Project Management
The business of SDLC business analysis
The road to business analysis can take a number of forms. The most common (and I suspect the often) road traveled is the IT path. You start your career as a developer and code, code and code. You work your way on from there.
The other path traveled is the Business route and that’s the path I took. This path requires you to analyze the organization: its environment - both internal and external, processes, trends, industry best practices, formulate and implement strategies.
Before we proceed further, let’s first look at what the role entails.
Role of a Business Analyst
The International Institute of Business Analysts (IIBA) describes Business Analyst role as:
A business analyst works in liaison among stakeholders in order to elicit, analyze, communicate and validate requirements for changes to business processes, policies and information systems.
As you can see, the work of the Business Analyst is centered around requirements. And in order to accurately identify requirements, the Business Analyst has to:
- Analyze the organization’s operative environment - both internal and external
- Define and plan the resources and tasks associated with the requirements gathering process
- Talk to the stakeholders to get a complete, clear, correct and consistent set of requirements
- Analyze and document the requirements
- Obtain sign-off from all stakeholders on the requirements
- Test, implement and validate the solution developed to ensure initial objectives are met
If you are wondering where I am going with this, here is the article that got me started.
IT-Business Gap Widens
IT World Canada has an article “IT-business gap grows wider”1. This statement is a result of a survey where over 1,000 respondents in over 90 countries participated.
Michael O’Neil2, the author of the survey says, “We can no longer count on (IT professionals) to be able to communicate with business managers … the whole premise of needing soft skills or of expanding the IT department (to better integrate technology into business) is not necessarily a good one.”
The report also does not seem to paint a rosy picture for the IT professionals. O’Neil goes on to say that the role of IT as a discrete, advisory body will disappear and the majority of IT professionals are assimilated into areas pertaining to business processes and strategy.
So who do you think has a competitive advantage:
- An IT person with little knowledge of business?
- A business person with the basic knowledge of IT to manage the data?
Data is just that - it is information you seek from data. Personally, I think the Business Analyst must have business skills first complemented with basic IT skills (such as basic SQL and general IT knowledge).
In one of my earlier projects a senior developer told me, “Well, certainly there aren’t a lot of people I know about who can straddle both the technical, and BA sides of the business like you.”
Perhaps there is some truth in the survey results!
1 IT-Business gap widens
2 Michael has over 20 years experience in IT market research. He is also the author of the book Bridget and the Secret Passageway. Michael blogs at IT Business Edge
Discussion
2 comments for “The business of SDLC business analysis”
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15 Hughes, Quispamsis, NB
I think the Business Analyst with no business experience has the advantage. As a Business Analyst we work in many industries and it has become second nature to learn the business as soon as possible. We also have the advantage because we have the skills to conduct business analysis.
Very true. On the flip side there are those who argue that a person with little knowledge of the industry will bring little value to the table.
And for that I would say, it is the questions we ask and the answers we elicit that provide value.