1. What is Business Analysis and Who is Business Analyst?

As per IIBA, Business Analysis is the practice of enabling change in an organizational context,
by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.

One should not restrict the BA role to only being a link between Non-It and IT or only for
development projects. A BA is someone who is able to bring in improvements, changes
(technology, process, people etc.) in an efficient manner. So a BA could be part of the marketing
team who helps the marketing team in providing estimates/high level solutions for a said project
which is under the process of procurement. Or he could be someone involved during the
Requirement gathering/analysis once the project is initiated. Or he could be someone who brings
profit to the company by performing process improvement activities ROIs at process level.
Last but not the least BAs could be domain specific as well.

2. What is the career path for a Business Analyst?

A Business Analyst in the IT field has many varied directions among which to choose a career
path. The most direct would lead to a Lead Business Analyst position and then Project Manager
whereby the incumbent manages projects through the entire lifecycle from inception to post-
implementation including the management of business analysts system analysts quality
assurance analysts and most likely development project managers or team leads. That path would
then lead to Program Management perhaps PMO management or Product Manager and on to
Directorship. In addition a good Business Analyst may find they are heading toward a Customer
Relationship Manager position whereby they become the primary IT interface to a given
Business Unit (BU). This role most often leads to a position within the BU as a Manager of
Applications or a Process Management role. Process Management opens many jobs including
process re-engineering quality program development and large scale or enterprise process
management programs such as ITIL or Six Sigma initiatives. These roles will continue to
proliferate as companies realize the benefits of having a SME in process and quality. And still
many Business Analysts find their understanding of business process entirely portable into
purely system related positions in the business side that are only peripherally related to IT. These
of course may lead to quantitative roles manager roles or operational roles such as supply chain
logistics et cetera.Of central importance to a successful Business Analyst is the interest in
speaking to people. Face to face verbal communication is paramount to support other tools such
as surveys and diagrams. Incumbents must be interested in understanding not only the pieces that
comprise a system but the people that comprise it and the realities that embrace the system.
Briefly the Business Analyst must understand and not judge the what should be and the what is.