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How I became a Business Analyst
“Sales? No… I don’t want to work in sales. That also for financial products…? No way.. See I cannot sell insurance products to the customers by visiting in their home and convincing them to buy one… That’s not my job…” – This was my reaction after 1 month of my job…
and then I left it. I got an interview call from a software company. I went for it. The lady who interviewed me, mentioned, “You have to read a lot of documents. I’m not sure you will be able to do it. Let’s see”. I was a fresh MBA, failed in my first job and joined this software company as a Project Executive. I was supposed to read customer’s requirements, prepare pre-sales document (proposal) and also post sales document (project document).
When I joined in the company, I felt everybody is so quite and silent unlike our management guys who keep screaming, dominating, discussing, giving view points etc. It took me some time to settle down and understand my job roles. Initially I thought I am not working on my goals but now I look back and realize it was also business analysis job.
My Job Role involved the following responsibilities:
- Read all the documents sent by the client for customized website development. This job was really difficult because the documents are not well organized and I was supposed to get fetch the meaning out of it.
- Create a documentation that lists down the customer’s requirements on a very high level. This document included Scope of work, Proposed technology, Process flow, Project timeline, Cost etc. This document was shared with customer for approval.
- If the customer agrees, I had to prepare another document. This was little bit extended version of what I have already built. This document was prepared for our technical team so that they can design and develop the website.
- Clarify any doubt if the technical team needs.
– I left the company in 8 months. I joined another IT organization in sales. Not again. I don’t like the word. Here also I had to prepare the similar kind of documentation with additional responsibility to close the deals. My performance was measured by the number of customers and revenue I bring in. Documentation was not the priority. It may look good or bad but at the end of the day the question was “When will the customer decide?”. By the was I was dealing with products like real-estate software, recruitment software, ecommerce solutions. – I left the job in 1 year.
Knowledge Gathering: Now, I realize I have gained good knowledge on the subject of software development, website development etc. I appeared in another interview and landed a job for Pre Sales Consulting for ERP and HRMS products. I was in this role for 3 years, spoken to 70+ odd customers on their complex requirements for ERP, HRMS, Website, Custom Solutions etc. I wrote proposals, presentations, gathered requirements, closed many deals, clarified requirements to the technical teams. I was the king. Without me, no one had any understanding on the requirements nor they had the confidence to deal with the customers.
The Shift: Later I joined a CMM level 5 organization for real business analysis job. It’s been close to 5 years and still I’m learning new techniques. Now here I realized what a business analyst do. My previous experiences of sales, proposal writing, requirement gathering helped but it’s long way to go. I understood the process of creating documentations, what information to go in a document and what information should be out of it. Here I was also fortunate enough to learn functional consulting which gets more into techno functional role (slightly above than a generic business analyst). I love my job. I am the key for any project. I lead requirements and I own it throughout the project. I take part in other activities like testing, design etc. This also helps me to learn more and trust me it has no limit.
Business analysis is such a sophisticated profession that you get to learn so many things all together. The you get paid to learn. You apply what you learn. You need not be technical in the beginning. Now all the business analysis profession are not same. I will talk about the different types of Business analysts in a separate article. Also BA should be technical or non-technical; will get future attention.
What are the differences between Business Analyst, System Analyst, Business Analytics, Functional Consultant, Business Consultant, Pre-sales Consultant?
Business Analyst may get different designations based on the type of responsibilities and organizational hierarchy. In this article, we will discuss about the different types of roles associated to Business Analyst, key activities performed and differences.
Business Analyst may get different designations based on the type of responsibilities and organizational hierarchy. In this article, we will discuss about the different types of roles associated to Business Analyst, key activities performed and differences.
Business Analyst: BA role acts to bridge the gap between the customer and technical team. This role requires an individual to understand the customer’s requirements, analyze the requirements, help the technical team to understand and clarify the questions from technical team. The person will probably be a commerce, business graduate with certain amount of training on BA techniques. He will come up with various documentations like Business Requirement, Functional Specification, Requirement Traceability, Use Case, Process Flow etc. The person need not code but he should understand the features, functionality, process, feasibility, limitation and the benefits of the solution that his team is working on.
System Analyst: System Analyst role is little more technical than Business Analyst role. The person should have sound knowledge on Data, Key Objects and Entities. He will closely work with technical team to create Data Dictionary, Data Mapping, Data Flow Diagram, Entity Relationship Diagram, and Database Architecture. This role may vary depending on the technology stack. Similar to data, the person may need knowledge on Data Warehousing or Data Mining.
Business Analytics: Business Analytic role is more into statistical analysis with various data input. Based on the source systems they will find out how to create a meaning with the data I have. The main objective here is to predict future, understand the trend, figure out risk and take appropriate action in the present.
Functional Consultant: Functional Consultants are aligned to a specific technology; e.g. SAP, SFDC, Oracle eBiz etc. The person has the functional knowledge on the technology. He will not code or develop any program but he should be able to run the solution from end user prospective, some configurations or customizations also can be done by him to run a demo or show the functionality in from of customer or any stakeholders.
