The Job of a Business Analyst

A business analyst is one of the key personnel in any organization. The job of a Business Analyst is thus an important one that concerns the organizations’ business at heart, and the client or the customer’s best interests at the other end. The Business Analyst plays the role of an intermediary between both these two entities, and thus ends with the favorable result of solving the end customer or client’s problems to his complete satisfaction at the same time taking care of the organization’s profitability.

How exactly does a Business Analyst function as an intermediary?

A Business Analyst (BA) is essentially performing the role of an intermediary in his capacity as a Business Analyst. His role is to create and act as a smooth and efficient interface between the end user (the client/ customer of the business) and the technical team comprising of the Computer Science and Information technology engineers who are performing the core task of creating and developing software for the end user of the client, as per his desired requirements and needs. It would be appropriate to say that a Business Analyst works as a bridge that gaps the needs of the clients and the functions of the software developers, on a particular project, designated for that client, in the company.

The Business Analyst carries out his functions in such a manner, that the client needs are fully understood in detail, and so are the software developers’ problems. The Business Analyst is required to understand the needs of the client, for that he may require examining the current processes in the client’s company and then drafting a document detailing the future requirements and needs of the client.

The Business Analyst is essentially a person who understands both the aspects of the business. The technical aspect that concerns the software developers functions in the company and the customer service aspect of the business that concerns the client of the company. Thus, after making the draft that specifies the needs of the client, he has to be able to translate it into a way of making the software developers understand the needs in a technical format. Once the document in words is ready, he may need to write use cases. (Simply, put, use cases describe the system from the user’s point of view) in a language that the technical developers may understand so as to grasp the client’s requirements and needs better.

The technical team of software developers and coders then analyses the use cases sent by the Business Analyst and then writes the functional specifications and the technical specifications as per the project. The software team then has the task of coding of the project. The software engineers and programmers develop the programming codes of the project, and then the program developed (code developed) is checked and tested for bugs and errors. This phase is called as ‘Software Testing’ and it is one of the crucial phases of the project. The software is tested and checked for bugs and once fully resolved, to the client’s satisfaction, does the developer’s job end.

Thus the Job of a Business Analyst requires understanding the project from both the client who is the end user’s point of view and the software developers’ point of view who actually develop the project for the client.