Hi folks,
Would appreciate some career advice from anyone that can help. I recently started into a two-year BA role in a not-for-profit organisation that I have worked in for a number of years. The vast majority of my time will be consumed with mapping business processes and working on process improvements as part of a new QMS, workingwith various teams in the organisation, and then working with the system heads to automate what we can. I'm concious however that I have limited technical and 'systems' proficiency (I come from the business side of the house with an original degree in business). If I seek to move on from this organisation in two years, I fear I won't have sufficient technical know-how for many positions. Many job descrptions seem to still demand a level of software development knowledge, SQL, etc (at least here in Ireland). While you could argue that this doesn't strictly fall within the domain of the BA role, at the same time, I don't want to curtail my opportunities. I was considering a part-time diploma in software development to beef up things up on that side. Before committing to it though (and it is a commitment: every second evening for 4 hours along with outside project work), and quenching any semblance of a social life, I wonder can anyone offer up some advise if this is the right path or lessons from past experience?
Gullivar
In my opinion, if you really want to pursue a BA career, part of it would be choosing an organization where you can really grow in that career path. It also really depends on the organization's understanding of what and who a BA should be. Since a BA will interact with the development team, but will not be mainly doing the development work (well I hope not), I don't think you need to study software development, but more of the concepts related to it example Object Oriented design or programming concepts. This would help you understand how developers think to help in the communication process. If technical skills are really needed, (again it will be your choice to take that on or not), these skills can be learned over time or on the job. There are also a lot of online courses available that should be sufficient to address the skill gap.
Hope this helps!
If you want additional help with your technical knowledge, you should invest in yourself. There are a lot of self pace elearning sites currently available that can help you advance your career.
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