In my experience as a business analyst, manager of business analysts, and now trainer of business analysts, there are certain qualities that set high-performing business analysts apart. These qualities make them highly coveted by managers …
Today we’re going to answer a question that comes up quite often, and that’s what technical skills a business analyst needs to be well-positioned in the job market and to be able to have detailed …
These Are the Top Technical Skills that Business Analysts Really Need to Know
As a business analyst, I’m focused on creating positive change for my organization, and ensuring my work adds value and increases the return on investment for projects.For those unfamiliar with business analysts, or who have …
As a business analyst, it’s not uncommon for me to get way over-invested emotionally in my projects and my work. I’m guessing a lot of you have a similar challenge. In today’s world, we are …
How to Protect the Emotional Investment You Make in Your BA Work
Not sure where to focus your professional development efforts? Find ideas for expanding your business analysis experience and leveraging the opportunities available in your organization.
Are you wondering if you’d be qualified for a Senior Business Analyst position? Or perhaps you’ve been a business analyst for a while, and you are wondering how you can get promoted to a Senior …
What does the business analyst career ladder look like? What should your business analyst career path be? Discover what steps you can take to solidify your business analyst career.
I’m writing this post on May 26, 2020. It was just over 2 months ago that the U.S. shut down international flights and schools started being cancelled country-wide due to COVID-19. For the first few …
Helping Business Analysts Survive and Thrive Through the Pandemic
As we see increased unemployment, today’s organizations are figuring out how to do more with less resources. If you have survived a layoff, or even if you are dealing with increased organizational pressures to deliver …
These times have certainly shifted our perceptions of security. What felt so certain – so secure – a few months ago, feels anything but today. This is actually a huge opportunity to see the truth …
So many are working from home right now, and it can be a challenge to focus on “heads down” type of work. I share 3 concrete strategies for staying focused as well as look at …
There is no doubt that these are challenging times and a lot of people in our community are facing hardships right now. But there is also an immense amount of opportunity. Organizations need business analysts …
There’s no doubt that these are challenging times and a lot of people in our community are facing hardships right now. But there is also an immense amount of opportunity. Organizations need business analysts now …
What this Pandemic Shut Down Means for You and Your Business Analyst Career
With one company after another announcing mandatory work-from-home policies with the COVID-19 events, you might be working from home this week. Many professionals in our community have never worked from home before or facilitated a …
Working from Home as a Business Analyst – Coaching Session Replay
Wondering what the next step is in your career? Overwhelmed by all the options and feeling stuck? Here are 2 quick questions that will help you get more clarity about what your next step looks …
We all have dreams we want to achieve. But often we allow our limiting beliefs to get in the way of taking action to achieve our dreams. Here’s a quick way to flip the reasons …
Confidence is a belief – it is a belief in yourself and your ability to achieve a specific result in your life and your career. In my work helping business analysts, I see a lot …
I was honored to be one of the featured speakers at Penny Pullan’s Business Analysis Summit. The topic was Innovation and I specifically answered questions about our innovative learning model at Bridging the Gap, and how we help mid-career …
Innovation in Learning – Leveraging the Real World in Training to Create Success
In September 2018, our family evacuated for Hurricane Florence. We are so grateful to be home safe and sound, and dealing with just minimal damage. So many lost everything. I finally had a chance to …
If you could solve one challenge in your business analyst career, what would it be? What’s holding you back from more success? Tell me where you are at in your career by leaving a comment …
What’s one challenge you are facing in your business analyst career?
