Becoming a senior business analyst: what new responsibilities should I take on?

Yesterday we shared some ideas about defining your “real” job description. The point of this exercise was to help you build insight into what you actually do today and what value your activities achieve for your organization.

Now that you understanding what your current role is, let’s explore what additional responsibilities you are prepared to take on. A job promotion is associated with increased job responsibilities. Individuals are promoted because the activities they perform are more valuable to the organization than the activities they were doing previously.

In my experience, there are two types of promotions: promotions that acknowledge new responsibilities you are already doing and promotions that authorize you to take on additional responsibilities. As part of considering a career path within your organization, look for evidence that supports how promotions and new responsibilities intersect within your organization as it will help you determine your own approach to the new promotion.

Here are some ideas I have for increasing your responsibilities to take on a senior business analyst role.

Senior BAs tackle more complex projects

Typically a senior business analyst takes on complex, high profile projects. While the business analyst activities might closely resemble those of a mid-level business analyst, the responsibilities are greater because of the nature of the projects themselves.

Project complexity can take many forms. Multiple, integrated systems create complexity because new requirements need to be traced through the inter-related systems. Multiple stakeholders across several departments create complexity because of the number of perspectives that need to be blended into the final solution. Team make-up can also create complexity because when you blend resources from multiple organizations to implement a project, communication becomes more complex.

IIBA’s Kitty Hass recently published an award-winning book on Managing Complex Projects and this could provide an introduction into this senior-level BA responsibility.

Own enterprise analysis responsibilities

A second, but much debated, aspect of becoming a senior-level business analyst is the incorporation of enterprise analysis activities into the role.  Most BA roles include enterprise analysis at some level. If you ask “why” or define the problem you are trying to solve within the context of a specific project, you are doing enterprise analysis. As a senior level responsibility, enterprise analysis can also take the form of planning and scoping several inter-related initiatives and helping senior-level business stakeholders make informed decisions about which initiatives to tackle and how to tackle them.

Senior business analysts understand the business process

While some business analyst roles are purely focused around business changes, many of us are “IT Business Analysts” and deal mostly with software changes. If this is the case in your situation, digging deeper into the business and business process changes can provide an avenue to take on more senior-level tasks. As you learn about the business processes and how people throughout the organization use the software you support, you’ll build better relationships with business stakeholders. Through these discussions, you can create an opportunity for yourself to become a partner in the business change.

New business domains are no problem for senior analysts

Many business analysts thrive during their initial years in the profession because they are experts in the system or business domain. They know everything there is to know about the possibilities of the project. When this is the case, your position of strength comes from your systems knowledge and your BA competencies are not fully stretched to the max. Senior level business analysts can often tackle projects across multiple domains.

Read more about this concept in “Is your strength grounded in system knowledge or business analyst competencies?”.

Take on lead business analyst responsibilities

A business analyst lead is often a senior business analyst working on projects of large enough scope that they demand the efforts of multiple business analyst. In addition to performing many business analyst activities, a lead will coordinate and oversee the work of other BAs as it relates to a specific project.

Part of leading multiple business analysts also means mentoring the junior and mid-level business analysts in your organization. As a senior-level BA, you will be viewed as an expert on the process and best practices for conducting requirements practices in your organization.

Senior analysts can be consultants for internal  stakeholders

An internal business analyst consultant offers technology or process consulting services to a line of business.  Mark Jenkins as BA Manager at Websense enabled his analysts to take on consultant responsibilities. Each BA has a certain amount of their time dedicated to helping a set of business stakeholders diagnose problems and understand needs. They are responsible for maintaining a deep awareness of how a business operation works and helping the stakeholders explore technology possibilities to more effectively execute on their roles.

Explore strategic level business analyst roles

For example, a business architect holds a strategic role that applies business analyst principles to the organization to help identify opportunities. In many ways, business architecture and enterprise analysis go hand in hand. But when I think about business architecture, I also think about someone who is an internal consultant that spans the breadth of the entire business. This person might work directly with a top-level stakeholder, such as the CEO, COO, or CIO, to explore new business opportunities, product development ideas, and create a cohesive plan for what the organization needs to do from an operations and systems perspective to achieve its vision.

What senior-level business analyst responsibilities will you take on?

As you can see, there is no single path. Senior-level business analysis can take make forms. As you read through these ideas, what roles sound most interesting to you? What shape would the role take in your organization? What other ideas do you have for senior level responsibilities that you’d like to share with others?

As you begin to explore promotion paths within the profession leave a comment here with your thoughts and ideas. Together we can inspire each other to advance our profession and ourselves.

Editor’s Note: Interested in learning more about being a Promotable Business Analyst? My next eBook will address this topic specifically. Learn more and sign-up to be the first to know when The Promotable Business Analyst is published.

Read the next article in this series: Quickly solidifying a senior role within the BA profession: Interview with Jennifer Banzon.

Related posts:

1. Quickly solidifying a senior role within the BA profession: Interview with Jennifer Banzon
2. Thinking outside the project: implied responsibilities of an agile product owner
3. Can I be promoted as a business analyst?