Reminiscing the hat of technical BA
There has been a lot of caveats around BA’s contributing to tech heavy projects as the name suggests, Business analysts are intended to revolve on the business world.
After being in the world of business domains for quite some time, I did have a lot of contentions on stepping up as a business analyst for a tech heavy project. After experiencing (and experimenting) I understood that people saying business analysts on tech projects don’t get to have a say on multiple decisions as it’s going to be technical of course, is definitely a myth. BA’s in tech heavy projects can still be on a limelight with the business expertise that’s imbibed within them adding on the learnings of technical excellence.
Here I go sharing my experience on how BA’s can also add a pinch of tech flavour to their career making it a spellbinding learning experience,
Know the depth of the inner world
Though there are ample suggestions in the real world for having healthy food habits, cautions step towards growth based food habits comes only if we can understand our body’s inner systems and how they function. This simple yet powerful understanding will help realise food that our body can accept as every individual’s system is quite contrasting. On a similar note, any business to flourish solely depends on how the system’s technical architecture is derived and interpreted. As a BA for a tech heavy project, understanding the heart of the system and its destined need is important to amplify the business.
Interacting with the system architects, developers, quality analysts equally as in with business stakeholders as they master the technical implementation of the system can help BA’s understand the bigger picture. Understanding API’s and how they interact on top of market analysis and competitor analysis will help gain momentum on a tech heavy project.
Do not get lost on technical aspects leaving behind the business KPIs
On a tech heavy project where there is a wider scope of usage of technical jargons, there can be situations BA’s can get lost in the way. The mapping of any technical discussion to some of the questions becomes vital,
- How customer is going to benefit after the implementation?
- What is that the customer is going to experience?
- Who is the consumer of the API’s that the technical team is producing?
Above questions are some of the samples but there could be more. Keep the flow going with business and tech hand in hand so that customer’s pain points are not lost.
Closely interact with the team who will be consuming the team’s technical implementation
Never build products in silos. There is no point in having the API’s and technical aspects ready when the team responsible for customer experience is not ready. As a train coupled with the railway track, a slight dislocation can be disastrous. Similarly the team providing the API’s and the team working on the customer experience should have a fellowship coordination. Glitches between the teams can result in the failure of the product.
Establishing recurring communication with the team building the customer experience becomes critical. Alignment of features for the provider and the consumer team helps in reacting to the changes rapidly, ensuring the agility of systems.
Always be prudent enough to not talk on technical terms with clients/business stakeholders
As BA’s from technical front, become vernacular to technical terminologies and tend to accustom to the same behaviour. But technical implementation is not much of a worry for business stakeholders. To avoid miscommunication, always communicate in business terminologies to insist on value delivered to the client. The technical implementation allied with business can add value to the customer. The art of converting the technicalities to business value is an art to be mastered on a day-day basis. Never unlearn the power of focussing on business value and highlighting them.
To conclude
Business Analyst on a tech heavy project is always a place for growth and learnings. It’s a place not only to know the breadth of the business domain but also the depth of the technicalities. It’s all about striking a balance between business and tech while still keeping in mind the value we deliver to the end customer. There is a huge leeway to bind the expertise on business and tech for a power packed result as they are no two entities.
Happy experimenting!
Cheers!