When organizational change (or any sort of external industry factor) looms, it can feel like our career paths are constricted. The reality is that when you know this one specific thing, you’ll see these changes …
How to Handle Organizational Change and Get What You Want Out of Your Business Analyst Career
Today we have a super quick, but super high-impact tip for you – and it will help you achieve more success in your business analyst career almost instantly! For those who like to read instead …
How to Almost Instantly Achieve More Success in Your Business Analyst Career
In a recent webinar, one of our community members asked this powerful question: I have been in a BA role for over 8-years and recently changed organizations and I am finding that I am not …
How to Catch Up on Technology and Skills in a New Organization
The best business analysts consistently update and upgrade their skills, to add even more value to their organization and achieve better business outcomes. As an online provider of training to business analysts, one of the …
Succeeding as a business analyst takes more than just knowing all the right questions and techniques. It also requires getting your mindset right – this is what is called the inner game. I also share …
Business analysts create positive change, make our organizations more efficient, and help us add more value to our customers. If you’ve been frustrated by your lack of opportunity in your business analysis career, this is …
I firmly believe that once you are a business analyst, you are always a business analyst. However, it’s easy to fall into a role where you are no longer doing traditional business analyst work, and …
Business process modeling is used by BAs and non-BAs alike to create lasting change in organizations. It’s how we actually make our ripple effect as business analysts. Today we get specific as I’m sharing 3 examples …
As business analysts, we find it really hard to communicate our value. And we often feel under-valued and under-appreciated. In reality, our ripple effect is huge. You know when you throw a stone in a …
Way back before I was a BA consultant, and before I started offering BA training at Bridging the Gap, I was in a director-level role leading a department of business analysts, project managers, and quality …
If you are relatively new to the business analyst profession, you might be wondering if you are actually doing things correctly. The business analysis process appears to be so nice and neat and linear until you …
In the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, let’s chat about the luck of a business analyst. Because every once in a great, great while, you might actually get lucky as a business analyst. Here’s what …
Happy Valentines’ Day! This year my daughter went ALL OUT on her Valentine’s Day cards for her pre-school class, using stickers, stamps, and even some glitter to make each card unique and then carefully writing …
During my first months as a business analyst, life was filled with a sort of inner turmoil. Even though I had books on how to write requirements documents, had received individual mentoring on putting together …
4 things I would have liked to have known before I started my BA career
While business analysis as a collection of activities has been around for decades, preceding even the introduction of the International Institute of Business Analysis™ (IIBA®) in 2004, business analysis, as a discipline, has evolved significantly during …
A Historical Look at the Business Analysis Profession (2009-2014)
At work, how you invest your time can lead to significant business analysis career success … or equally significant failure. No matter how disciplined your organization, there will always be time crunches and there will …
Many on the path to starting business analyst careers find themselves in organizations with no business analyst role. In this situation, the question becomes, do I need to seek a new BA job outside my …
How to Get Your Organization to Create a BA Role (Just For You!)
The 2013 Building Business Capability Conference, sponsored by the International Institute of Business Analysis™ (IIBA®), proved to be a setting where the future of business analysis was discussed not only with enthusiasm, but also with …
Next Generation Business Analysts – The Opportunities In Store For You (Insights from BBC 2013)
Are you exploring a business analysis career in an agile software development environment? Are you concerned about keeping your business analysis skills relevant in an increasingly agile world? Would you be interested in learning how …
Secrets of Successful Agile Analysis: How to Make Your Business Analysis Skills Indispensable
So often in my work with new business analysts, we have a conflict of perspective. I see someone as successful (say because they had discovered that in their list of transferable skills, they were well-qualified for …
One thing that I’m confident that readers of this site will agree on is that good quality business analysis can add significant value throughout a project’s lifecycle. But let me ask you a question. Have …
You might hear others say that business analysts are difficult people. In fact, if you’ve been around for awhile, you’ve heard me say it. Are BAs difficult people? Or, to look at the question differently, …
Career transitions can are full of uncertainty. You hit roadblocks; you work around them. You don’t hear from anyone for months then you get 5 interviews in one week. You plug along adding value, getting …
We’ve discussed how building business analysis experience is how you show you have the BA mindset and crack the egg. You might be comfortable asking for permission later (and if you are, go to it!), …
Want to Take on a BA Task? 3 Things Your Boss Needs to Hear You Say
Our grocer recently introduced pasture-fresh eggs from a local farm and I’ve been eating a lot of eggs lately. Fresher eggs than I’ve ever had on a regular basis in my life. The kind you’d …
How to Expand Your BA Experience Even if You Aren’t a Business Analyst
You finally find a job as a business analyst! You start your new job with high energy. But then days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months. One day you wake up and realize …
4 Surprising Reasons Your First Business Analyst Job Doesn’t Turn Out Like You Expect
Ever wondered how the BABOK Guide matches up to real business analysis experience? The BABOK is brilliant at breaking down the possibilities of business analysis and providing a route for a wide variety of project types to move …
While we might all agree that a great business analyst does not need to have technical skills, in the sense that they don’t need to write code or create software programs, in today’s world an …
Here’s a note from one of our readers who has made an important career decision and is seeing the positive results of that decision. Laura, I wanted to let you know that your article on …
Sometimes our intentions behind our work differ from the way they are perceived by stakeholders. And while we’d like to think that our work’s intrinsic quality and our business analysis skills are all that matters, …
Michelle asks: Could you provide tips to not appear ‘meek’ in interviews and during your first days on the job? When I start a new job I’m usually quiet while I listen and gather information. …
So you are thinking about taking the plunge and working with a career coach or mentor to help move your business analysis career forward. What can you expect? What can you do to get the …
If you are fortunate enough to have a clear picture of your professional vision in your head then you’ve already made significant progress toward achieving your goals. Most of the effort remaining ahead has to do …
Patience & Persistence Part 1: How I Moved from the HR Department to Business Analyst Intern
Are you considering a potential business analyst position or a job offer and wondering if it’s the right choice for you? Are you interviewing for a job and want to know what questions to ask so …
Reader Question: I was a project manager for 25 years, but for the past 4 years I have been involved in software QA and Process Improvement as a consultant for CMMI and other standards. I’ve …
Does My Experience in Process Improvement Prepare Me to Be a Business Analyst?
