I started Bridging the Gap to collaborate with other professionals and make a contribution to the profession of business analysis. I believe we have a notoriously difficult profession to break into and I want to help talented communicators discover this career path and successfully navigate through the transition. To help further this contribution, I am working on an eBook to help like-minded professionals start a career in business analysis.
This eBook will provide a guide for potential BAs, from deciding if this is the right career choice all the way to finding their first BA opportunity. Because none of us is as smart as all of us, I am looking for your help.
Have you been looking for a way to share your BA experience? Do you have a story to share that will help others kick-start their transition? Taking a minute or two to write a few comments below could help the next BA on their path through to our profession.
What kind of advice is most valuable? Think about answering the following questions:
- What was your career path to business analysis?
- How did you get the experience you needed to land your first BA job?
- What are the key knowledge areas a new or potential business analyst should learn?
But don’t limit yourself. If you’ve got a great idea, a tip, or a gotcha, please feel encouraged to contribute it below.
And if you are here looking for advice on becoming a business analyst, please feel free to post your questions as well.
In full disclosure, unlike the free content that is available via this blog and eNewsletter, I will be selling the eBook at a reasonable price. I will credit you personally for the contributions I include in the book.
I am also conducting interviews with new and experienced BAs as part of this research. Please contact me if you are interested in an interview. All persons participating in an interview will receive a complimentary copy of the published eBook.
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By Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg. Laura Brandenburg is an independent business analyst consultant. She is passionate about the BA profession and is committed to contributing by supporting this blog as a forum for business analysts to build on each other's experiences. View more blog posts by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg |
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I have seen two major ’sources’ of new Business Analysts over the years.
One is IT people who started working as programmers/developers and move up the life-cycle to do analysis and like it. I am one of those people, having a BSc in Computer Science and my first job was as a PL/1 programmer (eons ago).
The other source is business people, SMEs who work on IT projects and like it, get what being a BA is, and switch to being a BA at some point (usually means transferring to IT dept).
I would be curious to know more about BAs who don’t fall into the above cases. For example, are universities teaching more about analysis and requirements now? can you be a BA as your first job?
Hi David,
This is a great question. I have not seen any evidence that people transition directly from college to a BA job which is why I am targeting the book towards professionals making a transition. I personally feel you need some business or organizational experience before jumping into business analysis…but as the profession further refines itself, it seems possible we could define a more junior or entry level role appropriate for a new college grad.
Best,
Laura
Hi Laura
I think this is a great idea that should be well received although I also think you have your work cut out.
I have been contacted directly with advice on how to get into the BA profession. The following is taken directly from the email that I sent in reply:
there are a number of things you can do (apart from reading my blog of course!).
I think your immediate focus should be on getting ‘real world’ experience. This is more valuable in for getting your first role.
My suggestions are (in this order):
i) gain experience in your current organisation (not sure if you are working at the moment?) Suggest you are keen to learn and would like to shadow your BA colleagues. If this is not possible, offer to do it on your own time
ii) offer your time for free (on a part-time basis) to organisations in exchange for being mentored by an experienced business analyst. This would be particularly attractive to a charitable organisation who are more likely to consider this offer.
iii) offer your time for free (full time) for a limited period (say, 3 months) on the proviso you will get a full time business analyst role
In general, I suggest you be flexible and demonstrate your enthusiasm and desire to go the extra mile – this should impress the organisations you are approaching.
I couldn’t at this stage recommend any particular book as I haven’t looked at introductory books for BA’s. If there’s one that you would like me to review, let me know by suggesting it on the website.
As far as certification goes, I am only aware of CBAP in the US and I think this is too expensive and not necessarily going to get you a job.
I think quality experience is still your best route into the profession.
Hope this helps
Alex
Hi Laura.
This is a really great idea. I wish you had been around as I moved up the food chain.
I was never a user SME nor a REAL programmer. Over the years I’ve held various roles such as graphic artist, proofreader, printer, technical writer, online help specialist, web developer, and analyst. This doesn’t include all the roles I hold today under the guise of an analyst. I did, at a time when I thought programming was my ticket to a better life, learn to code from the ground up and did it for three years. Hated it though. I’m much happier being an analyst, but WOW! The tech skills I acquired!
