THE BUSINESS

ANALYST
JOB DESCRIPTION
A Guide for an aspiring Business Analyst

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Who is a Business Analyst ?

A business analyst is a liaison between different stakeholders in an organization. He acts as a bridge, a connector and
helps the complete project team work as a tightly integrated unit.
Since stakeholders belong to different domains (e.g. finance, business, marketing) its very important for a business
analyst to be able to sort and balance the needs of these stakeholders while fulfilling the business objectives at the same
time.

Business Analyst Job Description

The job of a business analyst requires him to wears different hats and fulfill various duties under different spheres of the
organization. For your better understanding, we have divided the business analyst job description amongst the different
verticals in which a business analyst is expected to work in. These are:

Business
Technical
Managerial
Financial
Additional areas of expertise

Each one of these verticals is comprehensively elaborated below.

Business
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Understand the business case

A business case is the reason why the project was started. A business analyst should comprehend the business
case thoroughly.
Fulfill the business objective
Every project has a business objective i.e. what the project is expected to accomplish. A business analyst should
be able to understand this objective and attain requirement with the objective in mind.
Elicit Requirements
Elicit means to obtain and extract requirements from stakeholders. The requirement gathering process requires
a business analyst to be apt with required skills like facilitation, brainstorming, interviewing and observation.
Analyze requirements
A business analyst must conduct analysis of business goals/objectives, resolve ambiguity and analyze business
process to come up with solutions that fulfills the needs of the business environment.
Develop scope
The project scope is a collection of all what is required to do to achieve the business objective. A business
analyst should assist in the development the project scope and define the boundaries of the project.
Business Documentation
A business analyst should document the requirements by creating the use cases, document what is required of
the project by creating Business Requirements Document (BRD) and also help documenting how the
requirements should be achieved by creating Systems Requirements Specification or Document (SRS or SRD).

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Technical
-

Perform Technical analysis

Apart from the business prospective, a business analyst should analyze the requirements from the technical
view-point also and uncover any technical challenges that might come in fulfilling the requirements. This will
involve capturing data, creating metrics, evaluating dependencies and developing options.
Develop Data models and process flows
It is required from a business analyst that he should analyze and create graphical representations of the flow of
data through the system, modeling its process aspects. The document generated from this exercise is called the
data flow diagram (DFD).
Create mock-up user interfaces
For evaluation and demonstration, a business analyst is required to create the mock-up or prototype of the
product to be developed. This prototype is a full-size model of the product and enables the feasibility testing of
the products design.
Exhibit analytical skills
A business analyst should demonstrate problem solving, qualitative, quantitative and visualization skills to
resolve business/technical problems and apply logical thinking to come up with appropriate solutions.
Technical documentation
A business analyst is required to provide technical support throughout the project lifecycle by developing
following documents:
Context diagrams used to show high level view of a system and the entities interacting with it.
Class diagrams - a type of static structure diagram that describes the structure of a system.
Entityrelationship diagram (ERD) - a model for describing the data or information aspects of a business
process.

Managerial
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Facilitate implementation
A business analyst must partner with the development teams to facilitate the implementation of the product
functionality through extensive training sessions, demonstrations and clarifications.
Develop plans
A business analyst should help develop requirement management plans, scope management plans, quality plans
and other related plans to ensure they are in line with the business objectives.
Manage requirements
A business analysts integral job is to manage requirements by eliciting, prioritizing, clarifying, implementing and
validating the complete project scope. He should also help establish responsible deadlines and resolve any
ambiguity centering the same.
Assist testing efforts
Testing the implemented functionality according to the products boundaries and monitoring the quality control
functions are important part of the business analysts job.
Support change management
Changes are unavoidable in the constantly developing environments and a business analyst should be able to
manage these changes. He should understand changes, assess their viability against the business case, prioritize
changes and document the same in change log.

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Financial
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Estimation
A business analyst is expected to be able to assist the estimation of the projects cost and time. Thus, he should
have a sound understanding and application knowledge of the various estimation techniques like function point
estimation, critical path analysis, earned value techniques, Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT),
etc.
Perform Cost/benefit analysis
A business analyst should be able to assess the viability of a business proposal by estimating its strength and
weakness through Cost/benefit analysis. He should, with his domain knowledge, measure the positive or
negative consequences of a proposal and present his findings through an analysis report.

Additional areas of expertise

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Domain knowledge
A business analyst must have the working knowledge of the domain (for e.g. finance, banking, infrastructure,
etc.) in which he is expected to perform along with a good grasp of software engineering concepts.
Leadership skills
A business analyst should be proactive, enthusiastic and a great team player with an aptitude to learn new skillset.
Communication skills
Excellent client facing skills, presentation skills and the ability to communicate both verbally and in writing are
imperative to the role of a business analyst.

The above 4 verticals and the skillset contained with forms the very crux of the job of a business analyst. A prospective
business analyst must strive hard to achieve excellence by mastering the above skills.

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comprehensive Business Analysis knowledge.
Our aim to assist every prospective Business Analyst by providing information that could be used to understand the
business analysis job profile, learn the analysis skills and know all about the various aspects of being a business analyst.
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