CAEC 11A – Strategic Business Analysis
Module 5 – Business Analyst as the Problem Solver
and how they Evolved
LEARNING
OBJECTIVES
After studying this module, you should be able to:
a. Define the nature of being a Business
Analyst and the context.
b. Recognize the roles and responsibilities of a
Business Analyst
c. Know the main goal of being a Business
Analyst and discover how to be ideal for the
job.
TOPIC
OUTLINE
1. The Business Analyst
a. Define what Business Analyst
b. Understand the context of being a
Business Analyst
2. The Roles and Responsibilities of the
Business Analyst
3. Business Analyst in the Center
4. The Ideal Business Analyst
OVERVIEW
The module contains discussion and information in
relation to the nature of the job of a business
analyst. At the core of a business, the BA serves as
the connecting point between the problem that
Module 5 – Business Analyst as the Problem Solver and how they Evolved| Page 1 of 7
arose within the business and the most viable
solution needed to address that problem.
The BA also performs different tasks throughout the
whole operation of a business. Because of this, the
skills needed by a Business Analyst was included.
Aside from that, job or positions that are performed
by a BA was also mentioned.
The BA role is explained in this instructional
material. Understand that if you acquired a position
someday in a prestigious company, you can also be
a BA so this material can give you an idea of the
nature of this job.
ACTIVATING
PRIOR KNOW LEDGE
Being a business analyst will require a lot of skills for
them to perform their job at an optimum level.
According to the International Institute of Business
Analysis, some of the most important skills and
experience are the following:
• Oral and written communication skills
• Interpersonal and consultative skills
• Facilitation skills
• Analytical thinking and problem solving
• Being detail-oriented and capable of
delivering a high level of accuracy
• Organizational skills
• Knowledge of the business structure
• Stakeholder analysis
• Requirements engineering
• Costs benefit analysis
• Processes modeling
• Understanding of networks, databases, and
other technology
Some of the skills are also necessary for most the
job especially for an individual to stay competitive in
the corporate world.
The activity will be a self-assessment about the level
of the skill that you were at as of the moment. The
objective is to know your weaknesses and strengths
so that you would know what to focus on to develop.
Click here to submit your answer.
BUSINESS ANALYST AS A
PROBLEM SOLVER
The business analyst solves business problems.
They also add up value to the organization. They
don’t do this just by defining the set of requirements
to be complied with. Being a business analyst
means one is in the center of change in the
organization, and there is a danger if it is not
mapped or at the least, a good action plan or a
contingency plan.
The problems of today in terms of the business
organization and the fast-paced business
environment can seem to overwhelm to one who is
lead with solving those problems and keeping up
with the pace. In the event of failure, BA were the
ones who are blamed despite the efforts that they
have exerted.
solutions that enable the organization to achieve its
goals.”
In 2009, the IIBA updated its definition to ‘‘A
business analyst is any person who performs
business analysis activities, no matter what their job
title or organizational role may be.’’ Business
analysis activities involve ‘‘understanding how
organizations function to accomplish their purposes
and defining the capabilities an organization
requires to provide products and services to external
stakeholders. It includes the definition of
organizational goals, how those goals connect to
specific objectives, determining the courses of
action that an organization has to undertake to
achieve those goals and objectives, and defining
how the various organizational units and
stakeholders within and outside of that organization
interact.’’
As a problem solver, a business analyst may use
Matt Fishbeck’s Six-Step Problem Solving
Framework which consists of the following:

The process of solving problems, adapting to

change, and implementing solutions can be made
easier by adopting a systematic approach. An
approach that can be used each and every time and
one gained credibility through successful use in the
past. Systems approaches are used in solving
problems. At the center of it all is the business
analyst.

So what is a business analyst? Why are business

analysts important to an organization? Does
business analysts serve as middlemen, translators,
or conduit within the organization?

