Business analysts (BAs) are responsible for bridging the gap between IT and the business using data analytics to assess processes, determine requirements and deliver data-driven recommendations and reports to executives and stakeholders.

BAs engage with business leaders and users to understand how data-driven changes to process, products, services, software and hardware can improve efficiencies and add value.

They must articulate those ideas but also balance them against what’s technologically feasible and financially and functionally reasonable. Depending on the role, you might work with data sets to improve products, hardware, tools, software, services or process.

The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA), a nonprofit professional association, considers the business analyst “an agent of change,” writing that business analysis “is a disciplined approach for introducing and managing change to organizations, whether they are for-profit businesses, governments, or non-profits.”

• What Are The 3 Most Important Skills of a Business Analyst?
• What Does a Business Analyst Get Paid?
• Is Business Analyst a Good Career?
• Is Business Analyst an IT Job?
• Business Analyst Resume
• Business Analysis Tools
• Software Business Analyst Job Description
• Functional Business Analyst Roles and Responsibilities
• Business Analyst Certification
• Business Analyst Technical Skills
• Business Analyst Tools
• Business Analyst Job Description
• Is SQL Required For Business Analyst?
• Is Business Analyst in High Demand?
• How do I Become a Business Analyst With no Experience?

What Are The 3 Most Important Skills of a Business Analyst?

The three most important skills for a business analyst are:

• Oral and written communication skills.
• Technical Know-how
• Analytical thinking and problem-solving.

According to Great Learning business analytics experts and faculty, some of the top business analyst skills required are:

• Analytical Problem Solving capabilities
• Interpersonal and consultative skills
• Oral and written communication proficiency
• Creative Outlook
• Basic software knowledge and skills
• Basic programing language knowledge
• Understanding of Databases and Networks
• Industry knowledge
• Business structure understanding
• Knowledge of Relevant Tools, e.g.:BluePrint
• Stakeholder Analysis
• Cost-Benefit Analysis
• Requirements Engineering
• Process Modeling

What Does a Business Analyst Get Paid?

The compensation varies widely and is determined by factors like location, experience level, and industry. For example, a business analyst working in a large New York-based investment bank will earn more than a business analyst performing market research for an automobile company in Michigan.

Read Also: What is Business Intelligence?

Candidates who specialize in a specific technology (like SAP) may command higher premiums. Below are the average salary ranges and bonus percentages for business analysts.

• Entry Level: $40,000 to $70,000 with up to an 8 percent bonus
• Mid Career: $55,000 to $95,000 with up to a 10 percent bonus
• Senior Level: $70,000 – $150,000 with up to a 10 percent bonus
• Overall U.S. Average: $45,000-$110,000 with up to a 10 percent bonus

Is Business Analyst a Good Career?

The short answer is: yes, absolutely, Business Analyst is s a highly appealing career path.

Like any career, though, the nature of the work itself is a major factor in whether Business Analyst is the right career for you. The skills and competencies you have will, to a large degree, determine your success.

Topping the list is the fact that Business Analysts are in high demand. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that demand for some fields of business analysis is set to explode. The demand for Management Analysts, for example, is projected to grow 11 percent over the next decade, adding about 93,000 jobs in the U.S. alone – what it qualifies as “much faster than average” growth.

For Market Research Analysts, who study market conditions to determine potential sales of a new product or service, things look even sunnier, with a projected 130,000 new jobs – an 18 percent growth rate – on the horizon.

That high demand translates into relatively secure employment – and extremely competitive salaries. The aforementioned position of Management Analyst, for example, drew a median salary of $94,000 in 2019, according to the BLS.

Even Business Analysts in less technically demanding positions routinely earn an average salary that sits comfortably in the high five-figure range, and often into six figures for Business Analysts in senior positions.

In fact, the top 10 percent of Business Analysts earn $150,000 a year or more, according to some sources. High demand also means there are more opportunities for Business Analysts to relocate to new cities, even new countries, or to work remotely.

Business Analysts’ skills are also highly transferable, which means they’re especially able to move to new sectors or take on new roles. This fact also speaks to their ability to advance their careers.

Business Analysts’ resourcefulness and broad set of skills, combined with a high level of technical expertise, means they’re well poised to contribute to developing overarching business strategies, company and information systems architecture, process and program management, and project management – all top-tier aptitudes that translate into a higher level of job satisfaction and can lead to executive positions.

Is Business Analyst an IT Job?

The day-to-day tasks of a business analyst vary greatly based on their industry, department, and projects. That being said, many business analysts find themselves acting and working with different groups, departments, and team members.

