How

to build career in Business Analysis?

Many of us dreaded of IT career due to conventional career path of doing coding job for initial years. The ultimate goal of programmer is to reach at
project manager or program manager level.

However, there is a non-conventional route to this career for those who actually would like to contribute towards IT field without having to start as
programmer or database professional.

This article, we are focusing on the Business Analysis that is related to application or system development process in information technology.
Concept: Business Analysis is a relatively new role in Information technology / system development process. Although 'business analyst' role did
exist previously, but it was defined in an informal way where it was performed partly or fully either by the Business stakeholders or by domain Experts,
or project manager or the project coordinator or the business/stakeholder's representative and QA personnel.

However, as the business and technology complexity and sophistication increased, it has almost become impossible for business or technical personnel
to deal with both the roles. Therefore, the dedicated role of business analyst emerged and defined well. The business analyst now can analyse the
business need, define the solution through rigorous requirement elicitation and management process, and later present the solution through set of
requirement documentation templates consisting of the detailed descriptions and models of the requirements. This documents are known as
requirement documents that are also known as business requirement document (BRD) or functional requirement document (FRD) that serves as the
basis of developing and testing the solution. These documents also support all the stakeholders to understand the future business solution along with
their role and interactions with the solution.

As per IIBA, "Business Analysis is the process of understanding business change needs, assessing the impact of those changes, capturing, analyzing and
documenting requirements and then supporting the communication and delivery of those requirements with relevant parties."
Role: Although, this role has evolved over a period of time to and recent years its taken a definite shape, the role still defers company to company or
industry to industry. The major role of managing requirement and coordinating with various functions remains unchanged.

A Business Analysis (breaking the activities /tasks into small parts before bringing out the solutions) is comprehensive activities of understanding
problem, finding solutions, managing requirement, documenting requirements, designing/prototyping requirement, conducting User Acceptance
Testing, designing user manuals and so on..

In large size project, if there are 4-5 business analysts, the lead business analyst usually responsible for overseeing the complete activities and the team
member are responsible for one of the activities such as requirement management, data analyst, QA coordination, report management, documentation,
writing prototypes, preparing flow chart/process diagrams, writing Use cases. All these functions are performed using various tools Visio, Enterprise
Architect, UML, Rational Rose, Requisite Pro, Mercury Quality Center, SQL.

Those BAs who work and deal extensively with technical people may be known as IT Business Analysts or Technical Business Analysts or Business
System Analyst and these analysts can easily move from one industry to another. It may not true for the business analyst coming from a particular

domain such as Finance background Business Analyst usually takes up job in Finance Industry

Career path: A Business Analyst could build a successful career path moving upwards as a project manager and then as a program manager or a Lead
business analyst or Subject matter expert. Program manager or lead business analyst or Head Practice Management could be at senior management
level position. SME (Subject Matter Experts) could be at par with division head in large company.
Here is the picture for you to understand the career path for business analyst in organization:

Business Analyst - career path (ANISAN Technology Inc.)



There are many flavors of business analysis and Business Analyst can opt for any one of the flavors depending on his/her academic and professional

background.

To know more about the growth in Business Analysis field, you can visit the blog: Opportunities Business Analysis in future.

Followings are some of the career paths a Business Analyst can opt for:

1 Operations Head - Business Strategy Analyst who analyses the business need by analyzing their current products, services, process and operations,
and recommends solution (with or without IT) to improve the business.

2 Enterprise or Business Architect - A Business Analyst starting a career as a Business analyst, and moving towards lead Business analyst, and a role
of heading Business Analysis activities as an enterprise or Business Architect in an organizations.

3 CTO(chief Technical Officer): In rare cases this is also a possibility for a business analyst if the person comes from technology background. He will
have to work through many technology roles such as in-charge of IT projects and overall technology in Non-IT Company to reach to CTO role.

4 Product Owner - Business Analyst working in a IT company specialized in product development can becomes Product owner/manager through a BA
path.

5 Practice Head - In-charge of projects with similar domain in an non-IT company and establish the process and standards for Business Analysis
activities such as creating "Centre of Excellence" for Business Analysis.

6 Program Manager - Business Analyst from technical background can become an in-charge of projects from same domain in an IT company.

7 Delivery Head - Business Analyst from technical background who is in-charge of delivery of project or IT services in an IT company having the same
or different domain.

8 Management Consultant -A Business Analyst starting with Jr consultant, create a path towards Consultant, senior consultant and management
consultant.

When we started out in a career as a formal Business Analyst (BA), there wasnt any certification required. This requirement did not go into effect until
early 2000. Most of us learned the role of a Business Analyst on the job and by exploring reading materials (mainly from IEEE for the management
requirement) and case studies to strengthen our knowledge. Many of us created our own standard documents that were not part of the process.

Now, the Business Analysis field is a well-evolved field of study. There are many institutes that are working toward creating standards, as well as the
options of training and certification to validate knowledge either at the beginning of one's career or as a candidate goes along.

An aspiring Business Analyst has the following options to launch their career:

Self-Study
Formal Training and Certification at the entry level
On-the-job-experience

Since there is an option for aspiring Business Analysts to select entry-level education as well as certification through various private and public
education systems, recruiters may prefer the candidate who has undergone formal and structured training and has proven his/her knowledge through
credible certificates.

