Jun
23
New Business Analyst Definition
June 23, 2006 |
This has been approved by the BA BoK Committee: we will be running it past the Executive for their consideration.
A business analyst works as a liaison among stakeholders in order to elicit, analyze, communicate and validate requirements for changes to business processes, policies and information systems. The business analyst understands business problems and opportunities in the context of the requirements and recommends solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.
Update: This definition has now been adopted by the IIBA.
Comments
2 Comments so far
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BA’s should not be in the position to recommend solutions or to look for the solutions. Management, Project Managers extrapolate the information provided by the BA to make the necessary recommendations. Don’t leave BA to do all the work and to make the management decisions.
Frankly, it was our intent that a BA who is ready to be certified be capable of doing exactly that.
In our view, the Project Management discipline doesn’t include the tools and skills necessary to make those kind of determinations–project management focuses on controlling work, not validating solutions (review the contents of the PMBoK if you don’t believe me–it contains tools for reaching agreement on a scope but no more). Individual project managers may have those skills, but that just means that they’re also capable of performing as a business analyst. In principle, a project manager doesn’t even have to understand the application domain. (Again, PMs out there don’t need to write in and tell me why that’s not a great idea).