Business analysts will hear new ideas and requests every day. They must understand when and where to act, and which requests will be most critical to the success of business end-goals. In general, they will be responsible to:

• Prioritize requirements from various stakeholders
• Communicate, translate, and simplify business requirements to ensure buy-in from all stakeholders
• Assess change-proposals and define solutions to help the organization achieve its goals
• Discover, organize, and clarify business needs and review/produce specifications for change
• Work with the Technical Analyst and development team to ensure that they understand the specifications.
• Work with training team to document system scenarios and identify roles impacted to help develop a change management/training plan.
• Conduct business process modeling and generate applicable scenarios for the technology functionality testing team.

Business Analyst Resume

Formatting your resume properly may matter more than you think. For any given BA role a hiring manager reviews 100+ resumes. To that end, they’re looking for a reason to say “no” to any given application they review.

Formatting your resume incorrectly is a quick way to get placed into the “no” pile. Your goal with formatting your business analyst resume is to make the job of the hiring manager as easy as possible.

Put yourself in their shoes. Given the same exact experience for two candidates would you be more likely to approve the resume that extends to 5 pages or the resume that concisely makes the case for their qualifications?

Here are the high level formatting tips you should keep in mind for your business analyst resume:

• Keep it to one page. If it’s longer than a page, the hiring manager will likely only skim it.
• Unless you’re customizing your business analyst resume summary, don’t include it on your resume. It’ll just take up space.
• If you’re a senior business analyst, keep your education section really short. If you’re an entry level business analyst, include relevant classes you took in school that make you qualified for the role.
• Don’t get too creative with your formatting. Your resume needs to be machine readable so don’t include any images or charts.
• Include links to any relevant work, projects, or write-ups you have.
  • This can be your LinkedIn, Github, personal blog, publications, etc.. Anything that makes the case about your skills as a business analyst.

Since your goal is to keep your resume to one page, every inch of real estate is valuable. If you’re a senior business analyst this means you need to keep your education small to allow for more room to talk about your work experience.

Conversely, as an entry-level business analyst you need to make the case that you’re qualified to be a BA without much (or any) work experience. To do that, you should include relevant math/statistics/economics/programming classes you took in school.

Business Analysis Tools

Business analysts typically rely on software such as Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Access, SQL, Google Analytics and Tableau. These tools help BAs collect and sort data, create graphs, write documents and design visualizations to explain the findings.

You won’t necessarily need programming or database skills for a business analyst position, but if you already have these skills, they won’t hurt. The type of software and tools you’ll need to use will depend on your job title and what the organization requires.

The Business Analyst tools for BA can be further classified into tools required for modeling and diagrammatic representation. A Business Analyst has to translate user requirements into use cases and diagrams for solution design and business model building.

The popular Business Analyst tools available today, help Business Analysts create user stories effectively, define use cases, build various Entity-Relationship (ER) diagrams, create a feature model, and efficient prototyping.  

Collaboration tools

The critical role of any Business Analyst is also effective in stakeholder management and collaboration. Every Business Analyst needs to use some best-of-breed tools to ensure effective collaboration for meeting business and project goals.

Hence, for every change that the BA makes in requirements, the same must be seamlessly communicated to connected teams like development and project management.

1. Jira and Confluence

Jira and Confluence are compelling collaboration tools. Every Business Analyst must be familiar with the basics of Jira for effective project collaboration and requirements sharing. The documents will be stored in a centralized repository in Jira. All the business stakeholders can see the status of projects and communicate with diverse teams using tools like Jira and Confluence. 

2. Trello

Trello is another effective project collaboration tool. It uses a Kanban-style approach for managing and prioritizing tasks. With Trello, a Business Analyst can easily track his tasks, project plans, and progress of key activities to be completed.

3. Rational Requisite Pro

The Rational Requisite Pro tool for Business Analysts is a must-have tool for every BA working on requirement gathering and elicitation. It has a very robust architecture that can easily manage requirement documents that are dynamically linked to a project database. It is very easy to use this tool for managing requirements. 

4. Balsamiq

Balsamiq is a leading cloud-based tool for designing wireframes. This is an excellent tool for Business Analysts working on New Product Design, brainstorming, and sketching new business ideas. This tool helps the Business Analyst to communicate his vision for the product to the relevant stakeholders. It is one of the leading Business Analyst tools for BA.

