Business Analyst

ballooba

Was talking to my sister about this today. Something I had thought of before but never actually looked into. Lecturers in college always say to us that people generally go in two different directions about a year after they leave our course. Some go technical and some go into the business side.

My sister and I both agree that we would be more interested in the business side than the technical side. She is a commerce graduate (of 8years) with an IT postgrad and has worked in Computer Training, Post Office Software, Banking and Technical Sales (Factory Automation).

How would she go about pursuing a career as a business analyst?

She lives in Co. Meath and travelling to Dublin to work is not an option. Would the smaller software companies have dedicated business analysts or would they have technical people who moonlight?

WhiteWashMan

business analyst is just a title, and can mean anything.

what specifically are you talking about? usually, i find that business analysts are business development managers with their head up their arses, who think that the term analyst actually means something important.

so tell us what it is exactly you feel it is, or what the role should be, and we''ll let you know

Third_Echelon

ballooba wrote:

...She lives in Co. Meath and travelling to Dublin to work is not an option.

Well thats a problem right there....

Living so close to Dublin and not wanting to travel is lunacy to be quite honest. Either move to Dublin where the work is, or commute to Dublin, where the work is. Commuting is a pain in the @ss, but she's not going to get any work sitting at home in meath...

There's not many companies in Meath that offer this work.

ballooba

Third_Echelon wrote:

Well thats a problem right there....

Living so close to Dublin and not wanting to travel is lunacy to be quite honest. Either move to Dublin where the work is, or commute to Dublin, where the work is. Commuting is a pain in the @ss, but she's not going to get any work sitting at home in meath...

Em.. with respect.. that's a pretty blinkered view on the world.

There is life outside Dublin. Just because you choose to live your life that way doesn't mean that other people's way of life is wrong. If you had simply said:

Third_Echelon wrote:

There's not many companies in Meath that offer this work.

Then it would kinda make sense.

Anyway by Business Analyst I mean the person who ellicits requirements at the start of a software project. Who maps workflows and suggests improvements to business processes at the start and throughout the project.

Should be interesting finding out what people do in their jobs. How different companies work. Behaviour studies. Stuff like that.

WhiteWashMan

ballooba wrote:

There is life outside Dublin. Just because you choose to live your life that way doesn't mean that other people's way of life is wrong. If you had simply said:
.

while you have a point, the fact of the matter is that if there are not a lot of jobs that you want to do in a local area, then if you really want to do it, then you have to move. its a case of being sensible. Meath is not known for its stimulating businesses it has to be said, and if someone is not prepared to either make the commute, or move to dublin, or any other high business area, then, they are restricting their own chances. and i think its a pretty valid point.

ballooba wrote:

Anyway by Business Analyst I mean the person who ellicits requirements at the start of a software project. Who maps workflows and suggests improvements to business processes at the start and throughout the project.

Ok, i understand what you mean. My old company does a lot of workflow assesment and documentation. the person who ellictes requirements at the start of a project, is a project manager.
someone who studies proceedures, and workflows and makes improvment suggestions, is what i would call a workflow analyst!

so different terminolgies for different people.
i see 2 options here.
option one is that your sister is interested in projects, in which case, she should look at project management. do the Prince 2 course. it good.

option two is that your sister is interested in workflows, and should look into some of the documentation project stuff. but this should really be wrapped around the core business practise (IE if its going to be in IT, then she needs to understand IT, if its in manufacturing, she needs to understand manufacturing, if its around software development... you get the picture)

unless there is something else?

madramor

ballooba wrote:

Anyway by Business Analyst I mean the person who ellicits requirements at the start of a software project. Who maps workflows and suggests improvements to business processes at the start and throughout the project.

I'm a Software Architect/Development Manager and the above pretty much
describes my current job.
I meet with clients get requirements,
design project,
assign/hire people to do the work
then manage project until finished(constantly repeating above steps)
2 days at home 2 days in office 1 day offsite with (new business/current client/directors meeting/contractors)

this is for a software company and is a very technical role.A IT postgrad
would not cut it.The courses they run for business grads are just fluff to
pad out their cvs.

I used to be a business analyst, this was really a hyped up sales role.
I would go to potential clients and analyse there current systems and
see how they could be improved by using our companies software.
I started as a developer then went along to sales meeting as technical
lead and eventually became business analyst.

I left that job because I missed writing code developing stuff.

There were also people from non technical backgrounds who where trained
in the operation of the companies products and sent out as business analysts.

if you want to get into this area, the best way would to be as a SAP,Oracle,
Siebel consultant.
A company would be looking for a new Accounting/HR/CRM system you go in
analyse their systems requirments,decide on product that best suited their
need,create implementation protocol
(training,installation,maintenance,migration,purchases).
This is most definitely an on site job, no way you could do it from home.

to get this job you would need indept knowledge of above products so I
would recommend getting a job in sales in one of these companies first
and go on from there

jaggiebunnet

A business anaylst is what the title says. They anaylse the business requirements and map out the "as is" business processes and the the "to be" business processes. They assist in change management throughout the lifecycle of the project and generally should understand the job as well as the people doing the job.

