Are you considering a career as a business analyst?
If so, it’s essential to understand what is needed to succeed in this field.
A competent and competent Business Analyst has the skills, knowledge, and understanding of their industry and technical know-how to evaluate activities of various business functions such as human resources, marketing, finance, or operations.
In today’s time, Business analytics is a growing field.
While Business analysis can’t be referred to as a purely technical or non-technical field, you have to understand the fact that gaining success varies directly with having a strong skill set related to business analysis as a field.
For a business analyst, working with several teams to attain your business goal makes it incumbent upon you to equip yourself with the necessary skills.
That’s why in this article, we’d be taking you through the top 15 business analysis skills required for every business analyst.
Before then, here is a simple outline of what we’d be going through:
Who is a Business Analyst?
A business analyst is in charge of enabling change in an organization. He comprehends business problems and offers solutions that will optimize its value to its stakeholders. Majorly, they bridge the gap between IT and the business by analyzing data to establish requirements, evaluate processes, and offer data-driven reports and recommendations to executives and stakeholders.
According to Simplilearn, they are involved in every tiny aspect of the business, beginning from laying out the strategy to creating enterprise architecture. With this understanding of who a business analyst is, let’s look at the top business analyst skills to help you become a successful one.
They also talk to users and business owners to find out how making changes based on data to processes, services, software, products, and hardware can increase productivity and create value for the customer.
What does a business analyst do?
The roles of a business analyst are numerous but in this article, we’d be listing just 5 of them so you can get yourself acquainted with them in case you want to focus your career towards business analysis.
Related: 3 Best Nigerian Business Analysis and Scrum Training Programs
Here are the roles of a business analyst:
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Describe the project in detail
One of the most important roles of a business analyst is to ensure he evaluates the needs and ensures the team has all the details needed to create and implement a particular process. Here he might have to work with stakeholders and consumers in the company to be sure that their needs and knowledge are combined into a detailed conversation about what will be built.
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Public Speaking and Presentation
Part of the duty of a business analyst is being able to deliver quality presentations on project topics, status, application designs, and business requirements. These are of paramount importance to business.
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Understanding The Requirements of a Business
A business Analyst never ceases to work with stakeholders and this is because they help him understand their requirements and he then translates it to developers to understand.
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Testing of User Acceptance
Every established business or launched product can only survive in the market based on user acceptance and User Acceptance Testing is the only way this can be guaranteed.
The duty of a business analyst goes beyond identifying the project’s needs and requirements. This is why one of the most important tasks is to ensure that the product works as designed, and the user’s needs are met.
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Developing Team Work
As the responsibilities of a Business Analyst are numerous, it’s inevitable that he must lead formal teams. In order to attain success, he needs to coordinate, lead, and structure these team members.
Remember, everyone has unique skills.
Now, after understanding the roles mentioned above, you might be interested in knowing the skills required for you to become a business analyst and we have decided to list out 10 required skills for every business analyst.
15 Required Skills for Every Business Analyst
According to Intellipaat, The role of a Business Analyst is neither purely technical nor purely non-technical. It is somewhere in between multiple teams, which is why it requires strong expertise in various skills, including technical and soft skills.
This is why in this section, we’d be dividing the required skills into Technical and non-technical for easy understanding.
Technical Skills Required for a Business Analyst
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Knowledge of Excel
One of the most reliable and established analytics tools used for reporting, calculating, and keeping various data is Microsoft Excel.
Business Analysts also use it for budget assessments and to create various charts. You may be required to learn how to become proficient at using this software as you pursue your career in business analysis.
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Business Intelligence (BI) Tools
You have to get yourself familiar with BI tools such as IBM Cognos, Microsoft Power BI, or SAP Business Objects. These tools enable business analysts to create dashboards, reports, and interactive visualizations to provide valuable insights to stakeholders.
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Programing Language
A business analyst works with data and some coding, part of the benefit of using programming languages like Python and R to handle large amounts of data. Being able to program is therefore necessary for becoming a business analyst.
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Technical Writing
One of the crucial talents required in today’s world with rapid development is Technical Writing. With the new trend based on the idea that in-person communication is more proficient and productive, Agile approaches have replaced the need for technical documentation and specification over the last 5 years.
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Agile Methodologies
Scrum or Kanban are Agile methodologies a business analyst must understand alongside other project management tools like JIRA or Trello. With Agile skills, you can effectively collaborate with teams, participate in Agile ceremonies, and facilitate sprint planning.
Soft Skills Required for a Business Analyst
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Problem-Solving
As a business analyst, you have to have a problem-solving mindset. This will help you in bringing up strategies that would identify the underlying causes of a problem and then, you can easily outline viable solutions. Examples are getting yourself acquainted with the Five Whys and Brainstorming.
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Active Listening
A business analyst must be an excellent listener so as to acquire quality data. Anyone can come up with innovative ideas but it’s doubtful that a business analyst will develop helpful solutions if they cannot understand their colleagues well, not to talk of consumers.
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Cost Management Negotiation Skills
These skills come in handy when you need to help the business users and the IT talk to each other, when you also need to talk to the IT about the development of resources, and when the business users are trying to keep project scopes from growing.
Needless to say, Negotiation skills are relevant for all businesses. Business analysts also carry out cost-benefit analyses to assess the costs and benefits expected in a project.
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Collaboration and Teamwork
A business analyst often works with cross-functional teams. Being able to work effectively and collaborate with team members is vital.
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Adaptability
No two projects are alike, that’s why adaptability seems to be a crucial skill a business analyst must have. Requirements and project needs can change, so business analysts should be adaptable and open to changing their approach accordingly.
After knowing these skills, we’d be alighting few ways on how you can acquire them in the next section
How to develop any business analyst skills
- Ensure you know why you are doing a particular task. Are you simply doing a business routine check or you are looking for a solution to a particular problem? Once you know what the purpose of your analysis is, you can begin to focus on some of the more important factors without any extra effort.
- Try to get familiar with various tools that will aid you in problem diagnosis, decision-making, and solutions. If you want to step up your game as a business analyst, then be sure to combine a number of tools and techniques to get the ‘biggest picture’ you can.
- Always consider success and failure while working. It is understood that being successful in your project makes everyone happy but ensure you always weigh the positive and negative impact of whatever decision you are about to make.
- Ensure you understand your organization and its standard of operation ( SOP ). You should know what the primary goals and pitfalls of your business are, so you know where to look for opportunities and what to look out for otherwise.
Understanding your organization will also help you to provide conclusions that are useful in pursuing the mission that your business set out to achieve.
Present Conclusions meaningfully and ensure all results you get from your analysis are what the stakeholders would understand.
Conclusion
Professionals with experience in important business analyst abilities are constantly needed to boost business operations. Because of this, qualified business analysts are in great demand across all industry sectors. You may want to start your journey to become the next business analyst by opting in for #1 Business Analysis and Scrum Training by Hagital