5. Pencil

Pencil is a free to use and open-source tool for prototyping and creating easy mockups. Creating a prototype for the user is often crucial for business analysts to help customers understand the final product’s look and feel. Any inputs and changes based on customer feedback can be incorporated in the prototype to ensure the best final product for the customer.

6. Microsoft Visio

Microsoft Visio is a leading tool for project management and business modeling. It can be used to create use case diagrams, project flowcharts, project schedules, process flow charts, and data models. 

7. Google Docs

Google Docs is a powerful document sharing and collaboration tool for Business Analysts. Business Analysts can share all types of files and documents with stakeholders using Google Docs.

Software Business Analyst Job Description

Usually, a BA has a set of main responsibilities that can be considered the backbone for the tasks they will fulfill in their role.

Clarifying a business idea. To understand which direction to choose, a business analyst should clarify the primary purposes of the future product. Also, a BA sets up the primary product benchmarks, such as customer acquisition strategy and value proposition, and helps decide on basic product KPIs. Then, they evaluate the most relevant means of implementation, which will be the most convenient for both stakeholders and developers.

Planning development activities. When primary business requirements are already established, it’s necessary to shape the development direction and allocate the areas of responsibilities. At this point, product development workshops with the participation of stakeholders serve as an efficient development tool.

Validating requirements. When approving the drafted documentation with business requirements included, the BA assures compliance of the development outcomes with a customer’s business goals. With both sides on the same page, everything goes in the right direction.

Standardizing the software development process. One of the main BA responsibilities is to assure that the single workflow with promised requirements is applied. When the product is being developed, a BA gets feedback from stakeholders and ensures product improvements according to the obtained data.

Functional Business Analyst Roles and Responsibilities

Functional business analysts help companies more effectively use software for specific purposes, such as monitoring finances or managing employees. They need strong analytical and critical thinking skills as well as in-depth technical knowledge so they can assess, install, and troubleshoot software systems.

It’s an ideal job for anyone who likes working with people and who has strong interpersonal and leadership skills. This upper-level management position requires at least an undergraduate degree as well as both business and technological expertise.

No matter their specific industry or employer, most functional business analysts share several core responsibilities. Those duties include:

Analyze Existing Systems

Functional business analysts start by evaluating a company’s current software system and analyzing how well it meets the needs of that organization. They look at factors such as cost and efficiency, as well as ease of use, using standardized measurement processes such as metrics and performance indicators.

Write Documentation

After they implement a new system, functional business analysts document all changes made and also write any supporting documentation needed to teach employees how to use the software.

Create Plans for Change

Once a functional business analyst has identified changes needed to a company’s software system, they then devise a plan to implement these changes. They use not only their technical knowledge but also their people skills, which allows them collaborate with all employees involved to identify the most effective way of implementing changes throughout the department or organization.

Simulate Changes

Before recommending any changes, functional business analysts test their suggestions to see how well they work. They use modeling software and practices to evaluate current systems and the effect of the new systems or practices they suggest.

Prepare the Organization for Change

Functional business analysts evaluate how ready an organization is to make change and guide it along the way to ensure a seamless transition. This often involves translating technical subjects or jargon into language that employees at every level of the company can understand.

Troubleshoot Software Systems

Since the functional business analyst is the one who designed and installed the system, companies often call on them to identify and remedy any problems that occur.

Business Analyst Certification

Jim Johnson, vice president of tech Jim Johnson, vice president of tech and IT staffing solutions specialist Robert Half Technology shares his thought on the most important certification for business analyst.

Johnson said that core business analysis certifications include Certified Analytics Professional (CAP) and Certified Data Science (CDS), which he noted are the ones he’s hearing most consistently: “If the organization wants a focus on big data, they’ll want certifications with Oracle or Hadoop, or some of the larger players out there.”

Burning Glass, which collects and analyzes millions of job postings from across the country, also breaks down some certifications that pop up for open business-analyst jobs. Those include:

• Certification of Capability in Business Analysis (CCBA)
• Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP)
• Certified Business Analysis Thought Leader (CBATL)
• Entry Certificate in Business Analysis (ECBA)
• Project Management Institute—Business Analyst (PMI-PBA)

Business Analyst Technical Skills

As IT continues to evolve, technical skills for business analysts also change and become more advanced. The essential technical skills relate to the core responsibilities of business analysts and help those in the role develop strategies to improve a company’s efficiency.

The following technical skills are considered fundamental for success as a business analyst:

Programming Languages

As business analysts work extensively with data and coding, having a strong foundation in key programming languages is essential.

