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 more than ever. If you’ve been waiting to take the next step in your business analyst career, the door is wide open.
I’m going to be recording a new video series over the next few weeks to help you turn challenges into opportunities. Please leave me a comment below letting me know what challenges are coming up for you right now. And then share this video with a friend or colleague who needs to hear this message.
Laura, I want to transition to business analysis. I have a background in project management and B2B account management. Any suggestions?
Hi Veronica, Welcome to Bridging the Gap! It sounds like you’ll have a lot of transferable experience from related roles. Be sure to get starting with our Quick Start to Success free workshop. This walks you through the path to transitioning into business analysis. https://bridging-the-gap.com/quick
Hi Laura!
I am professional with over 6 years of work experience. I was a HR professional in last 5 years. I also played a role of HR Analyst. I would like to start my career as Business Analyst. I have completed Higher diploma in Business System Analysis and Design in 2019. I am currently unemployed and am looking for job opportunity as BA.
I need your guidance to start my career as BA.
I have decided to do certification from IIBA. Could you please suggest me which one should I opt for between ECBA and CCBA? Which one would add more value to my profile?
How can I use my HR experience to build a career as BA?
What is the real scope of getting a job of BA without having any experience on it?
Hi Paramita,
Great questions! I address the questions of certifications and transitioning to a BA career in-depth in the Quick Start to Success workshop – in much more depth than I could do in a comment here.
Please check it out here: https://www.bridging-the-gap.com/quick.
Laura, Thank You! for always sharing your knowledge with us in the BA community. Looking forward to the upcoming series. My struggle during this pandemic shutdown is keeping focus on work. The virtual meetings/discussions with others are easy because it feels like work. But when it comes time for my heads-down-and-thinking type of work, I seem to find an excuse to put it off. Make dinner, do laundry, walk the dog – – and then I don’t get back to the focusing mind set of ‘work’. Any ideas for how to keep the focus? Much appreciated!
Hello Susan,
This is Disha, one of the BTG Instructors on behalf of BTG. Thank you for sharing your struggle with us. With so many priorities competing for our attention, focusing can be even more challenging during these times. This is where time boxing helps a great deal. Once you have a clear picture of your day, allocate a time slot for 80% of the work you planned to get done and solely focus on that as you take on the task. Once you are working on the selected task, write down any stray thoughts or tasks you want to get done later on, on a piece of paper that you can review when you are in planning mode. Allocating a time slot and doing only just that activity should help maintain the focus. This is a simple but very effective technique.
Give this a try, but remember to be kind to yourself 🙂
Best,
Disha Trivedi,CBAP
BTG Instructor
Hi Susan, Thanks so much for bringing this up. Disha has some great suggestions. I’d also invite you to consider why this doesn’t feel like “work” to you. How are you defining work? Or how did you define it when you were in the office? What’s changed now? Did you have distractions in the office too but did they feel like work because you were in a specific space? No judgement here…just all awareness.
Also, it’s important to give yourself some grace. There can also be an emotional component to this during the challenges we are in. I know for me it can sometimes be difficult to focus with everything going on in the world, and it can feel like the work I have to do just doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things. What’s actually true is that each of us doing our best possible work is more important than ever – that’s what will pull us all through this. So, this is also an opportunity to consider your mindset around the value of what you are doing and make sure it feels important to you.
Hi Laura. Looking forward to the upcoming series. I’m trying to get into BA, even though I have prior BA experience and education my recent background is legal, I just started to get interview before the pandemic, and it’s all stopped. It’s really frustrating. Would love to hear about new trends in BA that current situation brought up.
Thanks
Hi Katrina, I will definitely be talking more about creating job opportunities during this time. Yes, many businesses have slowed decision making as they adjust to this current situation, but it’s a great sign that you were getting interviews before the pandemic. That will come back. In the meantime, focus on building your skills and experience. For example look for opportunities to help a local business you could help define their strategy for rebounding or getting online, even if it’s a bit of volunteer work for now.