What does a Business Analyst do?
Articles
Something that I’ve actually been asked while pitching for work is “What does a Business Analyst actually do?”. While I won the work in that instance, I was never happy with the answer that I gave at the time. I managed to babble something out about how a BA was the bridge between IT and the business and while this is true, it hardly demonstrates what I could do to impact the bottom line of a project.
Since then I’ve relayed this story many times, only to discover that it wasn’t just my erstwhile interviewer that was unsure of what a Business Analyst actually does. Very often it’s not until a BA has delivered on a piece of work that the business that they are working for appreciates exactly what it was that the BA did for them, even then I suspect they would find it difficult to define exactly what it was that the BA did.
In a cold economic climate when IT budgets are being cut, it’s important that BAs answer the question of what we actually do, after all, our livelihoods depend on it! While our documentation skills and communication style will prove invaluable during the development phase of a project, when fingers are being pointed and vendors are demanding more cash, this will be no good to us if we haven’t won the business in the first place.
We have a very positive story to tell about what we do, but what exactly is it that we do?
Other IT professions don’t suffer from this sort of ambiguity, a project manager, for instance, has several very clear definitions of what they do, my favourite being:
A project manager has overall responsibility for the planning and successful execution of a project.
That’s it, it’s to the point and everyone knows exactly what to expect from a Project Manager and how they are going to benefit a project. On the other hand, we have the definition as stated by the International Institute of Business Analysis (The IIBA®) in version 2 of it’s Business Analyst Body of Knowledge®:
Business Analysts must analyze and synthesize information provided by a large number of people who interact with the business, such as customers, staff, IT professionals, and executives. The Business Analyst is responsible for eliciting the actual needs of stakeholders, not simply their expressed desires. In many cases, the Business Analyst will also work to facilitate communication between organizational units. In particular, Business Analysts often play a central role in aligning the needs of business units with the capabilities delivered by information technology, and may serve as a “translator” between those groups.
It does describe what we do, but it’s not quite as easy to digest as the definition of a Project Manager and you can see why there may be confusion about what the role actually entails. I can hear the business now, ‘Where is the value add?’. It’s a fair question, how does analysing and synthesizing all this information actually help an organisation to meet its goals?
To try to understand more about what Business Analyst actually does, I want to look at each phase of a typical project and examine what is required of a Business Analyst during the life cycle of a typical project:
Initiation
The initiation phase is the period during which the business is feeling some kind of pain and is looking to alleviate the stress that this pain is causing, usually by implementing some form of technology or process based solution.
It’s the role of the BA to clearly identify the problem that the business is experiencing and to map out what a possible solution would look like.
This map is then used to create a business case which shows why a problem is being tackled, how much it will cost to resolve the problem and what benefits the organisation can expect to see once the problem has been resolved.
It is the business case which a Business Analyst will constantly refer back to as the need for changes occur during the course of a project, constantly checking to ensure that a change is in-line with the expected business benefits and to ensure that the business case is still relevant and that something still needs to be changed within the organisation.
Analysis
The analysis phase is the period during which the Business Analyst defines the requirements in detail, stating clearly and unambiguously what the business needs in order to resolve its problem.
During this phase the BA will also work with the development team and, in particular, an Architect, to create the design and define exactly what the solution should look like.
Taken together the design and the requirements will guide the rest of the project, with the testers looking to ensure that the requirements have been met and the developers trying to deliver against the design. It’s the responsibility of the BA to ensure that the design meets the requirements and that the testers are testing the requirements.
During this early phase of the project the BA will expend a lot of energy ensuring that any possible changes that can be identified are identified, while they are easily, and often more importantly, inexpensively corrected. Once the initial requirements are documented they need to be tested to destruction by the BA to ensure that they will actually deliver a solution to the problems that the business are facing.
Development
The development phase is possibly the most challenging phase for a BA. It’s quite normal after the pressure of the analysis phase to sit back a little, safe in the knowledge that both quality requirements and design have been delivered. However, it’s during this phase that a BA needs to step up their meetings with the development team, attending daily meetings and generally being the eyes and ears of the business, constantly looking for deviations in course that would otherwise go undetected.
Testing
The testing phase sees the Business Analyst back on firmer footing. There is a process to follow as the testing team go through the process of testing and identifying bugs and the BA can work with the business to set defect fix priorities.
Disputes between the business and development concerning what is and what is not an off spec defect will often be resolved by the BA using documentation created in earlier phases. The mere existence of this documentation is often enough for one side of the other to admit a mistake and for the issue to be resolved amicably.
Implementation
The implementation phase is not the end for the Business Analyst. It’s the last chance for things to go awry and for goals to be missed.
It’s during this phase that a BA should be conscious of how users are using the system. Are they actually seeing the benefits envisaged in the business case? Do the training materials support the business case?
Looking at each of these phases in this way, a common theme of discovery, validation and verification appears throughout a project life cycle. Given the opportunity to answer the question again, I would define the role of a Business Analyst using the following statement which clearly shows what a Business Analyst adds to a project, a business or an organisation:
A Business Analyst is responsible for knowing what the goal of a project is, how to achieve it, managing any changes to the goal and ensuring that all deliverables are aligned with the goal.
In essence, a Business Analyst is a navigator, responsible for reaching the end destination, in our case that destination is the successful resolution of a business problem. The BA always knows what the end destination is, how to get there and is capable of handling course adjustments as they arise.
