What is the main role of a business analyst?
Imagine you have a box full of your favourite wool and you want to make a scarf from it. The only problem is that the wool is all tangled. It’s an absolute mess. And you know each string is important but can’t make heads or tails of where the one strand starts and the other ends.
Imagine your scarf represents the successful business about which you dream and the tangled wool depicts important, but terribly inefficient businesses systems.
That inefficiency is getting in the way of excellence.
Not all is lost though. There’s a tidy way to sort out the mess.
That’s where the process of business and systems analysis comes in.
What is a business analyst?
Business systems analysis is the process of evaluating, optimising and developing the systems in a company. The main task of a business systems analyst is to make sure the processes in a company are working in the best way to ensure maximum efficiency.
What does a business analyst do?
The business analyst investigates the practical systems and protocols in a company and considers how well they are working and whether they can be improved. If any systems are outdated and are an obstacle to efficient work, the business analyst will identify whether they should be removed and new systems developed to replace them.
It’s the responsibility of the business analyst to liaise with clients to ensure that the systems are aligning with both their requirements as well as the company’s.
What are the main responsibilities of a business analyst?
Depending on their exact role, an excellent business analyst has a number of different tasks to perform. Often the analyst will be involved in every step of the process of a system; from planning the blueprint of a model to the development of the new system as well as the evaluation process to ensure that the system is performing as it should.
The main responsibilities of a business analyst include:
Identifying any problems in the business systems which might be hindering productive workflow.
- Working with systems designers and developers to create new business systems.
- Evaluating the performance of all processes and systems.
- Communicating with clients in order to understand their requirements.
- Liaising with industry experts and researchers to discover the best solution for any problems.
- Research new information related to the business systems to stay up to date on the industry.
Business systems analysis using the 5W and 1H approach
One of the major responsibilities of a business analyst is to discover and resolve any issues in the business systems. One of the most practical methods to identify solutions to problems in a business is to tackle the issue with the ‘5W and 1H’ approach. This technique questions what the problem is as follows:
The 5Ws and 1H:
- What?
What is the problem with the system?
What is going wrong?
What systems are involved?
What are possible solutions that are quickly presented?
- Why?
Why is this system important to fix?
Why is there an issue?
- Who?
Who is involved – is the customer affected or is it an internal issue that needs resolving?
Who might have caused the issue?
Who can fix the problem?
- When?
When was the issue discovered?
When did it start?
- Where?
Where is the issue?
How?
How did the issue arise?
How long has it been an issue?
How can it be fixed?
Using this approach is not as simple as asking questions however. One needs to know what to do with that information in order to solve the problem effectively. The details of this technique – as well as deeper insight into the industry – can be learnt in Business and Systems short courses.
