Friday, April 09, 2010

What Is A Business Analyst?

This discussion came up on one of the group discussions I follow on LinkedIn and thought that this would be a good subject for a blog entry as well. (For all of you who have ever wondered what I do, this blog's for you!)

I have struggled with this same issue for the past seven years myself. I used to take the easy way out and just say "I design computer software" when people asked what I did. But that was not really the answer to the question was it? I mean, that's not really the function of a BA.

The answer has evolved of late to "I study how people want to use the systems they have and/or how they want to use the systems they want designed. I then translate that into technical geek-speak so that programmers can make the computers do it."

I then usually go on to use the example of the old I Love Lucy episode where Lucy gets arrested in Italy and nobody there speaks English so they find a person who speaks Italian and Spanish and then they get him to tell Ricky what the problem is so that Ricky can explain it to Lucy.

That is what a Business Analyst does. Translates the needs of the user into a usable format so that it can be understood and translated into computer code. In my example, the user is the Italian policeman, I am the guy who speaks Italian and Spanish, The programmer is Ricky, and the computer is Lucy. The user tells me what they want; I understand it and translate it into a set of instructions sufficiently detailed that the programmer can understand the desired outcome. The programmer then translates that into code. The computer then can do what the user wants to do.

"But couldn't the programmer just get the instruction directly from the user?" is the usual next question. They could, I suppose, if the user were sufficiently advanced in their way of thinking to be able to define exactly what they want so that the programmer can act on it; or if the programmer was able to perform the role of the BA and translate the needs of the user into what the actual affect of the request is.

A user may say that they want a button added to a screen to perform a given action. Very few users would know to ask "What are the rules behind when the button should be active? What would happen to the underlying data if the control were to be used at a time which was not appropriate?" And other important questions.

The programmer unless they are trained in the field of business analysis gets a request to add a button to a screen and thinks: "That means I need to persist the button to the display and hook it to the underlying function called."

The business analyst thinks: "What is the desired outcome of having this button there? What are the business rules that control whether the button is active? What are the potential problems with this solution? Are there other ramifications within the system of this new feature?"

Business Analysis is a necessary function to modern software development.

Wherever you are, I hope I have brought a little light and enlightenment to your day today!

Don Bergquist - April 09, 2010 - Lakewood, Colorado, USA

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So it sounds like you couldn't really work all by yourself on a contract basis. Is it true that you would need a partner who was a programmer?

Anonymous Reader

Unknown said...

Dear Anonymous Reader,

Thank you for reading and commenting on my blog. Generally, a Business Analyst could not work alone. Unless, as I mentioned, the Business Analyst is also a skilled programmer.

Generally a BA is engaged by a company who already has development or by a client who wishes to work with a developer.

I suppose that a BA and a developer could team-up to create a development company, but yes. Alone, a BA can analyze the business of the client and define the requirements that need to be developed but not actually implement them.

That is, the case for a BA working in the field of software development. BAs working in other roles (say the service industry, manufacturing, or other areas of endeavor) may be able to affect changes directly, that is, however, not my area of expertise.

Thanks again for reading and commenting on my blog.

Don