Business Analyst Career Path. Where Will You End Up?!

Your career path as a business analyst is highly dependent on your preferences and strengths as an individual.

Not everyone who starts out who is currently a business analyst not necessarily stays there very long.

In my mind, there are basically 4 high-level trajectories your career might go depending on whether you go the BA Specialist route, management route, subject matter expert route or choose to make a lateral movement along the way. So let's break down each.

Business Analyst Specialist route

First, when I say BA Specialist, I mean a person who has decided to hold their skills as a business analyst. They are masters of all competencies in the business analyst body of knowledge and they are well-versed on all the knowledge areas.

This person starts out as a junior business analyst or an entry-level business analyst and travels to level 2, which is a senior business analyst and so forth.

If you go this route your skill set will more cycling drive you to be an enterprise architect, which is kind of a super business analyst. The quick version is that you look at the business as a whole and not just to an individual or silo, and determine strategies for how IT as a whole cant help meet objectives.

Management route

This is pretty straightforward and suitable for people who have a passion to help others grow in their career. 

At this point, you are a mentor to other business analysts and are likely to work as a business analyst lead or manager. Is important to remember that being a manager doesn't mean you can't be something else. For example, enterprise architects might have business analysts working with them.

The Subject Matter Expert (SME) route

The SME route has many flavours and usually revolves around a particular industry like business division or technology. 

Some examples are health information systems BA in the health industry or a human resources information systems BA for the HR's division of companies or a sales force BA specializing in the implementation of sells force for sells organizations.

Industry or subdivisions SME often move into a direct partnership with the business sort of things or just cross over into the business altogether because they're so well-versed in the ins and outs.

Technology experts are most likely to become consultants and help companies adapt to technology successfully.

Making lateral moves route

Last but not least, this has many flavours but the short version of it is that a good business analyst has to dive in the skillsets of many professions like user experience designers, project management, process analysts, product ownership and the list goes on. If business analysts find one of these careers interesting than they can refocus their career in that direction fairly easily.

The Business Analyst Mindset

Whenever you're trying to do something in an organization the desire to know "why" is at the core of the mindset of a good Business Analyst.

Innocent like a child

Business Analysts needs the innocence of a child. A bit like a five years old kid  constantly asking: "But why?" Consider the "Why" as an assistant in understanding the level of desire, commitment, and need for the change and how this change impacts both processes and other areas in the organization.

Understanding the context may also assist with how the need for the change can be justified. You'll need to reflect on the "Why" to be successful. Along with some other mindsets which include a constant believe that inefficiencies exist. 

The pace of change in today's business world is significant. Management might change, clients might change, priorities might shift and the marketplace itself transforms regularly. Well crafting processes and approaches to getting things done decay quickly, they simply become obsolete. Add to the fact of people who create processes initially really have a perfect crystal ball, or resolving issuing isolation without understanding the flown effects of the minor changes being made.

This is why inefficiencies are present in virtually every business processes. As an effective Business Analyst, you'll believe this fully and have a burning desire to find and fix these inefficiencies.

The best place to start is with what's happening today

The second mindset characteristic is "The best place to start is with what's happening today". It is easy to dismiss understanding what processes that exist today giving in the excitement and haste to get the new and improved "to be" state. However is very difficult to get a destination without knowing where you are today. Whether using a map or GPS the turns you'll have to make are determined not only where you want to get to, but where you are now.

As an effective Business Analyst, you'll want to expend significant time understanding the existing "as is" processes in order to facilitate effective changes in your organization.

Seek and enjoy

The next important mindset of a good Business Analyst is to seek and enjoy the details as well as the big picture. Exploring and documenting business processes can be very detailed work. It takes patience and the abilities to ask questions about exceptions and other nuances in about processes.

Although the devils in the details is a very accurate statement truly effective Business Analyst seeks to understand and optimize how processes interact with each other. Supporting the overarching goals and objectives of the organization is also critical to success in business analysis. A big picture view of what is happening and could happen in the business is just as important as capturing and tracking the procedural details.

Serve as the bridge

Lastly, the Business Analyst view is to serve as the bridge between business and technical personnel. It's rare to find an organization that doesn't have a language problem.

Technical teams talk about data flows, sequence errors, engineering specs and etc. Business personnel talks about turnaround times, customer preferences and capability management. The vocabulary between these two groups can be so different that discussions can be nearly useless as everyone scrambles to understand each other.

This is where the Business Analyst comes in. With an interesting knowledge of what the organization is trying to accomplish, and a view of what technical team needs in order to satisfy their needs. The Business Analyst serves as a facilitator and translator from those stakeholders requesting the change to those who will deliver the change.

They calm nerves and become diplomatic between people who often drastically have different perspectives about a problem.

Finally

When you as a Business Analyst embrace these varying mindsets business and technical people both feel heard, and more confident their needs are understood and can be met. Your organization can then move forward in a controlled and full manner and your projects and underlying processes will more likely deliver to the required change.

Understanding the skills business analysts use

 

Some characteristics and skills can help you to be positioned as a great Business Analyst.

 

CURIOSITY

First and foremost is Curiosity. Understanding the business areas in which you work and how they fit together is vital. Understanding at a detailed level and how it fits within the context of an organization is where you can apply your sense of wonder to the unknown. An almost endless level of curiosity as to what is really happening and what could potentially happen in the future is where the Business Analyst value is created.

QUESTIONING AND LISTENING

Observation of work being performed is a very effective way to obtain information about the details of how the organization works. However, you won't understand everything by just observing.

Having a keen sense for asking questions, listening to what is said and not said is pivotal to understand what's really going on in an organization.

In addition to this, interviewing is a fundamental approach to obtaining information from the organization and members of your project team. Crafting effective questions and being able to listen to the answers on multiple levels is fundamental to success as a Business Analyst.

PATIENCE

Considering that observation, questioning and answering approach to obtaining information can take time another fundamental skill for the Business Analyst is patience. Is easy to find a piece of information and jump to a conclusion as a result. As the same documented process may be executed different ways to different people or in different areas on the organization jumping to conclusions is dangerous.

Taking the appropriate amount of time to collect, analyze and verify your information and conclusions requires patience. That patience is a fundamental characteristic to sustain growth as a Business Analyst.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS AND DIPLOMACY

These two walk together. Every facet of Business Analysis involves some form of communication. You're typically either absorbing information through communication approaches or capturing and sharing that information with your own communication tools.

Take the diplomacy skills that you'll frequently use as you're often being placed in a position where you're judging approaches and suggesting improvements.

SUSTAINED ENTHUSIASM

Projects can take anything from a few weeks to years. Understanding the improvement goal, being dedicated to its achievement and having a contagious sense of enthusiasm is important. This helps your business colleagues and the project team to stay focused on moving forward.

Enthusiasm is an important aspect to get chances accomplished, especially when you take a while to bring them to reality.

BEING LOGICAL

Being logical in your thinking is at the hot of surfacing and improvement possibilities. You need to apply logic and understanding of what is occurring in your organization today and be able to picture better ways of getting things accomplished.

That is the best of a sustained value you can provide as a Business Analyst. Logic is the key to providing the value quickly and effectively.

As you can see being a Business Analyst is a multifaceted row. It takes a lot of different skills and characteristics but its all fun and exciting as you are in the hot of change in your organization.