Business Consultant: Business Consultant or Business Process Consultant are the expects who have huge amount of domain and functional knowledge on a specific area of business. They also know the industry benchmark and are aware about the best practices. They consult the customer in various ways like Vendor Assessment, Implementation Roadmap, Organizational Change Management, GOTO Market Strategy, Merger and Acquisition etc.
Pre-sales Consultant: Pre-sales Consultants work with a technology organization to help the sales team in preparing technical proposal or solutions. Additionally they can conduct product demonstration, technical presentation with customer to address customer questions. They are the key members in the solution team.
What is Functional knowledge for a Business Analyst?
There is a difference between Business Requirement and Functional Requirement. In Software Development Life Cycle, we prepare two different document to capture Business and Functional requirements. Now let us understand what Functional Requirement is and how Business Analyst will understand it.
“Functional requirements explain how a system should behave.”
Let us assume we are developing an Inventory Management system, which will be able to capture and store information pertaining to products in stock. The system will have many functionalities related to how the inventory details should be captured, how the inventory information will be retrieved etc.
Examples of how the inventory information will be captured –
- FR# 1: The system should be able to allow Inventory Manager to add product inventory information.
- FR# 2: The system should be able to allow Inventory Manager to update existing product inventory information.
- FR# 3: The system should be able to allow Inventory Manager to delete product inventory information.
As a Business Analyst, you also need to provide more details around what information will be captured while adding the inventory information in the system. Here we need to mention the field names, type of fields and mandatory field details. See the example below how we capture Complementary information with functional requirement for “Adding inventory” in the system:
Reference to FR#1
Following fields are required while adding the inventory information –
| Fields | Data Type |
| Date | Date (MM/DD/YYYY) |
| Product Name | Text field |
| Product ID | Integer |
| Quantity in Stock | Integer |
To ensure more clarity of the requirements, Business Analyst can also add flow diagram, use case in the functional description. This will provide more transparency to the technical team to understand the requirements so that they can design the system accordingly.
What is domain Knowledge for a Business Analyst?
As a Business Analyst if you have domain knowledge, it will definitely help you in BA career. In this article, I will explain what we mean by domain knowledge for a business analyst and how to acquire domain knowledge.
Domain is the industry, which our customer organization belongs to. Banking, Insurance, Healthcare, Retail, Hospitality, Aviation, Real estate, Manufacturing etc. are the examples of various industries. All the industries differ based on –
- Business process (Sales, Production)
- Product or Service offerings
- Customer types, Market, Target audience, Competitors, Alliances
- Statutory compliance and government regulation
Based on the above-mentioned factors, all the business organizations have segregated themselves as a domain.
A Business Analyst is expected to know at least one domain so that he can communicate well with the customer to understand the business issues, process, requirements and business goals. If the business analyst is planning to acquire the knowledge on a domain, he should focus on the points, mentioned above and try to gain as much information he can gain.
If someone wants to gain Healthcare domain knowledge, he should first follow the instruction as below –
- Learn the Business process that is followed in Healthcare domain. It follows various sales processes. If you work in healthcare business, you may ask the sales person to explain you how the sales happens, what are the sale types, how much time does it take, how do customer make payment, how does a customer cancel a sale etc.
- Learn how many different Products or Services offered by the healthcare company. What are the major category of healthcare products e.g. Medical, Dental, Medicare, Medicaid etc. How do the products differ, what are the major value the product or services provide to customers?
- Learn about Customer types, Market, Target audience, Competitors, Alliances the healthcare organization has. The customers are segmented based on various factors, the competitors are in the market with additional benefits, the partners, distributors, providers, health organizations, pharmacists all have key role to play for a healthcare organization. Try to understand why they exist and what they do.
- All healthcare organizations have to maintain some statutory compliance and government regulations, e.g. HIPAA. Try to know about the major statutory compliance for healthcare organizations and the rules.
How to gain domain knowledge?
- If you are a fresher, you can learn about a domain from internet by searching on the topics as discussed above
- If you are working in an organization, you can speak to the end user in your company and gain the required knowledge you are seeking for
- You can also subscribe to the specific industry portal’s newsletter and business updates
- Follow some organizations that you aspire for (follow it on Facebook, LinkedIn, organization’s official website)
I believe this will help you in the first step in understanding a domain. Remember, domain knowledge acquisition, is a continuous process and there is no end of it. So keep learning and maintain a journal to keep recording what you have learnt today.
Do I need technical Knowledge to become a Business Analyst?
Many people have asked me if a Business Analyst need to understand the technical side of the project or not.
My answer to it – “No and Yes”..
Let me explain.
This is when Business Analyst does not need technical knowledge:
As a beginner when you join the BA group, it is not expected that you will be able to guide someone or your team technically. Your job is mainly focused onto –
- Identifying the stakeholders
- Preparing questionnaire for the stakeholders
- Understanding the business requirements
- Documenting the requirements
- Asking questions if anything is not clear
- Coordinating with the team members to ensure they understand the requirements and deliver accordingly
Gradually you gain experience of the project, the domain or industry, the customer’s business processes and also the technical solution that you are working with.
Over a period of time, with number of years experience, you become a guide to the team. Because I have seen that the technical team is more happy if they work on code and design work while they will need someone to approve and provide them confidence that what they are developing will meet customer’s requirements. Here comes the Business Analyst because he knows the requirements best.
This is when Business Analyst should gain some Technical Knowledge:
When it comes to technical knowledge, I will advise a Business Analyst to grab the fundamental knowledge on the following –
- Structured Query Language (SQL)
- Database Structure
- Data Integration (DI)
- Extract Transform Load (ETL)
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Business Process Management (BPM)
- Master Data Management (MDM)
- Big Data
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Ecommerce
- Cloud
Don’t try to gain these technical knowledge in one day. It takes time to gain knowledge. Take your time. Go to Youtube or Google, search and learn it. It will polish you to become a Senior Business Analyst.
Apart from these, a Business Analyst should have Functional knowledge on the specific solution that is being developed in the current project. Suppose, I am working in a project to implement Microsoft CRM solution, I will research about the CRM solution offered by Microsoft. I will try to understand the features, functionalities, limitation, customization, deployment details of the tool. I may not be able to code or configure but I should know how the CRM works and what is the ideal process that my customer should follow. All these information are available if you google it.
I am not sure if you will agree; but I have seen many business analysts who have sound technical knowledge and can challenge a technical architect also. However, you don’t have to become an Architect but the Fundamental or Functional knowledge that you gain will make you more relevant and valuable resource in the team. It’s a continuous process; to learn and help your team. I do it and it helps me build great impact on your clients because they see me as a consultant who can guide rather than a BA who always says “I will get back to you after discussing with my technical team“.
What are the deliverables of a Business Analyst?
The deliverable of a Business Analyst vary depending upon the role, project methodology, and industry. In this article, I will explain about different deliverable that a Business Analyst produces. Based on the nature of the project Business Analyst may merge some of the deliverable in a single document; e.g., a Functional Specification Document can include Use Cases, Data Dictionary.
- Strategic and Business Deliverable
- Scope Document
- Mission and Vision Document
- Problem Analysis Document
- Root Cause Analysis Document
- ASIS and TOBE Landscape
- RACI Matrix
- Business Case
- Business Road-map
- Different Analysis (Decision Analysis, SWOT Analysis)
- Risk and Mitigation Plan
- Case Study
- ROI Analysis
- Industry Analysis
- Trend Analysis
- Project Deliverable
- User Stories
- Business Requirement Document
- Functional Specification Document
- Traceability Matrix
- Use Case
- Various Diagram and Process Flows (Using UML)
Business Analyst can also come up with various other documents and deliverable that are unique for the project or customer. Above-mentioned ones are standard deliverable. The BA may work in Operation or Project. If he works in operation, he will mainly focus on the business and strategic deliverable; however if the BA works in IT project, he will come up with the project deliverable as outlined. BA can also use the business deliverable within a project. Later we will understand how to create all these deliverable.
**
If you are looking for the template of all these deliverable, please mail me at mybatrainer@gmail.com
What does a Business Analyst do?
From my personal experience and observation during my career as a Business Analyst, I can say that a Business Analyst will go through number of roles and responsibilities during his career. Now, in the initial days as a fresher when a BA start the job, his role will vary from a senior business analyst who has spent more than 10 years. I will explain it from IT standpoint where a System Integrator (IT Company) is working on a project for a client organization. The other scenario could be a Business Analyst who is working within the customer organization (we are not taking about the business analyst role).
Phase 1
This is the time when a fresher joins as a business analyst. The BA has probably done a business analyst training (not certification). His job role will be –
- Understand the client requirements from reading a number of documents (RFP, Scope, SOW etc.)
- He will have regular meetings with the Senior BA to understand the project requirements and also to validate himself
- He will undergo some technical training to understand the tool that is being used in the current project
- He will prepare questionnaire to gather requirements and send it to his senior
- He will document high level requirements in BRD based on his understanding
- He will co-ordinate with development and testing team members
Phase 2
This is when the junior business analyst has gained some experience and can work independently. His role will be –
- To work closely with the client on the requirements
- To work with the technical team and guide them
- Ensure the documentations are done properly (BRD, FRD, RTM)
- Ensure the testing team understands what functionalities need to be tested and how to go about it
- Build confidence with the customer so that the project continues and they are satisfied
Phase 3
This is when the business analyst has more than a decade experience and he implemented various solutions. He is BABOK certified. Here the BA role will be vast –
- Bring domain knowledge on the table (Insurance, Banking, Healthcare, Telecom, Real-estate etc.)
- Help the customer to define the requirements
- Consult and recommend the customer to benchmark the solution with peers
- Bring in best practices during the project and also in the solution
- Help junior business analysts to gear up
- Help the sales team to close deals (pre-sales) or be the business consultant for new customer acquisition
The role of business analyst will change based on the location, industry, his capability also.
How Capability of the Business Analyst matter?
I have seen many business analyst who can also design the solution. So they are technically aligned with the team.
Similarly there will be business analysts who can also work as a Project Manager or Program Manager. However this will add too much of job load on a single person and either of the role may be impacted