The project manager is responsible for managing the project, but does not get involved in the anaylsis side, this is not to say that someones roles will not overlap, but by definition a project manager is again just that, someone who manages the project.

A technical anaylst will provide a technical solution for the business problems identified by the BA and will write technical specs that will be turned into software.

In general that is the borders of the roles. I am a TA that works closely with the BA and PM on different projects. I have never heard of a workflow analyst but as workflows can happen in both the technical and business documentation is sounds like a subset of both peoples jobs.

ballooba

WhiteWashMan wrote:

while you have a point, the fact of the matter is that if there are not a lot of jobs that you want to do in a local area, then if you really want to do it, then you have to move.

Can't argue with the logic. It's the delivery that I didn't agree with.

Some people have commitments outside of work that are more important than work. Some managers might have trouble getting their head round that but if they have a family then they probably wouldn't.

Thanks for those posts lads. Some food for thought their. Might forward this thread on to my sis. She's quite busy at work at the mo so probably couldn't be surfing boards.

For the Prince 2 course would you need to be particularly technical?

ballooba

Jaggiebunnet, is your background technical or business?

WhiteWashMan

ballooba wrote:

Some people have commitments outside of work that are more important than work. Some managers might have trouble getting their head round that but if they have a family then they probably wouldn't.

and thats fine. its the difference between a job and a career.
some people have trouble getting their minds around that as well. just be careful, because people dont automatically have the right to a job.

ballooba wrote:

For the Prince 2 course would you need to be particularly technical?

not in the slightest. its about putting a set of proceedures in place for a set time, and working your proposal into those proceedures.

jaggiebunnet wrote:

A business anaylst is what the title says. They anaylse the business requirements and map out the "as is" business processes and the the "to be" business processes. They assist in change management throughout the lifecycle of the project and generally should understand the job as well as the people doing the job.

The project manager is responsible for managing the project, but does not get involved in the anaylsis side, this is not to say that someones roles will not overlap, but by definition a project manager is again just that, someone who manages the project.

A technical anaylst will provide a technical solution for the business problems identified by the BA and will write technical specs that will be turned into software.

In general that is the borders of the roles. I am a TA that works closely with the BA and PM on different projects. I have never heard of a workflow analyst but as workflows can happen in both the technical and business documentation is sounds like a subset of both peoples jobs.

while i dont think anyone would disagree with what you are saying, also be careful that a company does reserve the rigt to make a complete arse of naming a job.

like i said, ive met a loads of business analysts, and all they are, are uppity sales people, without the sales skills.
bit like marketing people

Third_Echelon

ballooba wrote:

Em.. with respect.. that's a pretty blinkered view on the world.

There is life outside Dublin. Just because you choose to live your life that way doesn't mean that other people's way of life is wrong. If you had simply said:

Then it would kinda make sense.

Hey, no offence intended. You didn't provide any background to your sister's other activities that would prevent this. She is restricting her options by ruling Dublin out. Plain and simple.

I was just telling you how it is. You aren't really going to find that type of work in meath. Believe me, I've tried and its not there.

ballooba

Third_Echelon, No offence taken. Just two different opinions.

What jaggiebunny talks about there is probably what I had in mind.

RicardoSmith

I worked with a small IT company for a while that had a specialised software product. The majority of their customers were in Ireland but outside of Dublin. I was surprised at this initially. But when you think about it. 2/3s of the population live outside of Dublin and that means theres a bigger market outside of Dublin than in Dublin.

One thing they look for in a BA is 3-4 yrs experience, usually specific to the business area or technology involved. I've never heard of a graduate being employed as one.

ballooba

I'm currently pursuing other interests. As per another thread. For my sis I'm looking at the the mo.

Our family business operates for the most part outside dublin and is a market leader in it's field. We prefer to stay outside the capital due to labour costs, logistics and property prices. Out of 6 premises only 2 are within Dublin county and they are well outside the city. Our customer base, manufacturing industry, are generally not in the big cities.

jaggiebunnet

WhiteWashMan wrote:

while i dont think anyone would disagree with what you are saying, also be careful that a company does reserve the rigt to make a complete arse of naming a job.

like i said, ive met a loads of business analysts, and all they are, are uppity sales people, without the sales skills.
bit like marketing people

I couldn't agree more. I have heard of the head of the project management team being called the "project manager manager"

ballooba wrote:

Jaggiebunnet, is your background technical or business?

Bit of both over my career but very much in the technical arena now although I have to work closely with the BA's. A couple of friends are BA's too as is my wife and these are all across different industries. The common thing that comes to the fore is the knowledge of the business and ability to interact with people to extract the knowledge of the processes that users sometimes just don't want to give up.

WhiteWashMan

jaggiebunnet wrote:

The common thing that comes to the fore is the knowledge of the business and ability to interact with people to extract the knowledge of the processes that users sometimes just don't want to give up.

exactly