If you are truly passionate about the role and most responsibilities required by the role come naturally to you, it should not be any more difficult to find a BA job than to find a job in most other professional positions. In some respects, the barriers to entry are lower than other IT jobs because as of yet there are no expectations for formal training or specific technical knowledge. The technical skills of a business
analyst are relatively easy to learn, but might take a lifetime to perfect. There is no one stamp of approval that makes you a great business analyst, so you might spend some time gathering relevant experiences and learning the techniques.
What impact will I have?
Just like most professions, business analysts can work in non-profit and other good-doing organizations, but as a profession, business analysis is not geared toward specifically doing good works. Your requirements could have an adverse impact on society or a positive one, it really depends on the vision of your stakeholder. Of course, as an independent professional you choose who you work for and what kind of work you do.
The impact a business analyst makes is most keenly felt within the organization or by its customers. As a representative of the organization’s diverse set of individuals who use software everyday to accomplish their objectives, your mission to make the software better can help make their work-days more productive and efficient. It can automate repetitive tasks and allow individuals to focus on more complex tasks. Or, quite honestly, the software you help design could put people out of a job.
Sometimes business analysts are being brought into organizations where the role did not exist before. In these situations, you have a huge opportunity to make an impact on the work lives of the technical team. Recent studies suggest poor requirements practices account for many project failures.
2 Set cost savings aside and consider the lives of individuals on these teams as they worked day by day on a project headed toward failure, trying to write code for unclear or non-existent requirements, participating in heated discussions with no resolution, and time spent working on features that never saw the light of day.
Business analysts insert themselves in the thick of these situations and, in my 2 For example, Keith Ellis claims more than 41% of development resources are consumed on unnecessary or poorly specified requirements. Business Analysis Benchmark Study, The Impact of Business Requirements on the Success of Technology Projects, IAG Consulting, 2008.
personal opinion, have a positive impact on the relationships between project team members. This is part of what personally keeps me going when I am working through some of the more mundane details involved with the role.
What excites you about being a BA? What are your areas of concern?
It’s time to get that notebook back out. Go through the above details about the role and list a few that energized you. Write a few sentences, or paragraphs if you are inspired, about what that experience means to you. What made you excited about becoming a business analyst? How will you feel doing these activities? What will be fun? What more do you want to know about this part of the job?