Once an analyst, always an analyst

Often times this thought come across to me as to what makes people choose their professions. Is it their interest, aptitude, passion or simply demand in the market? I think its not just one of these but a combination of all of these that make up the professionals that we are all today. From a doctor to an engineer, from an entrepreneur to a scientist, everyone has a choice to make and that pretty much defines how they get set into what they do as their career. Looking closely at an analyst or rather more appropriately a Business Analyst, its amply clear that the role does have specific requirements, demands and expectations. Not everyone would like to be a Business Analyst and not everyone would be a good Business Analyst. So, what is it that makes one a suitable New-Age Business Analyst? In this post, let us look at some of the key factors, skills and attitudes that are the qualities of the New-Age Business Analyst.

Business Analysis is an art and a science

Yes, its indeed the most under-stated fact that business analysis is both an art as well as science. One needs to have the flair for analysis, reasoning, communication, identifying problems and facilitating in creation of solutions. A good business analyst is passionate, enthusiastic and a continuous learner. On the other hand, there is also no denying the fact that to be a a better business analyst, you need to learn the right tools and techniques to hone your analysis skills. From the SWOT technique to various notations such as BPMN ( Business Process Modeling Notation) and UML ( Unified Modeling Language) almost everything can be learnt and mastered as a discipline on a scientific basis. I will touch upon the nuances of these tools, techniques and methods in the future posts.

The various avatars of a Business Analyst

First off, let us understand and define the various names, forms of a business analyst. From a business consultant to a product specialist and various other roles, business analysts have been known by different names. I have come across some roles such as Domain Expert and Functional Consultant too. You might notice that the Business Analyst as we know cut across different industries and verticals. This ranges from Banking, Manufacturing, Information Technology, to name a few. I give below a diagram which shows the numerous avatars of the Business Analyst. Though this is not comprehensive, it pretty well presents a picture to drive home the point that the Business Analyst comes in various packages – shapes, sizes, colours, names and forms. However, you will notice that the core work remains the same, which is what we will refer in the later sections of this post.

Focus Areas of a New-Age Business Analyst

The main areas that a new-age business analyst focuses on are Business, Product, People and Communication. Unlike the popular perception, it is not technology, nor projects that would interest a business analyst. As the name suggests Business is the paramount factor for a BA and up next is the product focus and product thinking. No business analysis is complete if it does not touch upon the people aspect. From customers, users and team members to stakeholders and management, business analyst has to cater to the various ‘people’ involved. And if you ask me to name that one thing that separates the New-Age Business Analysts from all other analysts, it is communication. I created the image below to represent the focus areas and priorities of the new-age business analyst.

You can notice that the following are the priorities for the new-age BA:

• What and Why, over How
• Problems over Solutions
• Product over Project
• Facilitation over Implementation

Hope this post helped you in understanding the basic skillsets of the new-age BA. We will discuss more on this in the upcoming posts on New-Age Business Analyst. Until next time, Ciao!