The simple answer is that if you have ever wondered “How can I be a Business Analyst?” Congratulations, you’ve just started!

I can say this with confidence because I was already doing business analysis tasks long before I even knew that it was a career. But, if you want a guide then here goes:

This is backed up by the IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis) – any basic search in Google, will have likely seen some variation of the following:

A business analyst is any person who performs business analysis tasks described in the BABOK® Guide, no matter their job title or organizational role.

International Institute of Business Analysis

This is one of those quotes that has the misfortune of being ridiculously unhelpful on first reading, but remarkably true.

But in a practical sense, my suggestion is to follow these steps:

1. Master your role
2. Broaden your horizon
3. Keep going!
4. Be a Business Analyst

1. Master Your Role

In most jobs there are two kinds of work (1) Business As Usual, and (2) Projects.

Business As Usual, (BAU), are the tasks that are performed as the regular expectation of doing your job. This can also be described as performing a role as per the job description. The tasks themselves can vary wildly depending on what industry and position you work in – it could be anything from answering phones and emails, to working a cash register.

Projects would be anything that takes you away from these “normal” tasks, and allows you either the time to try and improve something, either that you thought of, or that someone else thought of.

Your first project to start as a Business Analyst… is to reduce the time you spend on BAU, so you can spend more time on projects

James Copperwaite

How you intend to do this will again vary drastically based on your industry and role, but here is my recommendation:

Write your handover documentation now.

Often when you start a job, it’s because someone else has left. When they do, they will usually be asked to write a document to say all the things they do. Personally, I have never received good documentation – this is because they:

• Were too busy doing their BAU, to spend time on it
• Received new project work that desperately needed their attention before they left
• Had forgotten about particular tasks that they did infrequently
• Had forgotten to write tasks they thought would be done by someone else in the team
• They had already ‘checked out’ and were not thinking about it or didn’t want to do it

So, if you can start now to write down what you do, and how you do it, you’ll be setting yourself an excellent example – and its also really handy when you look for a new job, and can’t think of what to put in your resume!

Ok, so now that you know what you do, take another look and see if there is a way to make any improvements or changes that would mean that you can complete your BAU faster.

See if you can also calculate the value of that time saved across a year, remember to take into account if there are any other team or staff members doing the same task:

15mins * 5 times per day * $10p/h * 2 staff * Work days in year = $10k saved

Remember to like, subscribe, and bookmark – as coming soon we will be discussing Business Process Modelling (BPM), Lean, and PERT, in our Tools and Techniques section which can all be used to review and improve processes.

2. Broaden Your Horizon

When you’re used to working only with a BAU mind-set, it becomes very easy to assume that your work and productivity is the only thing that really matters in your career. However, most people work with others, either in teams or an organisation. This means that what others do will inevitably have an impact on how well you can do your job.

For example, it’s very unlikely that the best footballer in the world will win any trophies unless the rest of the team are able to make good passes and at the right time for them to score.

With this in mind, it makes sense for you to also understand how your role fits in to the broader picture, or what would more commonly be called the Inputs and Outputs.

Inputs

Again, this will vary based on your job, but here are some things to consider:

• Who contacts you to start working on a task?
  • Manager?
  • Co-worker in the same team
  • Co-worker in a different team
  • Customer
• How do they contact you
  • Face to face
  • Phone
  • Email
• Do they have to provide you with anything?
  • Invoice
  • Email
  • Receipt

Outputs

Similarly, once you complete your task(s) there is some part that will impact someone else – maybe even if you’re not aware (so you might need to investigate)

• What do you do when you complete a task?
  • You notify your manager
  • You notify a co-worker in the same team
  • You notify a co-worker in a different team
  • System will do “something”
• How are they notified?
  • Email
  • Phone Call
  • System messaging
• Do you need to provide anything?
  • Invoices
  • Receipt
  • Other documentation
• Could other teams be impacted?
  • Financial reconciliation
  • Compliance
  • Quality Assurance
  • Reporting

The key question to ask

Knowing that you work with other team members, the key question to ask: “Is there anything you can do, to make it better for them?”

This could be how you name a file or email, or what format a document is sent in, or any number of other things.

3. Keep Going!

To be honest, at this point, you’ve already succeeded according to that IIBA quote up top. Nevertheless, the point is that you should keep going and look at other processes you do, and processes that other teams do – keep expanding that knowledge, maybe try some different techniques or mapping styles.

I’ll be writing a Business and Interview techniques primer section – so check back so you can test these against your organisation.

Chances are at some point, the organisation will want to introduce a new product or service for a particular area of the business and a lot of work will happen to try an understand what happens, and the Inputs and Outputs – but guess what, you’ve already got it!

But here’s the thing, a process may have already changed since you investigated it and unless it was within your team, you may not know about it. So you should try and be diligent and keep a track of any changes – or at least be open to the fact that something may have changed since you last looked.

4. Be a Business Analyst

If you have followed the above, you should now be feeling pretty confident in your approach and understanding of your business. If you’ve also been involved in some recommendations for change in other departments then now would be a great time to put yourself forward for a promotion to business analyst or request some training.

Formal Study

There are many organisations that can provide training in Business Analysis, be it a short-course introduction, to certification, or specialisms in analytics, requirements gathering, interview tech nice etc.

IIBA and BCS are two of the main certification bodies in my experience – and I started with a Foundation Certificate with BCS, and I’m currently looking into certification (CBAP) with IIBA. So far I have not noticed any significant disparities between these two bodies, but I’ll let you know if/where I find any.

Get the Job Title

Hopefully your employer will be blown away by the value you’ve added to the organisation and is willing to promote you officially to Business Analyst.

If not, at least you were able to develop your skills and gets some strong examples when you interview elsewhere for a Business Analyst role!.

I will go more into this in another article but just be aware that to be a successful Business Analyst:

• A university degree is not essential*
• Specific training in Business Analysis is not essential
• Knowing how to code (particularly SQL) is not essential*
• Industry-specific knowledge is not essential*

*Just be aware that for any given job vacant these might be requested, so may make the job hunt more successful, but there are plenty of places where they are not.

Remember to like, subscribe, and bookmark – as coming soon we will be discussing Business Process Modelling (BPM), Lean, and PERT, in our Tools and Techniques section which can all be used to review and improve processes.