And at the mid-level section, Business Analysts who wish to keep their professional knowledge/ license up-to-date also have options to formally update
their knowledge on a regular basis by keeping their certifications valid.

The following is a chart you can use as a guide for your BA career. The entry level BA training and certification are highlighted in yellow. In addition,
there are also other certifications that may be useful at the various stages of BA career.

Comparison Chart of Certificate Options Available for Business Analyst at Entry Level:

BA Certificate options available at entry level

To view better, you can download this picture and view in enlarged version.

Please note that PMI-PBA has the following eligibility criteria: 1. Five years (7,500 hours) within the past eight consecutive years with project experience
of 2000 hours (equivalent to 1 year).

2. Three years (4,500 hours) within the past eight consecutive years with project experience/ 2000 hours (equivalent to 1 year).

For more information, please check this link: http://www.pmi.org/Certification/PMI-Professional-in-Business-Analysis-PMI-PBA.aspx

Note for Recruiters and aspiring Business Analysts: At the entry level, the emphasis must be on candidates ability to perform the job and for that (initial
state) BCS (British Computer Society) certificate in Business Analysis or IREBs CPRE-FL (International Requirement Engineering Boards Certified
Professional for Requirement Engineering Foundation Level) is adequate, as these exams make a person understand the intricacies of the
requirement management process over the project lifecycle. The certified candidates are not only aware of the basics of Business Analysis, but theyre
also capable of producing deliverables.

The candidates with a masters degree in Business Analysis may have a bigger advantage, as a university degree coupled with two years of rigorous
course work will create a better knowledge foundation.

Once the candidate reaches mid-level, he/she can prove the knowledge via the next level certification i.e. CPRE-AL from IREB (International
Requirement Engineering Boards Certified Professional for Requirement Engineering Advance Level), DIP in Business Analysis, or CBAP(Certified
Business Analyst Professional.

A masters degree in Business Analysis will give a person more of an advantage over someone who has only completed certificate courses. This
statement can be backed with a similar analogy I can present with Management Degrees two decades ago. In the beginning, a certificate in management
could get a job, but later, a Diploma in Management Degree was preferred over those certificates and, eventually, both certificates were replaced by a
full-time or part-time Master Degree or Post Graduate Diploma in Management.

Going forward, an aspiring Business Analyst can use this comparative chart along with the latest updates in the education industry (Business Analysis)
to see the trend before selecting the right education course to that can help launch their career successfully.
Lastly, the Business Analyst must know that this training offered is only one third of the requirement as along with Business Analyst Knowledge, the
Business Analyst must possess knowledge in the following areas:

Finance and Economics
Domain Knowledge (for example for Finance domain, aspiring BA can opt for formal Education CFA, MBA or on-the-job experience)
Business Case Development

SMEs (Subject Matter Experts)

Principle of Information Technology
Organization Structure and other Management skills
data-blogger-escaped-comment - Vendor Management

Before you plan your career in Business Analysis, you must evaluate your current capability in terms of knowledge and skill, and plan carefully to
acquire remaining ones.

My next blog is based on how to acquire Business and IT knowledge before launching your career in Business Analysis.

Here is the blog to help you stay ahead in your Business Analysis career when you have acquired 5-7 years' experience - Which Business Analysis
Certificate Suits Your Business Analyst Career Need? - Part II (Mid-Level)

Also included: How to Stay Ahead with Correct Certifications When You Are Already Working as a Business Analyst.

Disclaimer: This chart is provided by an independent professional and purely compared on the data available on their official website. Please note that
these websites were accessed during the time period of September 10, 2014 through October 4, 2014.

I recommend everyone visit their website (mentioned in the picture) to check the latest updates or verify any doubt.

Continuing with my previous blog on comparative study on certification options available for launching a Business Analysis Career successfully, here, I
am presenting the comparative study to help you to identify your mid-level career needs by selecting the correct certification to stay ahead.
This comparative study will also help a BA professional to understand the certification in terms of the syllabus to strengthen and validate Business
Analysis knowledge and skills and its acceptance level.
This blog is also important to IT recruiters in understanding the value of "Certifications" presented by potential employees to align their
recruitment needs.

Although the chart contains the data about all the institutes mentioned previously, the real comparison is between BCS (ISEB), UK, IIBA, Canada and
IREB, Germany as PMI and Universities offer ONLY one level of certification currently.

Comparison Chart of Certificate options available for Business Analyst at mid-level:

BA Certificate Options available at mid-level

Please refer to the following pics for prerequisites for an International Diploma in Business Analysis offered by BCS, UK.

To refer to entry-level certificate options, please visit my previous blog by clicking this link: Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.

Disclaimer: This chart is provided as an independent professional and is purely compared to the data available on their official website. Please note
that these websites were accessed during the time period of September 10, 2014 through October 25, 2014.

I recommend everyone visit their website to check the latest updates or verify with officials for clarifying doubts, if any.

Please write to us to know more about career in Business Analysis and how to excel at [email protected]