How to become a business analyst with no experience?
Getting started
Before we move on to potential career paths, it’s important to have a good understanding of what business analysts (BAs) are and what they do:
What is a business analyst?
In a nutshell, BAs use data to improve the productivity of a business. Through the use of tools, techniques and software, they look at business needs and current operations, then figure out how to improve the business so that it can achieve its’ goals.
What do business analysts do?
BAs work as the middle-man between the ‘techy’ side of business and management. Modern enterprises rely heavily on software and information to do business. Those in leadership positions may lack the time or technical skills required to collect and understand all the information floating around.
BAs work to capture this information and present it to managers in a way that is easy to understand. One day you might choose to interview customers for feedback, another day you might look at finances and expenditures to ensure money is being invested wisely.
BAs are also tasked with distilling this information into easily understood reports. You might choose to use pie-charts, flow-graphs or other visual tools. Doing so in a way that is simple, while not accidentally excluding an important facet of information, is another important skill of the business analyst.
BA responsibilities
- Requirements Gathering.
- Requirements modelling.
- Requirements documentation.
- Requesting functional changes.
- Testing functional changes.
- User Acceptance Test (UAT) co-ordination.
- Liaising with technical teams.
Data analysts
While business analysts generally focus on gathering information through communicating with clients, stakeholders and customers, data analysts generally acquire information through, you guessed it – data.
Business analysts don’t require programming skills (although they definitely look good on a CV if you do). Data analysts however, operate within highly technical departments and are usually more skilled than the IT developers they work alongside.
Data analysts require strong technical skills whereas business analysts require strong leadership and communication skills.
