iGrid Technologies

Business Analyst - BA

Economic forces, technology changes, product demand, competitors' offers and other outside influences continue to affect today's companies. As a result, organizations need to change as quickly as their environment. This continuously shifting business atmosphere means that the companies have to solve their problems more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

Therefore, most large companies and organizations that rely heavily on software in business operations employ Business Analysts to recognize and communicate their business needs, recommend solutions, and ultimately to positively impact the whole business. Business Analysts are supposed to improve communication between business stakeholders through comprehensive requirements analysis, proper documentation and by providing structured testing and quality assurance.

Roles and Responsibilities of a Business Analyst
A Business Analyst is responsible for identifying the business needs of their clients and stakeholders (the directors, vendors, employees, and customers) to help determine solutions to business problems. They typically have a high degree of industry experience and are a key facilitator within an organization, acting as a bridge between the client, stakeholders and the solution team.

The Business Analysts study the overall business and information needs of an organization in order to develop appropriate solution strategies. As the key liaison between business and information technology departments, the business analyst is responsible for gathering and documenting business requirements and translating them into functional system design specifications that can be successfully executed by IT development teams.

The Business Analyst discloses, analyzes, validates and documents business, organizational and operational requirements. Solutions are not predetermined by the Business Analyst, but are driven solely by the requirements of the business. Solutions often include a systems development component, but may also consist of process improvement or organizational change. The Business Analyst can have a significant impact on development costs and help the business minimize project delays.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities of the Business Analyst

Business knowledge: The Business Analyst should have some background knowledge of the subject to make the requirements gathering efficient, although it is not always a must and depends highly on the complexity of the project.
IT knowledge: The Business Analyst should understand what the company information systems can and cannot do. A skilled business analyst does not need to have a deep technical knowledge but should have some general knowledge of network, operating systems, hardware capabilities, database concepts, and the System Development Life Cycle and project methodology.
Interpersonal and communication skills (both written and verbal): The Business Analyst should be a great communicator and diligent team member. Because she or he has to liaise with various business units to gather requirements and resolve different business issues.
Data collecting skills: The Business Analyst should know what data do the company currently have and need to be carried over into the new systems or analysis around what can be achieved with a new system by projecting previous figures of a successful project on the business.
Analytical and problem solving skills: The Business Analyst needs to have the ability to assemble, analyze and evaluate data and to be able to make appropriate and well-reasoned recommendations and decisions to support the Business stakeholders and the Project team. The Business Analyst should also be able to analyse the feasibility of requirements in terms of efforts, inputs, time, and costs. Identify and resolve issues
Ability to understand and document business processes: The Business Analyst should be able to recognize, analyze and map processes, model and improve business process and anticipate future state.
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Industrial Engineering, or related field is usually preferred by most of the companies searching for a Business Analyst.

Jobs Overview & Career Options

Business Analysts work in different industries such as Finance, Banking, Insurance, Telco, Utilities, etc. It is common that Business Analysts switch between industries. The Business Analyst role is one of those occupations you cannot apply for unless you have some business or IT background.

A Business Analyst does not always work in IT related projects, for example could be working on marketing proposition projects or in consultancy tasks.

Business analysts often grow further into other roles as Senior Business Analysts, Project Managers or Business Consultant.

Responsibilities

Define and document business and user requirements after thorough fact-finding with customers and analysis of business workflows and system requirements.
Produce, explain and clarify specifications for customers and project team members.
Work closely with developers in translating business requirements into high level design specifications.
Provide realistic estimates and updates of the work necessary to complete all relevant deliverables, and complete all tasks within targeted timeframes.
Review and provide feedback on test cases and documentation.
Provide process improvement suggestions.

Business Analyst Course Description

iGrid Tech Corporation provides top-of-the-line training for prospective Business Analysts that will allow you to be effective and efficient in supporting the business analysis phase of a project. The course is well suited for systems analysts and programmers seeking to expand their role, quality assurance professionals, entry-level IT business analysts and their managers, IT project managers and self-taught IT analysts seeking to fill gaps and learn best practices for the position.

The iGrid training covers all aspects of the business analyst role - from requirements gathering to testing. All major techniques - both structured and object-oriented (OO) - are addressed. During the training participants can gain experience while working on real life examples and experienced iGrid trainers provide the students with necessary guidelines and a broad Business Analysts job overview. Those enrolled in the course after successful completion of the training receive job counseling and the best will get a job offer from iGrid Soft Corporation.

Upon completion of the iGrid course, you will be able to:

Identify and describe key stakeholders from whom requirements should be gathered;
Improve the communication among the key stakeholders: client, business analyst and designers;
Use a systematic process to analyze problems, gather requirements, and formulate solutions;
Gather information requirements and effectively translate them to business clients and designers;
Analyze problems with the help of industry-standard tools such as fishbone diagrams, cause-and-effect diagrams, histograms, etc;
Improve the quality of interviews with users using numerous methods of eliciting the right information from the clients;
Conduct group sessions for capturing and verifying requirements, using joint application design and structured walk-throughs;
Use Unified Modeling Language in preparing business requirements and diagrams; Document and present findings and recommendations in a way that gains understanding and acceptance.