The Business Analyst Job Description – what should or shouldn’t we do?
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So What Does a Business Analyst Actually Do? A Business Analyst typically work on projects and very often it involves implementing a technology solution as part of this within the corporate world. There are some variations about what they do on those projects but here is a list of tasks that should and should not be performed by this role.
A Business Analyst should do these tasks:
- Meet with stakeholders to understand their business needs and ultimately theirbusiness requirements
- Translate the business requirements into a language that delivery teams (such as developers and testers) can interpret.
- Run workshops as part of requirements gathering activities
- Document the requirements in a objective, clear and meaningful format
- Raise any risks that may impact the requirements on a project
- Plan for requirements activities on the project in the form of a Requirements Management Plan
- Facilitate the requirements review and approval process
- Clarify any requirements to developers and testers on the project
- Establish a requirements traceability approach and matrix to be utilitsed by the project
- Manage any requirements change requests from a requirements point of view
- Contribute to the project management plan in terms of requirements approach, risks, constraints, assumptions and planning.
- Provide delivery time based estimates to the project management team for requirements deliverables
- In some projects the Business Analyst will be responsible for stakeholders analysis which consists of identification, analyse and engage with.
- Develop various requirements models utilising modelling techniques such as UML, process models and/or data modeling.
- Provide input to test cases, but do not own the task of creating test plans, test cases or scenarios.
A BA should NOT do these tasks:
- Take minutes as a matter of course on each project team meeting, this should be done by the executive assistant or project analyst
- Organise the project team meetings, this should be done by the executive assistant or project analyst
- Keeping track of the project schedule updates, this should be done by the project manager or project analyst
- Be responsible to update the risks and issues log, this should be done by the project manager or project analyst
- Design solutions for the project, this is a solutions architect’s job.
- The business analysts can review and provide feedback but do not have solution design as a core responsibility.
- Perform testing execution, this is a tester’s role!
- Write code or do programming of any solution, this is a software developer’s role!
The above tasks are a guide only but typically this is what is expected of Business Analyst on a project.