As defined by the International Institute of Business

Analysis, “A business analyst works as a liaison
among stakeholders in order to elicit, analyze,
communicate and validate requirements for
changes to business processes, policies, and
information systems. The business analyst
understands business problems and opportunities in
the context of the requirements and recommends

Module 5 – Business Analyst as the Problem Solver and how they Evolved| Page 2 of 7
The stages do not need to be completed
sequentially; the individual stages may be repeated
and be completed in iterations.
Back in 2012, in a book entitled “Business Analysis:
Best Practices for Success” written by Steven P.
Blais, it was described that being a Business Analyst
was a new position in the corporate hierarchy. It
means that the job hasn’t been a decade old yet but
it has high importance in an organization. Business
Analyst has the following qualities:
In a traditional business environment, business
analysts are not defined as position yet. But in
reality, the role of the business analyst is not new
but rather a role played originally by the first
business owners who challenged his staff to come
up with efficient ways to make the job easier. The
roles of business analysts have also been performed
by positions like project managers, systems
analysts, and business managers.
THE ROLE OF THE
BUSINESS ANALYST
The major role of a business analyst is to mainly get
in touch with stakeholders and to elicit, analyze and
Module 5 – Business Analyst as the Problem Solver and how they Evolved| Page 3 of 7
validate the requisites to a business process,
information system, or a set of new policies and
guidelines.
A professional business analyst plays a large part in
making the organization more efficient, productive,
and profitable.
The list below are the priorities of a business
analyst:
• Understand what the business does and
how it does
• Determine how to improve existing business
processes
• Identify the steps or tasks to support the
implementation of new features
• Design the new features to implement
• Analyze the impact of implementing new
features
• Implement the new features
Aside from being a business analyst, their roles are
also categorized into various jobs or positions such
as:
• Business Process Analyst
• IT Business Analyst
• Business System Analyst
• System Analyst
• Data Analyst
• Functional Architect
• Usability or UX (User eXperience) Analyst
LEARNING
ACTIVITY 1
The objective of this activity is to give you an idea of
how a business analyst performs different tasks.
Being a business analyst requires a lot of specialty
and skills.
From the list of jobs or positions stated from the
previous statements, identify the major tasks, and
provide the job description of each.
Submit your answers here.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF
BUSINESS ANALYST
When it comes to responsibilities, the focus of a
business analyst regardless of any industry are:
To validate and develop business requirements are
at the center of a business analyst’s role while
requirements administration is one of the skills a
business analyst is expected to possess.
In connection to requirements, the business analyst
is expected to take lead in the following activities:
• Creating a detailed business analysis,
outlining problems, opportunities, and
solutions for a business
• Budgeting and forecasting
Module 5 – Business Analyst as the Problem Solver and how they Evolved| Page 4 of 7
• Planning and monitoring
• Financial modeling
• Variance Analysis
• Pricing
• Reporting
• Defining business requirements and
reporting them back to stakeholders
A business analyst is expected to develop new
models that underpin sound business decisions in
addition to conducting financial and operational
modeling. A job description for a business analyst
should consider the streamlining and enhancement
of internal and external reporting. The position
should also require a good understanding of
regulatory and reporting requirements as well as
plenty of forecasting, budgeting, and financial
analysis experience in combination with an
understanding of key performance indicators.
LEARNING
ACTIVITY 2
To understand the nature of the activities stated in
connection to being a business analyst, research
what the activities are all about. Provide descriptions
of the following:
• Budgeting
• Forecasting
• Planning
• Monitoring
• Financial Modeling
• Variance Analysis
• Pricing
• Reporting
Remember, the terms are also common in different
areas and disciplines so make sure that the
description you will find is connected to the
business. The description is not limited to the
definition.
Submit your answers here.

