The Business Analyst Role Made Easy: A Quick Hands-On Startup Guide for Career Growth in the IT Field of Business Analysis ( Related to Software Requirements ... Improvements ) (Business Analyst Briefs)

Book Overview:
BA Role Made Easy is exactly what the title conveys—a quick startup guide for anyone who wants to grow into the highly demanding and well compensated field of Business Analysis. Literally anyone from a school student to an experienced Business Analyst will be able to understand and benefit from this book.

While many books explore the BA role with a multitude of tools, such as flow charts and use case diagrams, this book uses a radically different approach. All you need is your head, this book, pencil, and paper. Business Analysis isn’t rocket science, and this book will help you cultivate the skills you need for the highly demanding role of Business Analyst. As you commence this exciting adventure, you will take on the role of an analyst, a detective, and a software program designer.

Even experienced BA’s sometimes find themselves producing a product that does not meet their customer’s expectations. I don’t offer any templates in this book on asking the right questions to your customers, because I feel that in essence, you must cultivate the right frame of mind to deeply and honestly understand the customer’s problems. To assist in this endeavor, in this book you will be engaged in a dialog between Joe, the Business Analyst, and his client, Momma Jill, the owner of a small pizzeria restaurant. While reading the script, you will start to understand who Joe is and how he thinks! That’s the key! You will cultivate deeper thinking skills, the gears in your own mind will click in a more vibrant way, and you will start to understand exactly what the BA role entails. This is as close to Hands-On Business Analysis as you can get in a stand-alone book!

You, the reader, are going to take on the role of Joe, a Business Analyst with the Horizon Solutions Group—a fictitious consulting company that designs computer programs. Your job will be to understand the customer’s problems and formulate technologic solutions with the customer.

The book is written in a casual, first-person tense, as I hope to be your personal guide through this exciting and rewarding journey.

Although this volume is second in a series of books dedicated to the BA role, both books are unique and can be read in any order. While the first book, Business Analyst Quick Start Guide, is dedicated to quickly sharing core BA tools, this book is dedicated to enrich the reader with valuable communication and analytical skills. Such skills are not taught! Rather, such skills will be cultivated through the text of this book by allowing the reader to step into the shoes of a good business analyst.

The book is designed not only for those who are considering a career as a Business Analyst, but also for those who are already experienced. Organizations can also benefit from this short start-up manual, by providing a training platform for employees moving into the BA role—a role that is sometimes filled through internal promotions due to difficulties in finding talent within the market.

In the real world, the BA role is often very inconsistent. Sometimes formal tools are used, sometimes they aren’t. That’s a blessing for someone who would like to get into the role.

Indeed, you might find yourself doing the job of a BA, and not use standard BA tools at all. This book will help you. You can get right into the crux of what the BA does, without getting too deep into the tools. This helps anybody who might be intimidated by tools to get a jumpstart into the BA role. Indeed, tools are not that bad. Once you finish this book, you might consider reading my first book, BA Quick Start Guide—that book delves less on the communication aspect, and shows the reader how to use BA tools (flow charts and use-cases).

If you have questions as you are reading or if you find mistakes in the book, please contact me at [email protected]. Your feedback may help improve the product.