ANALYST SKILLS FOR CAREER SUCCESS
Are you thinking of pursuing a career as an Agile Business Analyst? This may not look like a challenge; however, the reality is that competition for business analyst positions can be intense. Despite the high demand for the business analyst skills, I.T. professionals and organizations try to search out the best talent in a challenging economy and complex global business environment.
A professional business analyst plays a critical role in a company’s efficiency, productivity, and profitability. The skills required to be a professional business analyst can be categorized into three; Core skills and general/soft skills — this skill-sets range from communication, interpersonal, critical thinking and problem-solving. Business Analysts can sharpen their skills through executive education programs and eventually earn certification from WayMaker Digital (check it out!) coupled with valuable work experience using our existing Community of Practice to gain insights into how a typical Agile Business Analyst spend their day at work.
BUSINESS ANALYST SKILLS SET
CORE SKILLS
These skills set are the most important in becoming a professional Business Analyst. They (set skills) are fundamental to your everyday activities as a Business Analyst. These core skills include:
Communication Skill: Due to the nature of the job, a business analyst spends quite a significant amount of time interacting with clients, users, management, and developers, this means they can facilitate working meetings such Sprint Planning meetings or Retrospectives, ask right questions from business stakeholders, listen to the answers. Therefore, as a business analyst, being an effective and efficient communicator is very crucial. A project’s success may depend upon the business analyst communicating details like project requirements, requested changes and testing results.
As a young or new business analyst, you may not have the required experience in a variety of business analyst specifications which usually come with time and on the project experience, but a robust general documentation and writing skills will get you started.
Negotiation and Persuasion Skill: A business analyst is a mediator among a variety of people with various types of personalities which includes the; clients, developers, users, management, and information technology (I.T.). As a business analyst, for you to achieve a balance between making a profit and finding a solution for the client to keep them happy, you need to develop your negotiation and persuasion skill. This balancing act demands the ability to influence a mutual settlement and maintaining professional relationships, especially when competing for client projects.
Problem-Solving Skill: The first job of a business analyst is to find solutions to problems, so for every project you work on its core goal is problem-solving. Therefore as a business analyst, you must work to build the skill required in understanding of problems, outlining of the parameters of the project, and determining possible solutions.
Critical Thinking: As a business analyst, it’s essential to carefully conder different solution options that before making the final decision on the choice to go with and to effectively achieve this, the critical thinking, data review, documentation, user input survey and workflow skill is needed. It’s a skill required in asking probing question until the real need is surfaced and understood
GENERAL/SOFT SKILLS
Here are four crucial soft skills a business analyst must possess.
1. Analytical skills: This is one of the soft skills a business analyst need for effective and efficient designing and implementing of processes. It’s required for the proper interpretation and translation of a client’s business into an application and operational requirements. An excellent analytical skill is an advantage for the Business analyst in taking on the job role successfully.
2. Computer Skill: A business analyst must know how to use many types of software from the most popular ones such as Microsoft Office Suite to the more special packages like SharePoint, Visio, Balsamiq, Jira, Confluence, Trello, Basecamp, MS Project and Software Design Tools etc.
3. Personal Attributes: The personal attributes an aspiring B.A. should look out for include adaptability and the ability to work in a fast-paced environment with cross-functional teams. You also should hone your attention to detail and creativity skills. A Business Analyst is also equipped with strong organizational skills, multitasking ability and assertive/diplomatic skills.
4. Relationship-Building Skills: Relationship-building to a business analyst is like gas to the car. It’s foremost amongst the list of soft skills a business analyst should possess; this is because it’s a great recipe in forging strong relationships, which is also known as often stakeholder relationships. A stakeholder is someone who contributes to the success of the project. You’ll work with many stakeholders from both the business and the technical teams.
For professionals who are looking to switch careers into Agile Business Analysis, we have the best platform to help you achieve your goals from training to interview preparation, to your first offer and work reference, we will support you even on the job through our Community of Practice (with over 70 Agile Business Analysts across Europe/America/Africa). Cheers to your success. Start Your Journey Now!
