What Does a Technical Business analyst do?

The duties of a true business analyst are more often ill-understood or rather misunderstood. Technology plays a major role in business operations. It does not, however, bridge all the gaps in business. That is where business analysis comes in. Business analysts bridge the valley between business and technology. Different scholars have different definitions of what a business analyst really is and so does the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). Some of the functions stated insist that a business analyst is an agent, suited with specific knowledge and confines important formal education.

For one to understand the term business analyst, it is key to define analysis itself. The analysis is a detailed information on the structures or elements of something. An analyst core objective is to convert unknown entities so they become known entities. We tend to find a similarity between an analyst and a doctor. The same way as a doctor carries out diagnostic tests to find out an unknown disease that a patient is suffering from, so does an analyst discovers and examines the unknown factors which define a problem faced by a business.

A true business analyst has certain features which make their analysis excellent. They must be able to draw relevant from irrelevant information and think critically with a perfect analytical approach. It is important that they be able to use minimal resources but obtain maximum and most efficient solutions. They should also be intelligently curious and inspired. It is important to understand the definition of the term business analyst so that we are aware of their influence in business.

A kick-ass business analyst must be, first and foremost, a critical thinker. He or she must abide by logic and be driven by facts. Secondly, they must be able to put in place efficient communication between departments and people involved in the business. Lack of this skill may cause business failure led by poor business analysis. It is important to be intelligently concerned. Concern makes an analyst find the roots of a certain problem and discover their possible solutions.

A good business analyst must be an expert in what they are dealing with. They must be fully aware of what their roles in business are and what is expected of them. They must be fully aware of the simplest methods of solving expected abnormalities. Some of the things an analyst is supposed to be aware of include business domain, business analysis practice, project management practice, and change management practice. Relationship is very influential when it comes to business analysis. A business analyst must major in making friends rather than foes. They should have the ability to turn potential business foes into allies because they act on behalf of the business. A kick-ass business analyst must perform beyond expectations. They are supposed to contain a certain feature that makes them unique. In other terms, their performance should go above and beyond their expected range.

In the world today, there is quite a wide range of job market for business analysts in modern organizations. This defines the complexity of the nature of modern organizations. For products to be unique, organizations have to come up with structured complex layouts and try to bring about a complex IT landscape. The given complexities have to be solved in two given levels; business analyst and technical business analyst. A business analyst comprehends business alteration need, examines the effect of those alterations, inspect and record the necessities and facilitating the arrival of the necessities with appropriate stakeholders. On the other hand technical business analysts document the redesign of computer systems, applications and puts in place procedures so that informed analysis can be provided on business systems and applications. The two levels are used distinctively depending on the kind of task that arises at a given time.

Formally the technical business analyst was found in the Information Technology department. They are known to integrate business knowledge and system analysis expertise. They are majorly instilled with technological knowledge. However they apply technical knowledge to come up with business solutions. They focus mainly on looking for opportunities to improve businesses processes. That can be made possible when they use technology to identify the problems faced by the enterprise and come up with efficient technological solutions to aid these problems. Most modern businesses prefer to use technology in running their activities. Therefore, to be termed as successful, it is vital for a technical business analyst to have business knowledge and be an expert in system analysis.

The function of a technical business analyst is to bridge between business and technical teams. This can be undertaken in various forms. First, the bridging can be done by translating business requirements into technical artifacts. The analyst must be able to assess the business and note the basic requirements of that particular business at that given time. Using their skilled knowledge in technology they must be able to translate the given come up requirements into technological terms. The requirements must, therefore, be taken care of technologically for efficiency and accuracy.

Mostly, the technical teams are not aware of the business language and how to tackle business issues. The technical business analyst must be able to communicate business issues to the technical teams. They must come up with a systematic way that will help the technical teams to understand whatever they are dealing with in any case. At the same time, he or she has to come up with solutions to business problems and communicate with teams on how to implement them. The analyst must at the same time be capable of conducting a system impact analysis. Whenever one takes a given course of action, there must be a given outcome at the end. Everything done has an impact at the end. The analyst must be capable to conduct an impact analysis before any solution is implemented so as to avoid unnecessary and unexpected abnormalities. They must be able to conduct a pre-assessment on the impact of implementation of various systems.

A technical system analysis must have certain skills to be termed so. The first skill is that they must be able to conduct a system analysis. A system architecture is the concept of a model that shows the behavior, structure and other features of a system. A technical business analyst should be able to analyze system and enterprise architecture. They must be able to interpret the information on the model and have the knowledge to come up with an improved model whenever a requirement arises. It, however, is not necessary for them to be able to design the models themselves. All they need is the knowledge on system architecture.

Data analysis is a process inclusive of data examination, purification, transformation and styling with an objective of locating important information, informing conclusions and reinforcing decision making. It is a must for a technical business analyst to be able to conduct data analysis. They must be able to look at data obtained through the various data collection methods and tell facts from beliefs. Some of the data presented might be faulty. It is important that the analyst be able to correct them when needed.

System integration is the merging of various systems in an enterprise and ensuring that they function as one. System integration analysis, therefore, is the ability to analyze which systems can be brought together and work together perfectly. This is one skill needed by a technical business analyst.

When it comes to delivery, there are some of the things expected of a technical business analyst. The first deliverable expected from a technical business analyst is functional specifications. The technical business analyst must be able to produce data analysis artifacts. They must be able to interpret and design data models and must be able to define all the technical terms used in data analysis. Documentation of system’s and enterprise architecture is another deliverable.

Technical business analysis is an extension of business analysis to manage today’s enterprise complexity. This complexity is manifested in complex and multi levels business processes coupled with a sophisticated enterprise IT landscape. This technical tier of business analysis was created to translate business requirements into technical artifacts closer to a technical audience to comprehend.

Author: Adam Alami, PhD Fellow, IT University of Copenhagen

Adam Alami is a PhD fellow at the IT University of Copenhagen. Adam has a wealth of experience in information technology practices. He started his career as a software developer, then moved to business analysis and project management. His 20 years’ experience revolves around major business transformation projects and process improvement. He accumulated a wealth of cross industry experience in major projects in the areas of Enterprise Transformation, Integration, Migration, and Systems Modernization.