We all know that the way to become a more proficient business analyst is to practice. But practicing is not the complete answer. I can go to the driving range and hit three buckets of golf balls – practicing – but if my coach is not there to tell me to tilt my shoulder further or shorten my backswing, all of my practicing may be wasted. Not only wasted, but it may be detrimental. I may be practicing bad habits.
When we practice we need a coach or mentor to watch what we do. As we work they can encourage us on the parts of the work that we are doing well and correct us when we are heading down the wrong path. In other words, prevent us from practicing bad habits.
With work as complex as business analysis, I think that we should bring new analysts into the profession by having them work as interns for a number of projects, always being supervised by experienced BAs. This system should be similar to the medical profession where interns rotate through different specialties and learn from experienced practitioners. This will allow new BAs to practice on real projects with oversight and allow the new BA to learn about different types of projects and different types of analysis. They may find a particular area that will become their specialty.
These interns would be evaluated by their mentors/coaches and graduate when they are ready to work without oversight. They would then be assigned to mentor others.
The analogy to the medical profession is a good one for business analysis because there are such important consequences to the work. Business analysts can influence an organization to be more profitable or make a mistake that could waste significant resources. Both professions have a knowledge component (do you know the way that bones are connected to ligaments) and an experience component. We can easily test for the knowledge but the experience must be monitored and assessed by seasoned professionals to protect the integrity of our reputation.
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For some reason the content is repeated twice in the article body!
Thanks so much for reading our blog and for letting us know. I just corrected it!
Angie
Hi
i am working as service and support analyst for network company. the day to day activities invloves more of Quotation generation for the existing customer to renew their service, entitlement checks for the parts the customer bought for trouble shoot, asset recovery from customer and business report generation for the quarter.
could you tell me the prospect of finding switch to BA role with this profile.
also let me know the skills and knowledge i would acquire to get myself a BA role.
thanks in advance
nithiya
Thank you for your inquiry. I would start by saying that in your role you do perform certain analytical tasks but I am not sure if you have had any education in some of the technical and soft skills required for a BA. If you have an opportunity in your own company to get a transfer to a BA position, perhaps they would also offer you some training. To find out more about what BA’s do you may want to do further reading on our website, you may want to go to our Resources page and download some of the free resources that are available and finally I would recommend taking an introductory course in business analysis (e.g. look at Essential Skills for Business Analysis under Courses) to find out if you will enjoy and are suited for doing this type of work. Many professionals are beginning to volunteer themselves as interns to companies offering certain skills that a company may need in exchange that they may benefit by learning and gaining real experience in a new and different career path. I heard this morning where an IT person parlayed her social networking marketing knowledge to a firm in exchange for free training in a different career path and she would also intern part-time and gain work experience in that new profession. Interning is unpaid work and not everyone is in a situation where they can do this.
This post called my attention because it is usual to find people like Nithiya who has some experience in related areas and wish do become a BA, sometimes even quitting a job to be a BA intern.
I looks that Business Analysis has a big appeal to people who suffered it’s absence’s consequences. I just had lunch with a system analyst that was telling me she wants to become a BA to reach the problems she can’t fix now.
But something is changing. Two weeks ago I admitted a BA intern, a guy 21 years old with no previous experiences (besides academic) . He wants to become a BA because he read about it and liked the idea of being a liaison between numerous stakeholders.
I’m used to train people with background but now I’ll have to figure how to do the best for this guy, the analogy to the medical profession is a really good idea, he will have also to study, but I can manage to make him join some project teams with senior BAs involved.
Thanks.
Hi,
I have more than 4 years of IT Financial Services as a software engineer/developer.Also I did MBA in Finance & Strategy from one of europe’s leading intstituions and looking for BA roles..But I have been adviced that BA role needs pure functional experience and MBA does’nt help..Can some body throw some light on this??
Thanks
Antonnio
Antonnio,
My guess is that your software engineering experience would probably more closely align to the BA role. Emphasize any interactions that you had with users as they were asking for specific requirements and you were analyzing how best to meet their needs. Also, if you performed software testing and helped user’s with their testing. I am not saying that your MBA is not valuable (I have one also) but if you are selling yourself as a BA, use that software development experience as a strength.
Barb