Any Business Analyst advice?

Hey guys, I am now 8 classes away from my BA in Business Management with a concentration on project management. I am also two classes away from my AAS in Information Systems. I really thought I wanted to try to go directly into networking, but I really like working with people and enjoy the business side of things, so I got to looking around and it looks like business analyst is very appealing to me. The problem is is job postings for business analysts vary so much that I can't really tell what it would take to start out in this field. I have had some experience managing short term projects and I have previous experience as a sales manager if that helps at all. Any input would be great. Thanks.

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Comments

Xcluziv

Well, IMO, a business analyst helps capture and define the business needs within the application. The BA kind of acts like a middle tier between the development team and the business users and stakeholders. In most cases, the BA is responsible for analyzing business processes and capturing, documenting, and validating organizational requirements. A Business Analyst must be able to understand these needs and help organize and set priorities for each one. BA's often translate any "business goals" received from stakeholders into functional requirements that guide the development team.

In my experience briefly in a BA role, I was developing alot of business process mapping for the businesses workflow, conducting JAD (Joint Application Development) sessions, and documenting accurate business requirements and system/functional requirements to hand off to development teams.

I think you are on the right track if you want to become a Business Analyst. Having knowledge in both the business and technical side of things can greatly improve how you relate technical topics to the business and vice-versa for the development team

Just my $.02

zrockstar

Thank you very much for the info Xcluziv. That seems like what I would want to be doing. I there any roles that are a little more entry level in BA than others?

RouteMyPacket

Xcluziv wrote: »

Well, IMO, a business analyst helps capture and define the business needs within the application. The BA kind of acts like a middle tier between the development team and the business users and stakeholders. In most cases, the BA is responsible for analyzing business processes and capturing, documenting, and validating organizational requirements. A Business Analyst must be able to understand these needs and help organize and set priorities for each one. BA's often translate any "business goals" received from stakeholders into functional requirements that guide the development team.

In my experience briefly in a BA role, I was developing alot of business process mapping for the businesses workflow, conducting JAD (Joint Application Development) sessions, and documenting accurate business requirements and system/functional requirements to hand off to development teams.

I think you are on the right track if you want to become a Business Analyst. Having knowledge in both the business and technical side of things can greatly improve how you relate technical topics to the business and vice-versa for the development team

Just my $.02

Your $.02 is pretty much spot on from my experience working closely with groups of Business Analysts. The BA's I worked around were the group handling the ERP system and for sure that would be a valuable skillset to have. They weren't paid chump change either.