Business Analysis 101: Know what to know
Starting off your Business Analysis Career? This might be for you
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1.Brush up your Software Engineering 101
If you did a computer science or equivalent degree and if you learnt about the concepts such as UML & related diagraming (Sequence Diagrams, Use Case Diagrams), writing up Use Case narratives, how to write a Functional Specification(FR)/ Software Requirement Specification (SRS), Agile User Story writing/Given-when-then etc. might be important for your career. I can assure you in your day-to-day life only a few will be really useful. But a strong set of fundamentals will never be a waste. So brush up your fundamentals if you don’t remember them anymore
2.Improve your Presentations
If you think you are not so good with presentations (or you are a proclaimed introvert) sorry to break your bubble, there is no workaround for this.
Throughout your career, you will be presenting to different personals. You will run product demos, product walkthroughs, usability tests etc. in your day-to-day life. One way or another you will be ‘presenting’ to potential customers, users & even for your own teammates. Hence, presentation skills are very important.
3. Improve your Interpersonal Skills
You probably will be one of the few in your team to be speaking to almost every member of your team. Addition to this you will have to speak to people external to your team (such as a high-priority customer, client/ vendor organization you are working with, external to your team but internal to your organization such as legal, documentation, finance etc. ). During this time you’ll be speaking with nice people and not-so-nice people. So make sure to find ways around both these people, because the last thing you want is to get stuck on something without moving forward, just because someone is not nice to you.
4. Thorough your domain
Your career, unlike most of your colleagues' careers (such as software engineers, quality assurance engineers) is highly depending on the domain of your product or your company. In order for you to survive in your career, know well about your product/company domain. Read about things related to your domain on daily basis. Know about (competing)products and personals who are leading in your domain. Make sure to follow them on social media. If available, follow certifications/ audit courses related to your domain. This is very useful when it comes to helping your product design/management team to identify product-market fit.
There is also another side to this. Unlike your colleagues, it will probably be unwise for you to leave or move between companies (with different domains) without staying at least a year. Only when you pass a certain time you tend to understand the depth of the business your company is in and the product that you work in.
5. Know about your company & it’s business
Addition to the product domain, make sure to know about your company, the history of the company, how the company evolved and most importantly the vision of your company and how your product/team is contributing to achieving the company’s vision.
Addition to this, know the business your company is in. Learn about how the company generates revenue, who are the external organizations/ companies that your company is dependent on, who are the reference customers/ net promoters of your company/product, and who are the competitors etc.
6. Learn about “what’s new”
Everyday read, not only about Business Analysis but also about the domains such as UX Design, Product Design, Product Management, Data Analysis, new technologies etc. If can, thorough a (programming )skill related to Data Science (i.e. Python/ R / SQL etc.).
Addition to above, research about relatively new principles and concepts. Few examples for you to start with: Design Sprint, Jobs to be done, Hooked, Design Thinking etc. Follow the thought leaders and keep yourselves up-to-date with what’s new.
7. Align your career to the correct direction
Business Analysis career is ideal for someone to start off, for someone who is inspired by the business/product aspect than the technology. However, my guess is the typical software ‘Business Analysis’ role will be diminished in the upcoming decades.
Don’t take me wrong, the need for what Business Analysis currently do will remain for a longer period, and it will be one of the skills which will be hard to automate or to be replaced by some AI. What I mean is, the workload current Business Analysis is handling will be submerged to different careers. For example, in current Agile Roles, there is no typical ‘Business Analysis’ role. The need for Business Analysis is typically handled by the ‘Product Owner’. And Business Analysis role, though has similarities, is not the same as ‘Product Owner’. Likewise, the Business Analysis role can be submerged into careers such as Product Design, UX Design, Product Management etc.
On top of this, I cannot stress enough the need for improving your data & statistical skills. Today we collect a large amount of data related to our products. Product Designers/ Managers of emerging companies use this to validate their hypothesis. Concepts like A/B Testing will be more popular in future.
So make sure to align your career, (how you see yourself in years ahead of your time) to the correct direction, and make sure to work on that.
Final Bit
Software Business Analysis is not easy. In fact, arguably could be one of the hardest jobs for a single person to handle. As a ‘Business Analyst’, the problems that you identify, and the solutions that are brought forward with your support will determine the future of the product/ company that you are working on. If something goes right the success will be exponential. Likewise, if something goes wrong, the failure-again probably will be catastrophic.
So make sure to have this weight on your shoulder while you are performing your day-to-day actions.