A new study by Scientific Reports shows how learning a programming language can be likened to learning a natural language, as the basic building blocks of programming languages are the same as those of natural languages in their structure — whether with numbers or letters.

While business analysts should develop a strong foundation in computation, they should also understand the importance of linguistics skills.

Data Visualization

Since business analysts use data to plan and oversee software projects, they should know how to gather data and map it out. Placing information on graphs and charts through data visualization allows business analysts to see trends and patterns to help them identify which strategies are working effectively and which need to be revised.

Studies have shown how data visualization allows stakeholders throughout an organization, from management to IT, to better process and understand information pertaining to their business.

Database Proficiency

Another important technical skill for business analysts is database proficiency. Business analysts should be familiar with database design and programming methodology so they can determine the best ways to organize and present information at scale.

Having a strong knowledge of SQL allows business analysts to analyze and alter the structure of a database while also modifying its contents.

Software Development

Since business analysts are immersed in the process of improving a company’s software and hardware, software development skills are key. The development process consists of planning, designing and creating the elements that go into a system, program or application.

Business analysts often manage software development teams and report on their progress. To fulfill those core functions, knowledge of software development principles and practices is essential.

Business Analyst Tools

You will find plenty of the best business analysis tools list on the internet. It is not possible for a business analyst to learn or use all such tools within the span of his work life. Hence, we have focused on only the best business analysis tools which are used by almost all organizations.

1. Microsoft Office Suite

The following applications of Microsoft office suite come under the best business analysis tools list –

MS PowerPoint

This software is used to prepare and deliver formal presentations. A business analyst often faces the situations where he needs to communicate ideas, justify or deliver project updates to stakeholders. This communication becomes more effective in the form of a presentation through PowerPoint.

MS Excel

Data analysis is also a part of the business analysis, and it can be of different forms like

• Pivot tables
• Examining the trends in data
• Sort and filter data
• Creating charts or graphs

All the tasks mentioned above can be well performed using Microsoft Excel which is a spreadsheet-like tool. Along with it, Excel provides several built-in mathematical and financial functions which can aid data analysis.

MS Word

Microsoft Word serves the purpose of requirement specification document. Organizations can create their specific template for documenting the requirements. It is a utility application which allows user preferred fonts, theme, objects, shapes, smart arts, charts and even option for embedding Visio diagrams.

MS Visio

MS Visio is a modelling tool that business analysts use to effectively capture and present stakeholders ideas in the form of business functions and user interactions. The main utilities of Visio are –

• UML diagrams creation such as use case, sequence diagrams, and activity.
• To prepare process flow charts
• To create data models
• To generate architecture diagrams

2. Google Docs

Sharing project documents come under the collaboration, and nowadays Google docs prove itself a very useful tool for sharing documents online with project members and stakeholders. Google docs support all types of files like .pdf, .txt,.docx, etc.

3. Rational Requisite Pro

It is one of the best business analysis tools for Requirements management. This tool provides a robust solution for business requirement management for large projects. Requirements management tools like Rational Requisite pro offers the functionality of word processing.

Besides that, it can query and sort data using a dynamic database. Hence, it makes tracing requirements easy along with their changes and priority. Rational Requisite pro also has features like conducting impact analysis and managing an audit trail of changes.

4. Balsamiq

Many projects demand wireframing applications to showcase mockups of a proposed system. Typically a wireframing focuses on 

• Content
• User interaction

Balsamiq is among top business analysis tools for creating wireframes. The tool uses brainstorming sessions and provides immediate feedback from stakeholders. Balsamiq Mockups helps business to work faster and smarter. Moreover, it allows projects to host online. In addition to that, it works as a collaboration tool between team and clients.

Features:

• Presents mockups using PDF along with embedded links
• Creates reusable component libraries and templates
• Provides fast and intuitive user interface
• Allows to build wireframes
• Links allow the user to access prototypes for demos and usability testing
• Extensive library for ready-to-use controls
• Provides enough users interface controls and icons

5. SWOT

SWOT analysis is popularly used for strategic analysis and to evaluate a business.

Features:

• The tool is free to use and a most secured tool.
• It allows the business analyst to load and save analysis to local XML files
• One can export and view .png files

6. Pencil

Prototyping helps to get confirmation from the customer on the requirements. Hence, it is an important part of requirement gathering phase. Moreover, making a quick prototype helps the customer to understand the look and feel, and a prototyping tool helps a lot in doing so.

Pencil is such a prototyping tool that comes as a standalone tool that can be downloaded and used locally. With a simple interface, it allows a user to drag and drop elements to create a screen.

