill is essential for any profession but assumes much importance in a BA role in the software industry.

Paths to become a business analyst

Path 1 – > Business domain path:

This path is useful to those who are already in a specific domain or who are not working in any specific domain. For example, somebody is in the BPO industry, working in banking, insurance, retail, etc., and they can use their existing knowledge and take this path. Ideally, you should gain process, process, and product knowledge of the specific industry. If we are not working in the business domain, then you need to start gaining knowledge through courses or books.

Step 1: Start to gain knowledge of a specific domain and its business process

• If you want to learn about the insurance process or concepts than these books or courses may be of help
  • Property and Casualty insurance concepts
  • Insurance and risk management
  • P&C Insurance Claims management

• There are free courses on insurance available. For example,
  • Diploma in risk managemen
  • Introduction to life insurance and retirement and savings
• There are many paid courses targeted for insurance domain like:
  • Introduction to insurance
  • Insurance policy administration – New business
  • Insurance policy administration – policy services
• There are free courses on banking.  For example,
  • Introduction to retail banking
  • Introduction to banking
  • Basics of Indian Banking and Fraud Risk Management

These are only examples. There are many like this.

Step 2-> Understand any one of the software requirement techniques

Many of the business analysis courses and books teach you these requirements techniques. When software methodology evolves, requirement techniques also evolve with it. So, it is essential to understand the basic software development life cycle process for the methodology adopted. ‘Agile’ is the buzz word now, and it has become mandatory for all business analysts to know the requirement techniques in an ‘Agile’ way. However, this may not be the case for all projects. So, the question is how to learn this. If an aspiring business analyst is new to business analysis, then it is essential to go through some foundation courses. Even though we have industry-recognized certifications offered by the International Institute of Business Analysis, you can also gain knowledge through online courses.

Some of the courses/Books are listed below. These are only examples and there are many courses are available online:

• Free business analysis courses
  • Business Analysis – Fundamentals
  • Agile requirement analysis

• Useful books
  • The Real Captain – Real world lessons for aspiring business analysts
  • Requirement Heros
  • Creating requirements for software projects
  • Agile guide to business analysis and planning

Step 3-> Analyze using the knowledge and skill from step 1 and 2:

As mentioned earlier in this article, an analytical mindset is required for a business analyst.To understand analytical thinking and how it differs from the critical thinking, go through this article – Analytical thinking vs Critical thinking.  Thinking from multiple perspectives, understanding the big picture are traits to develop analytical thinking. 

Another technique that sharpens the analysis thinking from an information technology perspective is ‘Functional Decomposition’.  Breaking down the process into smaller parts of functions and listing them down is essential. Coupled with requirement techniques, this functional decomposition comes as an aid in the preliminary stage of software projects. Adopting the technique provides a way to analyse the process, whatever requirement methodology is adopted. An aspiring business analyst, after understanding the process required, the functional scope of the project, or even the existing as-is process, has to adopt this technique to get the big picture and the interrelationship of functional elements.

You can read this article at the link to understand more Functional Decomposition. 

Path 2  – > Generic BA path:

A generic business analyst is not specific to any business domain. That business analyst relies more on analysis skills and requirement techniques than business process knowledge. If this path is to be followed, the aspiring BA should have excellent communication and analytical skills. He should be thorough on any one or two of the required techniques.

Getting a job as a business analyst

A question may be lingering in your mind that whatever is mentioned above is more about skill and knowledge and ‘How to get an entry into a business analyst role? Even though the job description may require experience as a business analyst, the demand for this job is increasing. According to Coursera, a popular online course provider, the demand for BA has increased in 3 years, and the growth rate is 14.3%.

https://www.coursera.org/in/articles/what-does-a-business-analyst-do-and-how-to-become-one

Since a business analyst role requires domain knowledge and business analysis techniques, getting a certification in a niche domain or a complex domain will fetch you a job. While most of the aspiring business analysts are focusing on BA courses to become ‘generic business analysts’, getting a certification in a specific domain will get more focus when there is a job requirement. So, a certificate in a specific business domain will come in handy. It has its own pros and cons. The constraint is that the opportunity for the chosen domain may be limited compared to generic business analysts. 

Another option is to get a BA certification and compete with generic business analysts. Ideal way should be to have a certificate in a specific domain and also a business analysis certification. This skill can be used for both the ‘generic business analyst’ role and the ‘domain-focused business analyst’ role

Hope this article is useful. Insuedot wishes you to successful career path as a ‘Business analyst’.

Disclaimer: This article contains links which leads to organization websites where Insuedot is affiliated like Amazon, Alison