Skills and Competencies of a Business Analyst

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Elaborate on the various skills and competencies essential for a business analyst
• Describe the similarity between a BA and a Swiss-Army knife
• List the business analyst skills as per Texavi’s framework
  

  Knowledge – Product/process engineering Tools – Change management Application – Technology appreciation Skills – Business acumen

• Explain the importance of communication skills for a BA
• Describe the concepts, methods, practices and techniques in communication
  • The communication process – Sender, receiver, channel, feedback etc.
  • Barriers in communication – Physical, psychological, semantic
  • Verbal communication – Remembering, reflection, summarising etc.
  • Non-verbal communication – Eye contact, mirroring, filtering etc.
  • Communication across platforms, channels and teams
• List the key categories of the BA skills and competencies as per BCS:
  

  Behavioural Business knowledge Techniques

• Dwell on the key aspects of behavioural skills
  • Political (internal) awareness, attention to detail
  • Analytical and critical thinking, problem-identification
  • Leadership, self-belief, negotiation and documentation
  • Relationship (rapport) building, influencing, team working
• Explain the importance of business-related skills for BA
• List and elaborate on BA’s business-related skills:
  

  Finance and economy Business case development Supplier management Organisation structure and design Principles/concepts of Information technology Domain knowledge and subject-matter expertise (SME)

• Describe the significance of essential techniques and knowledge for a BA
• List and describe the following techniques and essential knowledge areas:
  

  Awareness of using digital tools Data modelling and analysis Prioritisation and scoping Connecting the dots Benefits planning Investigation Decision making Risk management Feasibility analysis Quality management Training customers, users Creation of wireframes Estimation – size, effort, time, cost User studies and user testing – planning, conducting, analysis User experience (UX) – profiling, user studies, information architecture