To start as analyst, if one’s career path isn’t already pointing that way, I’d start with research of the different kinds of analysts and the skills/industry standards that they employ. There are most likely several common ones amongst them all and the candidate could do a self assessment on whether he/she has them or would be comfortable performing certain tasks. The candidate should focus on two key personal assets, in my humble opinion. The first is communication/facilitation capabilities and comfort level. Not everyone is a communicator, just like not everyone is a mechanic. Good communication skills can often get a new analyst far while improving tangible skills like modeling, RM, etc. More importantly, they are the core skillset for analysts.
The second item is a strong desire to help others. That’s probably not what most think is a key area for analysis, and maybe one won’t find this written in a book. It’s not something one can learn either. I personally believe that is a very strong driver for deep facilitation, effective elicitation, relationship building and mentoring. These two strengths are very important not only for being a good analyst, but they will serve a new one well when things get frustrating.
Last tidbit…ask for and acquire a mentor. It will allow a new person to build a relationship in which a ’stupid’ question is more likely to get asked, reduce the learning curve and enhance skills that no book or class can teach.
Thanks for the opportunity to answer this.
DougGtheBA
I did a bachelor of business where I did a lot of marketing studies. Marketing models shaped my view of business from then until now.
My first corporate job was at a call centre in the mid nineties. After the initial few months of learning the ropes I started to become annoying by asking questions and challenging processes by proposing ways of doing things that I thought were better. And I tried to do this as a team player, rather than as the disgruntled rebel.
Eventually this led to me being handled a number of projects to work on, and then lead. The career evolved from there.
Throughout my career I have tried, not always successfully, to keep the personal services nature of the job at the top of my mind. After a while we get fairly experienced and begin to recognise ‘failure modes’ early.
It’s all very well to start hollering “Do it my way’ but at the end of the day the process counts as much as the results. People have to be happy with the journey they take.
This is a lesson I am relearning (again) right now, and will probably have to learn again and again.
My career path was 8 years in Industrial Sales, followed by a short spell as a Cobol/SQL Developer. I then went to work for a major supermarket (in the Business) before the IT Department was brought back in-house. At that point I didn’t have any experience of the ‘technical’ side of the role (e.g. eliciting requirements, writing specs, managing projects) but I did have transferrable ’soft skills’. I’ve since spent 7.5 years working as a BA.
On the ‘hard side’ I would recommend Process Modelling and Use Cases. I believe that the ’soft’ skills are equally if not more important. Communication Skills, Time Management, Facilitation and Elicitation Skills.
I agree with Doug – find a good mentor/coach who you can comfortably ask the ’stupid’ questions.
I started as a software developer in small companies where there were only developers and we had to do all the tasks necessary to develop a software product. So, some of us had the “duty” to talk to the customers and find what it is they really wanted and how they wanted it.
My first “official” BA job was an assignment no one asked me for. My bosses decided that my technical skills are not so valuable for the company but at the same time there was nobody to fill the BA position, so they put me there as I was the least important person in the company.
Fortunately, I did my job well and my team mates started to understand the value of my role, which was to a big surprise to my bosses.
I haven’t got the chance to take a formal education at that time so I was a self-learner and my advice to the new BAs is:
- think about the customer’s business;
- try to put yourself in their shoes;
- do not think about how the solution will be implemented, just think what is the most appropriate solution for that particular customer;
- ask questions, ask a lot of questions.
It’s great that you’re writing this book! I’m a young professional who is looking to get into this field. This book would be very helpful. I can’t wait until it comes out. So far I’ve been taking formal training, sponsored by my employer.
LEVERAGING MY ANSWER ON MY PERSONALPATH TO BEING A B.A., I HAD A FIRST DEGREE IN ACCOUNTANCY AND FINANCE, A SECOND DEGREE IN HRM, MY FIRST JOB AS A CALL CENTRE EXECUTIVE. I MOVED FROM THIS POSITION TO A TRADE PARTNER(DISTRIBUTORS) ADMINISTRATOR AND LATER TO THE ROLE OF A B.A. I HAVE ALSO TAKING SHORT COURSES IM MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT. HOWEVER, ONE OF MY SELLING POINT FACING THE INTERVIEW PANEL IS MY BROAD KNOWLEDGE AREAS AND A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE ORGANISATIONAL PROCESSES DUE TO MY EXPERIENCE IN CUSTOMER RELATIONS, SALES AND DISTRIBUTION UNIT.
I AM OF THE OPINION THAT A B.A. NEEDS TO LEVERAGE ON BROAD SPECTRUM KNOWLEDGE, GOOD INTER-RELATIONAL SKILLS, COMMUNICATION SKILLS AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS.