What is a Business Analyst?
by Al Santucci, Holly James and Debbie Gencarelli
The Search for a Business Analyst
Thoughts from a Recruiting Manager
The Casey Group is a professional services firm specializing in custom software development and outsourcing. Our search for Business Analysts led us to the International Institute of Business Analysis and, subsequently, to the Requirements Networking Group. What we discovered was that, while the Business Analyst function has matured over the years into a specialty discipline, it still means different things to different people, employers and practitioners alike. From the standpoint of a staffing manager for a professional services firm, this is how we see it.
What is a Business Analyst?
This proved to be a more difficult question than we thought it would be. And the answer, as for so many things, is “…it depends.” In our attempt to fully define the requirements of the position in order to locate the most qualified individuals, we spoke to hiring managers, Project Managers and Technical Architects. The problem we ran into was that there is not just one concept of a Business Analyst. And even within the Business Analyst function, there are different sub-functions that can evolve as specialties in and of themselves. There is a continuum from a Lead Analyst to an analysis tool expert technician. Sometimes we look for one person who can perform all the functions, oftentimes we need a team.
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Take the Fall... and older books
" ...BA is the guy that writes all the documentation and takes the fall when the system doesn't quite work."
Hmm, does not sound like a happy situation. BA's have to stand up for themselves, but we are usually seen as a non-controversial role.
To Scott A,
What were the titles of some of those BA books you mentioned? I have found few such books in the past, and never liked the ones I did find. The were usually about softer skills, like communicating with the business, running a JAD session; nothing wrong with that, but it ain't unique to Business Analysis. What was usually missing was what a good requirement looked like, and how to know when you have the good ones.
David Wright
Member, IIBA
"As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information."
Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)