As a hiring manager of a Business Analysis team for a medium-sized company, I originally stumbled into the position of a Business Analyst and, eventually, 20 years later into being the manager of such a team. I am by no means a guru on the subject, and I continually learn (like spending this glorious Sunday afternoon reading articles on Modern Analyst). I agree with a posting by Chris Adams earllier in this thread. Companies that do not know they need to change or want to improve themselves but do not know how to, do not know the first thing about business analysis or the value of having at least one business analyst. Most BA's are seen as those "efficiency experts" from the early 1980's that walked around the company with a clipboard checking on the "efficiency" of every employee and every process. Those people left a bad taste in my mouth and gave BA's a bad name. In addition, some companies or organizations do not have enough competition in their niche to warrant prodding them closer to the edge of the abyss. I once worked at a company where a senior executive pinned organizations against each other to see who would survive; needless to say, my team survived because we asked questions.
I originally became an unofficial and uncertified business analyst when I asked my first "how come...?" question to a member of the senior management team. He stared at me in amazement and then wondered the same thing "how come we....?" One question led to another and I was officially moved into a role that today resembles that of a Business Analyst, but for which there was no official title in my company. Today, many Business Analysts are required to masquerade in other roles because their companies don't have the official "Business Analyst" or "IT Business Analyst" position in their repetoire of personnel titles. I started as an "Automation Projects Manager" because "Business Analyst" was to scary a term for our executive team, i.e they felt threatend by someone who may know more than they did about running a business. However, in my role, I got to ask the tough questions, "how come we do this in this way and not that way?", "why are we spending money on...?", "why do we not do it like that other fortune 100 company does it?", "why does our payroll equal our revenue on a regular basis?".
I much prefer to hire the "Junior Business Analyst" for a number of reasons:
1) They are less set in their ways
2) They are less likely to preach the BABOK to me or my executive team
3) They can be molded into the company culture
4) They do not come in looking for a problem for their solution
5) They ask many questions that keep me on my toes
6) They don't irritate the executive team members with their "I know it all" attitude
I don't have openings for a junior staff member today, but I am always scouting talent on the job boards. I have specific requirements for the person's resume (content and format). I also have an elaborate selection process to ensure I am getting someone who can perform the most basic skills of a BA even if they have not held this position formally anywhere before. The most basic skill requirement in my book is the ability to ask questions. A BA who does not ask questions, pointed questions, thoughtful questions, questions that make all the wheels in my head stop, is not the BA candidate for my shop. You have to be a pain in the question to work for me. My selection process is 8 hours long - if you don't ask at least one question every five minutes during that process, then you do not qualify to work on my team. I don't care if you are the godfather of Agile or the guru of use cases. My team's job is help the company continually learn, grow, adapt, stay agile, and be an indispensible value to its internal and external stakholders; my team's job is not to be paper pushers.
Junior analysts start out by asking a simple question to a problem everyone else has been pondering but ignoring or pondering but afraid to confront. Even if it is a free gig, find an opportunity to help someone improve anything. Maybe the store owner in your town does not understand why a certain product is not selling from their store; maybe the church group wants to host a talent show but does not know how to go about organizing the event; maybe the local school wants to host a special event but does not have anyone interested in being the head organizer.
Bottomline = don't wait for someone to create the Junior BA position - make the position yourself.
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