BUSINESS ANALYST IN
THE CENTER
The figure below illustrates how a business analyst
serves as the core of a process or a project. It
depicts how it connects between various areas of a
project and how they provide solutions to the
problems encountered by the organization.
Module 5 – Business Analyst as the Problem Solver and how they Evolved| Page 5 of 7
No matter how you look at it, the business will
always be at the center. There are three
communities that the business analyst must deal
with during the project implementation up until its
completion.
Take a moment to the student the flow chart of a
project with a business analyst's involvement.
The business community represents the part of the
firm that is involved with problems to be solved. It
can represent problems in accounting or something
like the collections department.
The business manager is the highest-ranking office
in an organizational structure that is directly
associated with the are of business. An example
would be, if a problem is in the operations
department, the business manager is the operations
manager.
The problem owner is the primary lead contact for
the problem experienced by an organization or
department. The problem owner is in charge to find
a solution to an identified problem in a business
area. The process works on the other hand is anyone
who works with a system or process in question as
included with his/her daily job. Process workers are
also referred to sometimes as users since they are
the ones who are directly using the process that was
established.
The business community will always have problems.
Such problems can arise from new government
regulations, new products from the competition, a
new market to break into, the need to expand sales
and customer support, mergers, acquisitions,
divestitures, and employee turnover.
The development community mostly consists of
information technology personnel but in other
problems that are not IT-based, research and
development are also involved. Developing a new
drug or vaccine is not mainly IT-based but requires
other requirements such as science.
The job of the development community is to ensure
the completion of a successful project. A successful
project is defined as being within budget, meeting
the scheduled deadline, and delivering everything
that was promised for that budget and schedule.
Except for ongoing operations, everything on the
development side is a project. From a project
perspective, the team is not concerned with whether
the result of the project actually solves the problem,
only that the project is a success. The project
manager and solution team rightfully assume that
the business has done due diligence and determined
Module 5 – Business Analyst as the Problem Solver and how they Evolved| Page 6 of 7
that the product to be developed is necessary and
will provide a benefit to the organization. The
solution team’s job is to make it happen within the
budget and timeframe
Upper-level management maps the organization's
strategic course and tracks it. Since projects are
tactical, the specifics of projects usually do not
involve upper-level management. We have a term for
it when upper-level management gets too involved in
the project details: micromanagement. For the
upper-level supervisors who do this kind of stuff,
process employees often have a word, but that word
is best left unsaid.
BUSINESS ANALYST
FOCUS
The business analyst focuses primarily on the
business or example, the business analyst may be
involved in rearranging job descriptions and
reorganizing manual tasks as part of a process
improvement effort, assisting upper-level
management in determining business strategy, or
gathering the information and performing
benchmarks for requests for proposals (RFP).
Regardless, the focus is always on the product, the
solution to the business problem. The ultimate goal
of the business analyst is to solve that business
problem, nothing less. When technology is involved
the business analyst is a member of the solution
team but is still focused on the solution. In many
situations, the business analyst is the only one so
focused.
The truth is that the industry has not really come up
with a standard definition of what a business analyst
does, even with the definitions in the IIBA’s Business
Analyst Body of Knowledge and other sources. This
is because business analysts have come from both
the technical and business sides of organizations
and the role is still evolving), so there has not been
coalescence on a single definition. Here is an
analogy that I think captures the essence of the
business analyst: the business internist.
 usiness-analyst-career/2019/1/26/key-
SUMMARY
responsibilities-of-a-business-analyst

Half, R. (ND). Business Analyst job description guide.

• BA is an important role or job in any
organization even though it was only given
importance much recently compared to
known jobs/positions like CEO, CFO, and
COO. BA was existing prior to the
development of the term but only in terms of
its function.
• The focus of a BA is mainly to provide a
solution to an existing problem or to provide
a solution to a future problem such as an
impending change in the government
regulation or probably a new innovation that
can result in a threat.
• BA is in the center of any organization. They
serve as the connecting point between a
problem and a solution.
Retrieved from
https://www.roberthalf.co.nz/our-
services/finance-accounting/business-
analyst-jobs
Indeed for Employers (ND). What Does a Business
Analyst Do? Roles and Responsibilities.
Retrieved from
https://www.indeed.com/hire/c/info/what-
does-a-business-analysts-do
Villanova University (ND). Business Analysis Career
Path. Retrieved from
https://www.villanovau.com/resources/busin
ess-analysis/business-analyst-career/
Compiled by:

JESUS REMAR C. DASSUN, MBA

REFERENCES Faculty, College of Business Management and
Accountancy
BOOKS

Blais, S. (2012). Business Analysis: Best Practices

for Success. International Institute for
Learning, Inc.

Yayici, E. (2015). Business Analysis Methodology

Book: Business Analyst's Guide to
Requirements Analysis, Lean UX. BA Works
Inspiring Series.

ONLINE

Arora, M. (2020). The Role and Responsibilities of

Business Analyst. Retrieved from
https://arorameghna.medium.com/the-role-
and-responsibilities-of-business-analyst-
a7ddea3c0eff

Business Analyst Learnings (2019). Key

Responsibilities Of A Business Analyst.
Retrieved from
https://www.businessanalystlearnings.com/b

Module 5 – Business Analyst as the Problem Solver and how they Evolved| Page 7 of 7