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How to start your career as a Business Analyst
We recently had the honor of gaining insights from Nthatisi Seboka, a Senior Business Analyst at CyberPro Consulting. In her role, she provides immense value to her organization by deeply understanding business needs and objectives. She then assists the business in adding value and attaining goals, either by creating solutions that meet customer needs or helping the business reach certain targets.
According to Simplilearn, a business analyst bridges gaps between business stakeholders and technology teams. Key responsibilities include:
- Eliciting, analyzing and documenting business requirements
- Translating requirements into specifications for technical teams
- Designing solutions that meet business needs
- Serving as a liaison between business and technical groups
- Creating process flows, use cases and other documentation
- Assisting with project planning and management
- Participating in testing and ensuring solution quality
- Identifying process improvements
Qualifications often include a bachelor’s degree, business analysis experience, analytical and communication skills, and familiarity with requirement gathering techniques, process modeling and software development lifecycles. Certifications like CBAP are advantageous.
Simply put, Nthatisi’s responsibilities include:
- Gathering business requirements
- Analyzing business requirements
- Transforming requirements through modeling techniques
- Communicating solution points to build solutions that meet business needs
Nthatisi has always been an analytical and solution-driven person. Coding and programming were her secondary passions. In 2013, a mentor suggested she try a business analyst role. After researching the responsibilities, she decided to put some basic skills into practice on her team. She started with a gap analysis.
Today, her responsibilities look much different than in 2013. She has mastered gap analysis and now spends her time actively listening, communicating with stakeholders, and documenting and testing solutions. In her current project, a typical day involves data analysis and transforming data into meaningful insights for business decisions.
Over the years, Nthatisi has developed invaluable skills for her role. She believes an Advanced Certificate in Business Analysis lays a solid foundation on fundamentals. She’s become an active listener – to understand problems and solutions, you need to listen to understand, not just respond. Communication is critical; you need strong skills as a communicator, facilitator and with people. Critical thinking assists with process modelling, data visualization, decision making and problem solving.
To stay updated on industry trends, Nthatisi joined several Business Analyst communities on social media. These help her stay current on business analysis and data analysis tools and techniques.
During her career, Nthatisi faced challenges that led to greater success. One was managing stakeholder expectations around prioritizing features and deliverables. Every stakeholder sees their work as high priority. Making them understand other features may be more important or valuable can be difficult. To overcome this, she uses Agile methodology to achieve business buy-in.
For anyone interested in a Business Analysis career, Nthatisi suggests:
- Take an introductory course like Simplilearn’s Business Analysis Basics
- Complete short BA courses through Getsmart
- Join BA communities to learn day-to-day responsibilities
- Determine if the role aligns with your passions for solutions and meeting business needs
Nthatisi exemplifies a skilled business analyst who loves providing solutions and delivering value through meeting business needs. Her insights provide helpful guidance for aspiring analysts looking to follow a similar career path.
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