I have built a career out of asking those questions. (Many thanks to my third grade teacher for introducing them to me...)
That is part of the beauty of being a business analyst. You don't need to know the right answer, you just need to keep asking questions and eventually, you present all the answers you get to someone else, and they make a decision about what to do next. And then you start asking questions again...
So, my current question is: How do I become a better business analyst?
And before I can get to that, what makes me a good business analyst? In fact, am I a good business analyst??
These are good questions.
In order to figure out what makes me a good business analyst, I first have to figure out what a good business analyst is.
(See what I mean by you keep asking questions?)
And right here, I run into what I like to think of as information overload.
There are SOOOO many opinions about the required skills for a business analyst that it takes some serious effort just to wade through the mountain of it... or swamp, depending on my mood at the time.
Here are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head:
- BA Skills grid, as provided by my consulting company: List of 60+ skills that are pertinent to a consulting BA with up to 7 identified levels and how to progress through them
- IIBA - International Institute of Business Analysis: This professional organization has produced a Business Analyst Body of Knowledge (BABOK), which lists 34 techniques that a business analyst uses in order to perform their duties, and 6 underlying competencies which every business analyst should have.
After some very short research (i.e. Googled "How many times should a business analyst ask why") I found an article that was very helpful. It was geared towards hiring managers, but it was all about what traits make a good business analyst and how to interview for them... As a business analyst looking to get hired, I feel like this is good information to assimilate.
Brief aside: I'm done with listing all of the sources of opinions about what makes a good BA... and three doesn't seem like either a mountain or a swamp, but I'm keeping the analogy. If you do your own research instead of using mine, you'll find the mountainous swamp (swampy mountain??) I referred to.And here begins the analysis portion of my essay/rant.
In order to determine what makes a good business analyst, I'm focusing on the underlying competencies identified in the BABOK and on the 6 Traits of a BA.
Underlying Competencies:
- Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving
- Creative Thinking
- Decision Making
- Learning
- Problem Solving
- Systems Thinking
- Behavioral Characteristics
- Ethics
- Personal Organization
- Trustworthiness
- Business Knowledge
- Business Principles and Practices
- Industry Knowledge
- Organization Knowledge
- Solution Knowledge
- Communication Skills
- Oral Communications
- Teaching
- Written Communications
- Interaction Skills
- Facilitation and Negotiation
- Leadership and Influencing
- Teamwork
- Software Applications
- General-Purpose Applications
- Specialized Applications
6 Traits of a Great Business Analyst:
- They are engaging
- They aren't easily ruffled by conflict
- They are multi-disciplined
- They are inquisitive
- They think (and action) strategically
- They care about the details
So, now that I have a couple of lists to focus on, what next?
Logically, analyzing requires the ability to measure. So:
What do the skills/traits listed above look like when they are performed well?
And immediately after that, how do I measure up?
... How do I even figure that out??? And once I've figured it out, what do I do next?
"How do you eat an elephant?""One bite at a time."
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