Want to become a Business Analyst?

Ever wondered what factors decide the project to be worked on from a series of ideas a business might have? Ever wondered what factors contribute to the changes that are brought about in the existing processes? These factors are analysed and processed by a Business Analyst. A Business Analyst(BA) acts as a bridge between the needs of the business and the IT department to streamline processes, analyse and elicit requirements, analyse data and add value to existing features.

BAs engage with the stakeholders to identify the requirements. These requirements are gathered by a variety of techniques. This process of identifying the requirements is called Requirement Gathering. Once the requirements are identified it is essential to analyse them. The requirements are analysed to know its feasibility, profitability and lastly how it can be delivered, by modifying a current system or building a new one.

Once the requirements are gathered and analysed, the next step for a BA is to document them. There are number of documents that are used by the BAs to document the requirements like Business Requirement Document(BRD), Functional Requirement Document(FRD), Requirement Traceability Matrix, etc. These documents are sometimes needed to be signed off by the stakeholder before they can proceed further.

Once the requirements are discussed and finalised, the BA carries out a Gap Analysis on the existing software. This is a process to review the state of the existing software and the state that the stakeholders are expecting it to be so as to fulfil the business requirements. This Gap is worked out by the BA and documented in terms of User Stories, Use Cases, Flow Diagrams, etc.

This documentation is used by the development team to build and test the software that will fulfil the business needs. The BA collaborates with the development team and the project management team to deliver the project in a way that will fulfil the business needs and deliver profits to the business.

Once the project is delivered, it’s the responsibility of the BA to go back to the stakeholders and identify if the business needs were thoroughly met. If there were any Gaps these need to be plugged by releasing fixes to the system. If more features need to be added that were not a part of the project mandate, these need to be analysed and developed as a part of next version of the project.

Hence, a BA is involved right from the inception stage of a project to the post-delivery phase. For a project to be successful, the skills and knowledge of a BA is paramount!