What a Business Analyst Does
For anybody who is curious or confused about my new business title, you’re not alone. Even people who are actually in this industry aren’t quite sure what the various titles and job duties actually entail. Today I found a great article that finally explains the names and the overlap. Here’s me:
IT Business Analyst – This is the analyst who is generally associated with requirements elicitation/analysis and solving problems using information technology solutions. This role is the bridge between business & IT.
I love that last quote. That’s the key, really. The business and marketing guys have a goal they want to achieve. I take these Feature Requests and turn them into functional requirements and specifications that the tech guys can work from. When the tech guys have an issue – like a technology or resource limitation – I can be an advocate and make a case to the business for what they need. It’s fun! I get to be a bridge, contact point, and translater between lots of different areas of the business. And since we’re so small, I get to have a lot more input in setting up new processes and documenting existing ones that I might have in a big corporate environment.
3 responses
I often refer to myself as a translator. It’s the best description I can come up with for the non-tech person. That said, at the BA Symposium last year I sat on a panel discussing what the BA role was. Don’t think that the industry actually agrees with that article!
Interesting! Is it a regional thing, do you think? (I’m guessing the article was probably American.) How does the breakdown differ over here?
You’ll have to let me know when events happen. Was that an IIBA Symposium?
There is no breakdown that’s clear cut like that. For the same work I’ve been called a Systems Analyst, Business Analyst and Business Architect. All writing use cases for a system. the name for the role is unique per company I think.
The event was BA World (http://www.businessanalystworld.com/). It’s on again in Sydney this year on July 6-8, and I’m presenting 🙂 Come along! IIBA is basically useless in this country.