Definition:
The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) describes the role as “a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies, and operations of an organization, and to recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.”
BA, i.e. A Business Analyst is someone who interacts with various stakeholders, analyzes the current systems and solutions, gathers business, user and technical requirements and makes recommendations for improvements and suggests innovative solutions.
Typical Day In The Life of a Professional – DILO:
This is a fictitious calendar and is meant to give an idea of the different tasks that the professional performs and different people that the professional needs to coordinate with. This may differ from organization to organization and context.
Context For DILO:
A mass consumer based project in discovery phase. BA sent questionnaires to various stakeholders to gather the required data.
DILO Calendar:
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 8:00 am – 8:30 am | Drive to work. Call with the technical lead on a client based project that is in critical testing phase. |
| 8:30 am – 9:00 am | Arrive at work. Check calendar, respond to emails. |
| 9:00 am – 10:00 am | Internal project’s feasibility assessment. Coordinate the brain storming session with various team members (technical, marketing and operations) and negotiate for the required resources (Human, finance, S/W and H/W). Obtain a go decision from the senior VP for the new initiative. |
| 10:00 am – 10:15 am | Prepare meeting minutes and set up project folders and other admin tasks for the internal project. |
| 10:15 am – 10:45 am | Daily stand up call with the QA and the developers for the external project. Handle a major unexpected bug by identifying the impact and preparing the risk mitigation plan. Notify the important stakeholders of the same and assign resources. |
| 10:45 am – 11:30 am | Update action items, assign tasks, assess the risks of the testing phase. Prepare client status report and send the same. |
| 11:30 am – 12:30 pm | Prepare project plan for the internal initiative project. Request for additional resources. |
| 12:30 pm -1:30 pm | Lunch break. Review the client status report and prepare for the onsite client meeting. |
| 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm | Client meeting. |
| 2:30 pm – 3:00 pm | Prepare for Ops review meeting. Update the revenue projections and budget requests. Call with a vendor and attend to accounts payables. Submit invoices to the customer. |
| 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm | Monthly Ops review meeting with senior management. Present project updates and projections for next month. Respond to tough questions from the senior management on client side delays. |
| 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm | Review the research documents for the internal project. Review the deployment schedule and a call with vendors regarding the client project launch. |
| 5:00 pm – 5:30 pm | Internal meeting with the technical team and go over the testing issues. Assign resources. Suggest remedies. Update test plan and review the issues and bugs. |
| 5:30 pm – 9:00 pm | Go home and personal work |
| 9:00 pm – 10:00 pm | Attend an offshore call and discuss the upcoming resource requirements. Plan for the same. Make a presentation on the proposed features of the new initiatives and receive feedback |
Career Ladder Disclaimer:
Exact ladder may change from organization to organization, but below is a typical path.
Certifications:
| Certification | Description | Career Level | Certifying Body |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAPM® | Certified Associate in Project Management | Entry level | PMI |
| PMP | Project Management Professional | Professional | PMI |
| PgMP | Program Management Professional | Professional | PMI |
| PfMP | Portfolio Management Professional | Professional | PMI |
| PMI-ACP | PMI Agile Certified Practitioner | Professional | PMI |
| CSM | Certified Scrum Master | Professional | Scrum Alliance |
| CSPO | Certified Scrum Product Owner | Professional | Scrum Alliance |
Associations and Groups:
| Association | Decription | More Info |
|---|---|---|
| PMI | Project Management Institute | PMI |
| Scrum Alliance | Scrum Alliance | ScrumAlliance |
PM Tools:
| Tool | Purpose | More info |
|---|---|---|
| MS Project | Project Planning and Tracking Tool | Project |
| MS Visio | Used to visualize and present project schedules | MS Visio |
| Jira | Cloud based Agile friendly project tracking and management tool. | project-management-software |
PM Methods:
| Method | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Waterfall | Classic approach. Linear and Sequential. Typically from Discovery to Design to Development to Testing and Deployment. |
| Agile Scrum | Iterative method and is more adaptable to changing requirements. |
