What tools do I consider the most important for a business analyst to do the job well?
Hi,
It largely depends on what tool your project is using. Agile projects are becoming more prevalent and Jira is widely used.Jira as we all know walks us through all phases of Agile from Spirnt planning to delivery. I worked in a project where we did project tracking with help of JIRA.
MS VISO : It is one of the widely used tool which enables mapping of project requirements ,data and ensures project tracking.It provides a feature called Process maps that is very useful in modeling the business process flow. UML and other context diagrams are available but I am not sure if these diagrams are still being used in many projects.
Wireframes: It is a great a tool. It helped me effectively to provide the protype of the project and present the Visual of the requirements. It also provides a clear picture of functionality of the application with user interaction.
There are many other tools available but it all depends on the what the project stakeholders are using or recommending to use.
Let's consider the role of a BA first, after that we can dive deeper into tools & techniques.
Conclusion
As a modern BA you must be aware of at least 1 wireframe tool, many requirement gathering techniques, and at least 1 project management tool. I personally recommend Axure RP, Jira & Trello tools and JAD Sessions, Brainstorming, relevant product analysis techniques.
These roles may differ from organization to organization, so feel free to add/remove them.
I would also suggest a Qualitative Data analysis tool for idendifying "Hotspots" for change.
https://www.qsrinternational.com/nvivo-qualitative-data-analysis-software/home
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