Insights From Business Analyst
Written by Anastasia Makarenko, Business Analyst at Idealogic
What do you do as a business analyst? Do you analyze businesses? Do you consult people on how to make money and become entrepreneurs? What are the main differential features of a business analyst in IT? These are only some of the questions I am often asked about my job. At some point I realized that there is a lack of understanding of a BA role in the IT world among the majority of people, so I decided to raise the curtain on the subject. Let’s dive into the main characteristics of business analytics to find out what exactly are BAs responsible for.
I have been working as a Business Analyst for quite some time, and, believe me or not, at my role I am…
1. Solution seeker
Any business has its own goals and needs to accomplish, and it’s my job to help facilitate the best solution to fulfill the stakeholders’ requirements and expectations. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes even days to fully define stakeholders’ business needs, functional requirements to the SUD (system under development), prioritize the scope of work, and evaluate challenges and risks that can impact the final solution.
2. “Interpreter” between IT and Business
Business and IT speak different languages, that is for no doubt. What makes sense for the stakeholders sometimes is odd to the development team, and vice versa.
Business needs from stakeholders have to be clearly stated and unambiguously described to design and deliver the best solution possible to meet the requirements. To do so, I, as a business analyst, focus on how to make requirements easy to read by a dev team, develop main business process diagrams, and design wireframes that will further support business’ needs. In case there are some limitations or suggestions from the dev team, I am the person to elaborate on them to the stakeholders so that they can understand them as well.
3. Consultant
No matter how clear the requirements were stated in the software requirement specification document, sometimes some moments need to be clarified additionally to a dev team. A business analyst is usually the first contact person a developer, QA engineer, or UI/UX designer will come to. It is a business analyst who is the main expert in the company and knows best how the solution should behave and the functionality it should perform.
4. Fighter for what I think is «right»
Sometimes you face the projects when stakeholders have a bold vision of the solution including what and how they are going to implement, build, and design it. The tricky thing is the vision that your client might have is not always the optimal one. And here, as a BA, you have to use all your skills as a negotiator to convince them of your vision and the benefits it brings.. or find a compromise that will work for both parties.
5. Solution requirements gatherer
A good platform starts with straight and crystal clear requirements. A business analyst collects, «interprets», and formulates the requirement to the system under development.
These are only some of the highlights of my job as a BA. But what is even more important, although usually left behind the scenes, is all that fun you get when working with the client and collaborating with your team; when all of us are a part of the creation of something new and innovative. Moreover, as Idealogic is all about dealing with innovative ideas and implementing them into life, I usually find myself working at the interface of the latest technologies and relevant trends, and that makes my work genuinely fascinating.
