Business Analyst Skills - Top 10 Cont.

6.0 Hard Work

A hard working BA can reduce your workload and any confusion caused dramatically. Basically you want one who is not a clock watcher and who will put in the hours required to get the result desired. This in turn translates into someone who turns things such as change requests or requirements gathering around fast.

7.0 Willing to get Their Hands Dirty

This is a key business analyst skill as quite frankly you don’t want a prima donna on your project. There are after all BA's who are only willing to do the interesting work rather than any work they feel is beneath them. This would include things such as occassionally minuting meetings, or even sometimes chairing them. On a project everyone has to muck in, and your BA should be no exception.

8.0 Common Sense

You might be surprised at this one, and 10 years ago this skill wouldn't have even made it onto this list because quite frankly everyone automatically had it. Sadly nowadays it is all too rare a skill, which is why if you have a BA on your project with common sense you are in luck. You should end up with a cleaner, simpler and quicker solution to implement.

9.0 Technical

This certainly isn't a pre-requisite but since I am usually involved with IT projects and consider myself to be technical, for me this is an important business analyst skill to have. And if you aren't technical then it is even more vital that your BA is.

The reason being that a BA is supposed to be a translator between technology and business resources. But how can they do this effeciively if they only really understand what one half is talking about?

Lastly when I say technical, I don't mean they need to be able to write code or set up a network, but certainly for me at least they need to have enough understanding to take on board high level technical concepts and architecture.

10.0 A Good Listener

I know of too many BA's who railroad business sponsors into accepting requirements which they want, rather than what the business wants. This happens all too frequently when the BA has been at the Organisation for a long period of time and as a result forgets that they are not the project sponsor.

You therefore need a Business Analyst who is prepared to listen to what the business wants, and document it accordingly.

Please click here for Business Analyst Skills Points 1-5.

Business Analyst Skills - Tip

I find the choice of BA on a project to be absolutely vital to the success of a project. Ensuring you have a good understanding of what the role of a business analyst is coupled with finding those with a good range from the list of business analyst skills above should ensure a much more straight forward project management lifecycle.

Finally just remember that if you find a BA with all the skills above, but who is someone you don't get one with, try to find a way to put your personal feelings to one side. It may be hard but the effort you make will be repaid in spades later on.