In the future, when pitching for work, I’ll be better prepared to answer the question and will have a great story to tell.
I hope you found this article useful. If you have a definition of what a BA does, then please feel free to let me know by leaving a comment below.
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90 Responses to “What does a Business Analyst do?”
August 25, 2012 at 8:47 am
simple and subtle briefing….thanks
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August 26, 2012 at 4:50 am
Great work on a succinct explanation of the role of a BA.
This helped me on my application to apply for a Step Up BA role in the last minute!
Well done.
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September 3, 2012 at 3:17 am
very great definition thanks j
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September 6, 2012 at 9:10 am
The brief actually explains the skill of an Analyst; Clear, concise and unambiguous. The role of Analyst in different phases of the project is really useful.
Many thanks.
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September 11, 2012 at 9:48 pm
Very clear and concise. A very modern definition
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September 12, 2012 at 10:23 am
That is fabulous… it is helping a lot
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September 19, 2012 at 4:33 am
Hi, I enjoyed the read and description as an aspiring BA who is currently enrolled in college. Just throwing this out there, but would it be possible to do a brief interview with the writer for my English class? The goal would be to obtain further personal knowledge on the career which interest us. Please email me if this would be possible.
Thank you.
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September 22, 2012 at 7:05 am
Very nice article.
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September 26, 2012 at 6:15 pm
This defination is concise and clear
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October 5, 2012 at 12:54 pm
Great description – Especially like the breakout of responsibilities by phases of the development cycle. Thanks for sharing.
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October 28, 2012 at 4:38 am
An interesting article, but through observations and discussions with IT personnel regarding IT-BA-Client discussions, some BA personnel often have no input, take no notes and are unable to integrate with IT personnel, leaving the latter sometimes wondering their actual purposes, other than implementing new complicated and troublesome systems over existing ones rather than simplifying or streamlining workflow. Are those BA lost in the ambiguity of their roles or are there ways to improve and strengthen their roles to reduce confusion?
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October 30, 2012 at 2:53 am
Very informative and good article.
Thank you.
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November 7, 2012 at 1:12 am
Good article, the discription is quite clear. But I have a few questions.does BA only means the analyst of BI project? Can a business professional who uaually analyze the sales and marketing data also call as a BA?
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January 18, 2013 at 9:57 am
Daisy, I would characterize that role as a Data Analyst.
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November 15, 2013 at 5:28 pm
I am having an interview for a position as a Customer Business Analyst. Would that be similar to what you have explained, but focusing on being a liaison in between the customer and company (factory/sales)?
I am bit confused since I am a student applying for this Internship and on the web there is very little information.
I would appreciate your response.
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November 25, 2012 at 10:36 pm
A very well written article with clear definition of what a BA does. Helped me a lot to understand the basic JD of a BA. Thnx for sharing.
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December 24, 2012 at 2:28 am
superb explanation…every BA should read ..this gives the feel as if i worked as a BA in a Concern.
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January 18, 2013 at 10:06 am
A good article, thanks. The IIBA description is inadequate, and you have put some meat around it. But when you’re in the elevator or sitting across the table from a senior manager and you have 20 seconds, we need a description of only 2 sentences.
That will take further work.
Nevertheless, I would suggest considering that an experienced BA must also bring business knowledge (industry and company) to the table, being a valuable advisor to the business.
I like to think of the process of making a building, the roles of Foreman and architect. A PM is the foreman of the project, coordinating the different skilled workers, arguing about budget and schedule, and the BA is the architect that has consulted with the buyer, provided advise as they designed a solution. He insures that the result is what was designed and in the end (User acceptance testing) ensures that the client is satisfied.
Cheers!
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March 20, 2013 at 2:23 am
Well done. I believe a business analyst main role is to know how to deal with data in hand, provided by the IT depatment. To deal with statistics reports that help the business perform better in the future. Im a programmer and an MBA student, and i have an interview for a BA position next week, wish me luck.
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March 21, 2013 at 10:31 pm
Well explained and relates to my work quite well.
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April 4, 2013 at 5:12 am
Thank you very much for publishing this article. This will really help me a lot for my job interview later.
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April 13, 2013 at 11:58 pm
Good Information for those who wants to take BA as a carrier.
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April 26, 2013 at 12:03 pm
Good article. I would like to see an article explaining the distinction between a Business Analyst and a Systems Analyst. I believe there is a distinction and it is my experience that very many people who bill themselves as Business Analysts are in fact Systems Analysts.
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April 28, 2013 at 12:01 am
I liked the article, this website also has a lot of relevant information about business analyst training.
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May 8, 2013 at 8:50 pm
I liked the content, the site above is good for BA Training.
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May 30, 2013 at 4:16 am
Enjoyed the article. To the point and delivers great insight.
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June 10, 2013 at 1:25 pm
Couldn’t we just parrot the definition of the PM and say “The BA has the overall responsibility for gathering and communicating the requirements of a project.” If a company doesn’t think that is every bit as important, it deserves to fail, and you don’t want to work for them. Problem solved.
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August 1, 2013 at 9:13 am
Very informative article. Thank you so much.
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August 14, 2013 at 3:29 pm
Great article. Many thanks for breaking it down to all the SDLC stages.
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November 18, 2013 at 4:01 am
Great Post! To run a business efficiently it is necessary to make right strategy and analysis before start up the business. Hard work and right decision make people and their business.
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