As business analysts it can seem difficult to go “up”. Many organizations do not have a senior business analyst career path and have limited lead or manager roles to grow into. Another way to move up is …
Reader Question: I am working at a rapidly growing company as a BA. Sometimes I really find it hard to catch my stakeholders and other interested parts at their places and to make an appointment …
Are you preparing for your annual performance review? Are you wondering what kind of conversation you should have with your manager about what you accomplished this year and your career goals for the coming year? …
Yes, we want to find work we enjoy. But as a mid-career professional, you probably have a certain set of salary requirements too. Will a career in business analysis satisfy them?
As Business Analysts, we are professional change practitioners. We are experts in the field of “change” and should expect to add maximum value to the organisations we work for. To be effective in this role …
You might be doing a great job, but does your manager know it? Do they recognize your contributions and would you be among the short list of people they think of for exciting new projects …
Author: Adriana Beal In my previous article for Bridging the Gap, I wrote about the importance of right-sizing your initiatives to get beyond a career plateau as a business analyst. A reader left a comment …
Author: Adriana Beal It’s common for me to receive emails from business analysts who are feeling frustrated with their current situation at work, all related to the same theme: the limited business analyst role they …
One of the biggest problems in the business analyst profession is that people expect us to be the experts. Over time, as we grow in a role within one organization, we build more domain knowledge …
Reader: I had a question for you and would really appreciate your insight into this. I have 5 years of experience in IT and a very good balance of development (.NET framework) and core BA …
How to Plan the Move from Technical Analyst to Business Analyst
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. I had the opportunity to speak personally with Durga Patil, a business analyst with L&T Infotech. Durga has been …
Durga Patil on Being a Business Analyst in the Insurance Domain
Editor’s note: This week we are tacking the tough question of industry experience. I hold that you should only apply for jobs for which you are qualified and many BA jobs in specific industries require …
How Do I Break into the Financial Industry with No Industry Experience?
Do you ever wonder “what’s next?” on this path you are on? Considering a career in business analysis and want to know what options it will open up for you long term? When it comes …
What’s next? What Careers Can I Explore with My Business Analyst Experience?
Today we start a new decade. While in the broader scheme of life and happiness, this is just one other moment passing us by, it does provide a logical time to take stock of where …
What were you doing a decade ago? What will you be doing a decade from now?
The initial meetings with a stakeholder can be nerve-wracking. Oftentimes projects come to us for “analysis” with very little detail. It can feel like everyone else knows more and is better prepared. Yet we, the …
Do you have a clear idea of what success looks like as a business analyst? It’s not an easy question to answer. Here are my thoughts for evaluating a business analyst’s success within an project …
Let me share a story with you. I started my first BA job by transitioning from a QA engineer role into a BA role. I had acquired deep system knowledge. I knew how the system …
Is Your Strength Grounded in System Knowledge or Business Analyst Competencies?
You can logically argue that software requirements save time, save money, and increase the return on your technology investment. I believe all these things to be true, not because I’ve done any quantitative study, but …
Most of the time, most business analysts are exceptionally busy and can’t even think about adding another task to their task list. But every once in awhile, you find yourself in between projects or at …
What To Do When You Are In Between Projects: 10 Ideas That Add Value to Your Organization