7. Trello

Trello is a collaboration tool for business analysis which helps to collaborate and communicate between teams and share information securely. Along with that, it allows admin to analyze the business data.

Features:

• Provides secure collaboration with a team
• Allows to view team activity across boards
• Allows to include members from Google Apps account
• Associate and organize boards with Collections
• Assigns admins for privacy settings management
• Helps to deactivate old members along with saving their work history
• Exports data within a single click

8. SmartDraw

Business analysts often use SmartDraw as a business analytics tool to simplify their project management work.

Features:

• It helps to automate activities like- Add, move or delete shapes
• You can integrate it with tools like Microsoft Office, Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. SmartDraw Cloud plugins can increase functionality.
• It helps to maintain security as you can install it behind a firewall
• It supports 100 languages for creating diagrams

9. Wrike

It is a real-time Work Management tool for business analysis purpose. It helps to decrease the overall project analysis cost by storing information centrally.

Features:

• Provides core Building Blocks of Work
• You can request Forms and  Automation
• It allows live editing and file management
• Provides a visual timeline for viewing the project schedule
• Provides workload view for balancing resources with performance tracking
• Project Reporting
• Time tracking for planning and budget management

10. Version One Lifecycle

This is one of the best business analysis tools concerning its unique feature of integration capability with enterprise applications and open source software development tools.

Features:

• It is primarily aligned with agile software development
• Flexible to scale up with ease project workspaces, portfolios, across teams and locations
• Inline editing and immediate update of the attributes by users is possible
• This enables advanced analysis to take a fact-based decision
• It provides a special feature like Agile Data Mart designing
• Automate decision-making during the software lifecycle

Business Analyst Job Description

A skilled Business Analyst is responsible for the implementation and support of business information systems across multiple departments. They identify problems and opportunities within a company and ultimately provide solutions that help achieve the business’ goals.

A Business Analyst job description should cover collaborating with financial reporting and IT teams to develop initiatives and strategies that optimize costs and improve internal and external reporting.

Business Analysts conduct market analyses, analysing both product lines and the overall profitability of the business. In addition, they develop and monitor data quality metrics and ensure business data and reporting needs are met. Strong technology, analytical and communication skills are must-have traits.

A Business Analyst job description typically includes:

• Creating a detailed business analysis, outlining problems, opportunities and solutions for a business
• Budgeting and forecasting
• Planning and monitoring
• Financial modelling
• Variance Analysis
• Pricing
• Reporting
• Defining business requirements and reporting them back to stakeholders

In addition to performing financial and operational modelling, a Business Analyst is expected to develop new models that underpin sound business decisions. A Business Analyst job description should recognise the streamlining and improving of internal and external reporting.

The role should also call for a strong understanding of regulatory and reporting requirements as well as plenty of experience in forecasting, budgeting, and financial analysis combined with an understanding of key performance indicators.

The end goal is to provide financial insights that help the decision-making process and align capital and resource allocation within the business budget. The Business Analyst should also drive fresh initiatives for financial planning and business intelligence systems.

Is SQL Required For Business Analyst?

With big data and relational databases being the new norm for most companies, SQL knowledge is a prerequisite for almost any business analyst job.

The role of a business analyst is to use data to report, analyze, and inform business decisions with data, and being to effectively retrieve the data you need will likely require some SQL. SQL is a fairly easy language to learn and it can help you in the job market.

Is Business Analyst in High Demand?

Business Analysts are already in high demand, and that demand is only expected to increase for the foreseeable future.

While the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) doesn’t record statistics for the job title “Business Analyst” per se, it does track multiple job categories that fall under the broader umbrella of business analysis, including Management Analysts, Financial Analysts, Market Research Analysts, Operations Research Analysts, and so on.

Some of the long-established categories – like Financial Analyst, which has been around for decades – are predicted to see modest growth, while categories that relate to emerging technologies can expect much more dramatic growth over the decade ending in 2029 – including Management Analysts (11 percent), Market Research Analysts (18 percent), Operations Research Analysts (25 percent), and in the case of the highly technical and specialized role of Information Security Analysts, a whopping 31 percent – what the BLS characterizes as “much faster than average” growth.

How do I Become a Business Analyst With no Experience?

Well, this section provides some great, practical tips to anyone who is hoping to become a Business Analyst. But doesn’t yet have the job title or experience to go with them.

So, here’s the 8 key tips that you can begin implementing immediately.

1. Understand the key things a Business Analyst does

The fact is:

Many people are undertaking BA activities in their day job without even knowing it.

So, having a basic understanding of what the role requires and what you may be doing if your job title was ‘Business Analyst’ is crucial for moving into that area.

For example:

Improving the way things are done, changing procedures for the better, and understanding what people want out of a system or process are all key tasks that you can expect to be doing as a BA.

Once you’ve got your understanding, then take a step back and think about how you might be doing these things already in your everyday work.

True story:

At the start of an ISEB qualification, the lecturer asks a class of 30 people if their job title is Business Analyst

About 15 people put their hand up to say yes.

He then asked the other 15 people what tasks they did in their role.

When he thought, their role included tasks of a Business Analyst – he told them so.

Once he’d finished going around the room, he asked the question “How many of you are doing the job of a business analyst”

This time, 28 of the 30 people put their hand up.

It just goes to show that 50% of people may not even know they are already doing the role of a BA.

It’s down to you to find it out!

2. Transform your Resume

Your resume is absolutely the most important part of YOU.

Here’s a detailed explanation of how you can make the transformation so that you have the perfect Business Analysts Resume.

But one of the most important points is about your job titles. Your job titles may have been Assistant / Administrator / Technician etc.

But if you add words like:

• Process Analyst
• Project admin
• Process Improvement

At the end of each job title, your resume will immediately shoot onto the shortlist of the recruiter.

So be creative and don’t forget to back the new titles up with a couple of sentences in the description of your roles.

3. Get involved in projects today

In large companies, there are always lots of projects going on. This is true even in small companies.

All you should do is ask your manager if there are any projects you can get involved in.

What’s the worst they can say – No, you don’t have time? Then you say “I’m happy to do it in my own time.

Working in your own time is honestly where you will learn the most about yourself while taking huge steps towards becoming an expert in your field.

So don’t sit there watching TV – get yourself motivated and get involved in some exciting, new pieces of work.

4. Always think about how you can improve what you are doing

If you think like this in your job anyway, you’re already in the making of becoming a successful BA.

Ultimately, don’t just sit there repeating the same job, in the same way, every time you do it. At work or at home, look for ways you can improve how you do your tasks.

If that means using Excel to make improvements, then do it. Or if it means getting others involved to help improve things, do that.

Either way, the faster you can make your tasks DONE, the more projects you will have time to get involved in at work.

And the more projects you can get involved in, the sooner you will be able to talk yourself into that all-important BA role.

5. Apply for graduate BA roles in Software companies

Are you fresh out of Uni? If so, look out for graduate opportunities in software development companies, business consulting companies or tech companies.

Doing a graduate scheme with these guys will undoubtedly give you a taster for working as a Business Analyst.

But that’s not all, if you then decide a BA role isn’t for you, you don’t have to do it forever.

Even more importantly, if you do decide you love it, you’ve already given yourself the experience and ultimately you’ve proved yourself to the people that matter…

Yes, the experienced Business Analysts.

6. Big up the little experience you do have

This is true even if you just want to succeed in your general career!

But here’s how you do it.

Read Also: What Can You do With a Business Degree?

Fact: It’s easy to put yourself down

So instead of looking at a job specification saying –I don’t have that, I don’t have that.

Look at a job spec and think to yourself “How can I word my resume so I can show I’m able to deliver what they’re asking”

That way, you’ll be able to think positively about your own knowledge and experience.

7. Get Microsoft Visio (a process mapping tool)

I’m positive that 99% of BA’s will agree with me on this…

Microsoft Visio is a Business Analysts tool of choice. If you don’t have Visio, you can’t get a true understanding of the processes around you.

Why?

Because mapping out a process flow using Visio provides an easy way to make improvements. And even better? move boxes around like you could just never do in Excel or Word.

Once you have Visio on your computer, map out the steps of the tasks you do at work, analyze them and see how you can make them better.

However, don’t spend an age trying to get it absolutely perfect – get something down and tweak it as you go.

8. Make yourself busy – ALL THE TIME

This is absolutely vital.

Some say the art of a great Business Analyst is finding something to do when there’s NOTHING to do.

Yes, it’s true that some BA’s twiddle their thumbs waiting for lazy (shhh) stakeholders to get back to them. However, this is your time to thrive.

So, what should you be doing?

INVESTIGATE, INVESTIGATE, INVESTIGATE

Find something, anything to review and get a better understanding of – read documents, play with systems or speak to experts. It doesn’t matter as long as your improving your knowledge in your domain.

So, there you have it, some motivating, practical tips you can use to become a successful Business Analyst.