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What is a Business Analyst? (Part 3)
What is a Business Analyst?
Today the term Business Analyst is synonymous with a career in
the IT industry but the most successful and valuable analysts
are those who understand the "business" rather than those who
understand IT.
So what exactly is a Business Analyst? What is the Business
Analyst's role? What is the best background for this job? What
skill set is required? What type of person is the best fit? What
training is required and available? Each organisation seems to
have its own ideas about the role, skills, responsibilities and
expectations. Given the importance of the job, a common
definition would assist both practitioners and employers. In
this third and final part we look at modelling and requirements
specification tools.
Current technology - modelling tools
It can be extremely difficult to agree on what and how things
are done now in a large organisation, even more so to agree on
what and how things should be done. Modelling tools are a
critical element in this process. A recent Australian survey
(based on 300 responses from practicing computer professionals)
revealed the top 4 modelling techniques currently in use:
Entity Relationship diagram 39%, Data flow diagram 34%, Systems
flowcharting 31% and Workflow modelling 24%.
Software tools are widely available to support these techniques.
In our observations however, the most commonly-used tool remains
the whiteboard. The growth in the use of CASE tools has been
much slower than predicted, with auto code generation, while
available for ten years or more, still not widely in use.
The survey goes on to say that OO (object oriented) analysis,
design and programming has been the predominant systems
development paradigm over the last decade. However, some 64% of
respondents either did not know or did not use UML (Unified
Modelling Language) and 74% of respondents did not know or use
object modelling.
Today UML is making the transition to business process modelling
with software vendors supplying extensions and enhancements to
cater for the needs of the Business Analyst. But this comes at a
price - there is a corresponding need for structure, process and
discipline in the development team. For organisations developing
new, large scale systems e.g. defence and health, UML offers a
clean sheet approach but brings with it the need for investment
in disciplined processes and procedures, plus up-skilling and
staff (re)training.
Current technology - requirements specification tools
Although software tools are available for specifying
requirements, they are not in wide use in the commercial
computing world. These high-end software tools enable users to
track requirements from original specification down to code
level and are useful for the large, complex industries like the
defence and telecommunications sectors where rigorous
requirements specification and zero software defects are daily
objectives - and where the high cost of implementing rigorous
processes and procedures can be justified. In these industries,
the boundaries on requirements are often easy to set in that
they typically define a product (e.g. weapons system, mobile
handset) which will be designed, manufactured then shipped. Once
in the field, their function doesn't change.
In the commercial and government sectors, requirements relate
more to business services and business processes both of which
can be in a continuous state of flux throughout their lifecycle.
Business Analysts work closely with clients and development
teams, refining, changing and sometimes re-defining
requirements. The humble word processor becomes an
easy-to-master and effective communications tool to represent a
requirement (a statement of what's needed) and even
state-of-the-art requirements templates use Microsoft Word as
the underpinning technology.
So where should today's Business Analyst focus and what are
the best training strategies to pursue?
There is no substitute for practice and the B.A. evolves into a
highly skilled practitioner of immense value to their
organisations. Those working in the field either become very
proficient technically or move into management positions, or a
combination of both. Today's business analyst will have in depth
expertise in some of these domains - and just as importantly
will have a conceptual understanding of all of them.
As long as companies and organisations want to add new
capabilities or improve existing business processes, there will
be an ongoing need for professional Business Analysts. The
deeper and broader the range of a Business Analyst's skills, the
greater will be the return to their employer and the further
their own individual career will take them.
This article written by Derrick Brown and Jan Kusiak of IRM Training, copyright
2005. Adapted for the web by Phil Dean. FOR THE FULL PAPER,
VISIT http://www.irmtraining.com.au
About the author:
Phil Dean is the Operations Manager for IRM Training
(http://www.irmtraining.com.au).
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