What Is Business Analysis All About?
The competition among businesses is constantly rising. Staying ahead of the competition requires intelligent decisions.
Business analysis is about gaining practical insights after evaluating data. It involves identifying business needs with particular tasks.
Business analysis also helps gain solutions to generate high value for stakeholders. It also helps with executing organizational changes.
What to Look for In a Business Analyst?
You must look for the following in a business analyst:
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An undergrad degree in business or a similar field
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Extraordinary conceptual thinking and analytical skills
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Exceptional documentation skills
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Familiarity with the latest technology and software related to the field
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Ability to lead and support successful projects
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Ability to form and lead high-performing teams
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Planning, organizing, and time management skills
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Dedication to follow through on commitments
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Competence in MS Office
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Ability to give presentations and create reports
Things to Know Before Hiring a Business Analyst
You should consider the specific responsibilities of a business analyst before hiring them. Knowing the particular responsibilities will help you quickly determine the appropriateness of a candidate.
The regular tasks and responsibilities of a business analyst are as follows:
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Analyzing business processes, determining areas for improvement, spotting requirements, finding and implementing solutions
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Constant review of business processes and creating optimization tactics
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Staying updated with the latest technological advancements to modernize and automate systems
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Organizing meetings and giving presentations to share findings and plans
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Tracking the performance and communicating the results of strategies
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Effective communication of strategies and insights to cross-functional teams
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Acquiring critical information from meetings with different stakeholders to produce valuable reports
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Working seamlessly with the management team and clients
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Offering leadership, coaching, and advice to junior employees
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Dividing resources and ensuring cost efficiency
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Designing solutions to meet business requirements
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Conducting user acceptance evaluation
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Developing project ideas, managing them, and tracking performance
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Updating, executing, and maintaining processes
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Managing priorities based on business requirements
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Serving as a channel of communication between users and stakeholders
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Tracking deliverables and ensuring meeting deadlines
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Looking after competing priorities and resources
Skills to Look for While Hiring Business Analysts
Active Listening Skills
Business analysts should have active listening skills to pay attention to stakeholders’ demands. They should observe body language and pay attention to the words.
Business analysts must understand the context behind everything being said. Listening and absorbing the information is necessary for developing improvement plans.
Extraordinary Oral Communication Skills
Business analysts need to communicate the results of their analysis to all the stakeholders. Therefore, verbal communication skills are more than necessary.
Oral communication skills help business analysts communicate their ideas with clarity. It also enables the professionals to ask insightful questions.
Your company often has to deal with stakeholders without a technical knowledge base. A business analyst can ask them questions in simple language without technical terms.
Decision-Making Skills
Business analysts often need to offer advice to developers using sound knowledge. Moreover, they need to make certain decisions after getting input from stakeholders.
The decisions they make help to bring the right changes to the organization. Making the right decisions is necessary to satisfy every need.
Multi-Disciplinary Skills
Having experience in IT and related domains is mandatory for business analysts. But it is often beneficial to have skills across unrelated fields.
Multi-disciplinary skills enable business analysts to identify more opportunities for improvement. They foster a deeper knowledge of different business processes.
Steps to Hire a Business Analyst
You need to go through the following steps while hiring a business analyst:
1. Set Specific Requirements
You must specify clear requirements to apply for the job role. It will help you reach the right candidates with the required expertise.
But keep the requirements realistic. Otherwise, you will prevent eligible candidates from even considering the position.
For instance, you might be looking for freshers to apply for the post. In that case, you can’t expect them to have an experience of over five years.
2. Ask Relevant Questions
You should ask the candidates questions related to the field of business analysis. Some suggestive interview questions are as follows:
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Do you know the difference between BRD and SRS?
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Do you know some techniques used for requirement prioritization?
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What do you understand about UML modeling?
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Do you understand the concept of Paro analysis and Kano analysis?
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When is the Waterfall model more appropriate than Scrum?
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Do you know the key phases involved in business development?
The technical questions will help you determine the candidate’s knowledge of the field. But you can also ask some general questions to evaluate the personality of the candidate.
How to Hire a Reliable Business Analyst
Check the educational qualifications of the business analyst before hiring. Moreover, remember to evaluate their ability to work with a team.
You must also determine whether your organization needs a full-time business analyst? Otherwise, you can hire a freelance business analyst.
