Successes ahead! The promising career path of a Business Analyst

Who can become a Business Analyst? What are their roles and responsibilities? What is expected of them? This article will try to best answer these questions.

Prima facie, a BA is someone who works in close conjunction with the developers and testers of a project. He or she can be rightly called the captain of the ship, a guide or a mentor who ensures that the project milestones are achieved on time, without fail. From identifying and allocating resources to helping the team overcome operational hurdles, they do everything that is required for the successful completion of the project.

Who can aim to become Business Analysts?

Practically, anyone. But usually corporations have the tendency to zero in MBA qualified candidates from B-schools, since they have better managerial abilities that is essential for the role. MBAs can be easily groomed into any operational line. With some effort and training it is possible to make them understand how a code works, how a SDLC cycle proceeds and how the entire project activities must be aligned to ensure timely completion.

Secondly, testers also have a promising chance of becoming Business Analysts. The spend most of their time figuring out whether the product/application is working in alignment with the client requirements. They also have a better understanding of the SDLC cycle from the continuous testing experience. This definitely helps them estimate the time duration for a project effortlessly and with accuracy, which is an essential trait for a BA.

Major areas of responsibilities of a Business Analyst

1. Understanding the project scope for determining deliverables

A BA primary task is to understand the end requirements of the project. This will require extensive communication with the client and also the back-end developers. The BA will also be responsible for determining how much resources and for how long they will be required for the timely delivery of the project. Framing the project scope with milestones with deadliness also is the responsibility of the BA. 

2. Developing functional and business requirement document

A functional or business requirement document is a full descriptive document which explains the needs of the project in detail. It lays down the framework with which the developers have to initiate action. It is the responsibility of the BA to develop the business requirement document since he or she is the one who has direct link with the stakeholders regarding the project requirements.

3. Tackling technical issues

A BA is not de facto a coder or developer. But he or she must definitely know the technical aspects of the project in order to tackle unprecedented issues. The BA must tackle technical issues that will crop during project implementation. In most cases, the BA is the person who suggests to the developer how and why a process should be modified for the good.

4. Displaying leadership qualities

A BA must be someone who leads the team from the forefront. In a way, the BA is a mentor and guide who pushes the team resources in the right direction. Often, they may also have to provide moral support for team members who falter under pressure.

5. An efficient manager

A BA is indeed a manager by all means. He or she estimates and assigns resources to a project, monitors their progress, develops strategies for timely delivery of projects and performs similar functions that a manager will execute in an average day. A BA is also responsible for expert time management since the whole team’s efforts are out into the development and completion of the project.

6. Representing stakeholders throughout the project timeline

The entire team allocated for a project will not have direct contact with the stakeholders. It is the BA who acts as a bridge between both the parties. The BA must represent the interests of the stakeholders to the developers and other resources of the project so that work proceeds in a desired manner. It is the responsibility of the BA to communicate the stakeholder requirements to the project team.

In a nutshell

MBA graduates, software testers and any IT professional with managerial acumen can aspire to become a business analyst. The career path of a Business Analyst will be laden with several milestones, mostly related to projects. From being a manager to being a mentor, they play a vital role in using an organization’s resources in achieving project goals.