Ode to the Business Analyst: the “Jack of all Trades” of our Era.

For the first 3 years of my professional life I was a Functional Analyst. Or at least I think I was…. Maybe I was also a Business Analyst… and a Tester… and a Project Manager, and a Client Support Assistant, and an empathic fellow with Life Coach skills! Well, in the end, Functional/Business Analysts can be everything and anything!

Only when I got the “official” Business Analyst title I felt like a real grown-up person, I mean, I don’t even know why but the word “Business” felt like a big word.

But even with that title I used to think of myself as one of those sandbags you throw somewhere to stop a water course that is putting the crops in danger. Because every time a client or a team needed help in any project, my boss would “grab” me as that sandbag and throw me there to plug that hole.

Those are the “perks” of choosing a profession that doesn’t come out from Universities. If you are a Lawyer, you have studied Law; if you are a Doctor, you have studied Medicine.

But, what if you have studied to become a Functional or Business Analyst? Who knows! (Let’s talk about what really matters…).

Business Analyst is, therefore, a profession mostly built upon your personal skills, like:

• Curiosity
• Empathy
• Logical thinker
• Visionary
• Self-learner
• Polyglot
• Self-sacrifice spirit

So, now that we have our requirements, let’s break them down into User Stories (Agile joke… sorry for that!).

Curiosity.

You are curious and know what questions to ask, how to ask them and to whom. That’s how you get all the information you need. Weird questions that nobody else would ask just pop up in your mind! Those are the most important ones.

Empathy.

You are a polite and emphatic fellow, being able to generate a bond with clients, managers, colleagues, users, etc. This gives you also the super-power of making everybody laugh when the issues discussed in a meeting just become too heavy and quickly escalate into a big argument. You will bring a light spirit to the table every time there is the need for it.

Logical thinker.

You have a good logic thinking process, which helps you to organize all of your information, gathered painfully across thousands of meetings, emails, informal talks, confessions and outburst!… In your brain, somehow, everything will come together and make sense, drawn as boxes, arrows and flows.

Visionary.

You are some kind of visionary who dreams about exactly what your client/user needs, even before they realize it themselves. And when I say “visionary who dreams” believe me, it’s literal. Sometimes you will come up with the best solutions while you are asleep.

Image from English Without End.

Self-learner.

You have a natural talent to learn how to work with new software without needing any specific training (Come on! Nobody needed training on how to use Facebook when it appeared).

You are also a self-learner in what comes to “self-management” skills. So, when you put in your CV that you are “autonomous, dynamic and with initiative” I hope it is true. Because that’s the only way to survive and those skills are impossible to fake.

One of the Business Analyst’s Life philosophy is “Fake it until you make it”. But believe me when I tell you: that motto will not work on this specific matter!

Polyglot.

You are a polyglot who knows how to speak and write perfectly in your language. And in English and also probably in Spanish, maybe French. But mostly in that weird dialect that one of your clients or users speaks and nobody understands, ahhh, but you do my dear Business Analyst… You do!

Self-sacrifice spirit.

You are available to put some extra time in the project if it really needs to, even if you do it alone because you really feel projects are a part of your heart. And that everyone relies on you as the pivot element in the center of the project/product, who connects everyone involved.

Note: by “some extra time”, please, be aware that this can imply that sometimes you are not going to sleep or eat, at least in the beginning of your career. Just kidding… (nope).

So, if you have checked all these boxes or you feel like you can relate with 85% of these characteristics, congratulations! You can be (or become) a successful Business Analyst, because based on this I can tell you something that I am pretty sure of: You Will Thrive on Chaos!

Image from Silicon Republic.

Dulce Monteiro
Business Analyst at Polarising.

Know more about Polarsing’s Business Analysis solutions.