How do I become a business analyst?
- Date: 10 August, 2021
Transferring to a new job role can be overwhelming. Where do you start learning? To help you out, Global Knowledge has started publishing a monthly how to become article. In this article, you will find a learning track for a job role you might be interested in. This month, learn how you can become a business analyst.
A business analyst is the link between the IT-department, your organization and the customer. You could see the business analyst as the glue that keeps a project together. A business analyst identifies, analyzes and specifies the customer requirements and briefs these to the IT-department. A business analyst determines the scope of a project.
Business analyst in an Agile environment
The responsibilities of a business analysis stretch further than the short summary I gave to you in the previous paragraph, especially in Agile organizations. As a business analyst, you need to be flexible, because the customer requirements can change during the development process
In the past, it was possible to define all the requirements for a project at the beginning. Now, you will have to communicate with the different stakeholders more often. The expectations of the project vary during the project and it is your job to make sure no assumptions are made. The responsibilities of the business analyst overlap with the responsibilities of the product owner in a scrum team.
How do you become a business analyst?
A good business analyst is an excellent communicator, precise, works with a business analysis framework and decides the scope and the goals of a project. The business analyst is the glue that keeps the IT-department, organization and customer together.
These skills are partially learned by doing, but before you enter the field, you need to possess the right knowledge for the job. Your GK Polaris Discovery subscription can help you out here. I have listed all the courses you need to become a business analyst in this article. This learning track has been written with business analysts in an Agile environment in mind, but you can also use it when you don't work in an Agile environment.
With GK Polaris Discovery you get unlimited access to Virtual Classroom courses for one year, for a price that's similar to the price of one training course (€2995). Learn more about GK Polaris on this page.
Step 1: Start with the basics
If you haven't got experience working with business analysis in an Agile environment, it's a good idea to attend the Agile For The Business Analyst track at Skillsoft's Percipio. Because Percipio offers on-demand courses, you can attend this course at our own pace. With your GK Polaris Discovery subscription you get access to Percipio Tech & Dev courses.
Once you have finished these four modules it's time for the next step. I recommend to attend one (or both) of the courses listed below. The BCS Foundation course teaches you to work according to the BCS Body of Knowledge and during the Business Analsysis: Essentials course, you learn from the IIBA ‘A Guide tot he Business Analysis Body of Knowledge’. Both courses run for three days and give you an excellent foundation for a career in business analysis.
Step 2: Getting started with BiSL
Business Information Services Library (BiSL®) is a framework used by business analysts.
BiSL® offers you a process model that gives you insight in all processes you have to deal with as a business analyst. You learn what the challenges are, how you can upgrade the processes and adapt the terminology. Everything is based on best practices. With your GK Polaris subscription, you can attend the BiSL Foundation and the BiSL Next course.
- Information management according to BiSL®
- BiSL® Next
If you have attended the Business Analysis: Essentials course, you can deepen your knowledge by attending the Business Analysis: Requirements Development, Documentation and Management course. This course is an excellent preparation for the Certification of Capability in Business Analysis (CCBA).
Workflows with Jira
An excellent addition to your business analysis track is a Jira course. Jira is part of the Atlassian suite and is a tool that can be used by software and product development teams. Jira is 'agile out of the box': you can use it to write user stories (tikets) and to administer the entire workflow around these user stories. You can also use Jira to manage your backlog and for a central overview of the tasks and priorities of a scrum team.
Global Knowledge offers the Atlassian Jira Administration part 1 and part 2 course. This course is not included in the GK Polaris Discovery subscription.
Step 3: Persuade and commucate with clarity
A business analyst is the link between all stake holders and the IT-department. To fulfill your role, you have to possess strong communicative skills. In your GK Polaris Discovery subscription you will find soft skills courses that you can use to develop these skills with. For a business analyst I recommend the Communicating with Clarity and Influence and Persuasion.
Bonus: Product Owner
The role of a business analyst in an Agile environment starts to resemble the role of the Product Owner more every day. I advise business analysts to attend a Product Owner course, so you are prepared for changes in your role in the future.
Learn more
Done with this learning track and ready for the next? Check out one of the learning tracks we have previously released.
In the process of writing this article, the following sources were used: Vacatures, Managedagile, Nationale Beroepengids.
