Happy Valentines’ Day! This year my daughter went ALL OUT on her Valentine’s Day cards for her pre-school class, using stickers, stamps, and even some glitter to make each card unique and then carefully writing her name.
While it’s difficult to send you glitter (and you are probably grateful for this – seriously, we are still finding glitter all over the house), I can sprinkle a little love by helping you appreciate the work you get to do as a business analyst.
Here are 8 things (plus a bonus!) to love about a career in business analysis:
#1 – You get to make the world a better place. If you can solve even just a few problems and help a few people understand each other better, you’ll have done your good work for the day.
#2 – You get to help smart people communicate. There’s no doubt that you work with some awesome people. Yet, without your help, they still seem to talk past each other. As a business analyst, you get to jump right in and facilitate some amazing, collaborative working sessions.
#3 – You get to ask the tough questions. Seriously, you get paid to ask the difficult, challenging questions that no one else wants to ask to make sure that the project goes more smoothly and truly solves the underlying business problem.
#4 – You don’t have to be super techy. Sure, you like to understand how the latest and greatest systems work, but you don’t have to code them or even understand them in a super-detailed way. (You get to use analysis skills like use cases, wireframes, and data models instead.)
#5 – You get to learn. Business analysts never stop learning. New domains. New stakeholders. New techniques. New approaches. There is always something new and interesting to do around the next project corner.
#6 – There is no shelf-life on your skills. But at the same time, the business analyst skills you build like facilitating, problem solving, and leadership will serve you in your life-long career. The facilitation technique you learned as a junior BA can be just as applicable on your 100th project as it was on your 1st.
#7 – The salaries are rising. Consistently. The most recent salary survey (which is getting a little dated) showed average salaries upwards of $90K in the US for mid-to-senior level business analysts.
#8 – The role is on a rising tide. Every day, the business analyst job role is becoming more widely recognized, the opportunities are growing, and the role is expanding. Yet, as a profession, business analysis is still new enough that you’ll be starting when things are fresh.
BONUS #9 – You are creating a career safety net. Whatever shifts happen in the workforce, you are building skills and career experiences that future employers will always value.
There will always be needs for your skills as a communicator, problem solver, and keen ability to transform ambiguity into clarity, no matter what title you are given or what specific responsibilities you have.
What do you love about business analysis?
Thanks for this list! It made my day 🙂
Fantastic list and so true! I’m going to pin this up at my desk. Two more of my personal favorites to add:
10 – You get to dream and create. Organizations that use Business Analysis depend on you to solve problems and sift through the mess of information to identify what’s really important to the business and build a castle on that foundation. You draw pictures of those insights to communicate them in new ways, which shares that vision with your stakeholders – enabling them to dream and create, too!
11 – You help others embrace change. Modern business is evolving quickly and your organization has to change to compete. It can be a scary time for people around you, and you are there to keep the business objective in view. You add a sense of security to the people around you by expecting difficulties and tackling them proactively and compassionately.
These are great ones. Thanks for adding them Melissa!
All of the above are true, especially #1 which led me to change my profession:)
Hey!
Nice article as it provides us the information about the benefits of having a career in business analysis. The points are very well illustrated and catch a lot of attention.
Business analysis also helps in finding great ideas which can lead to the improvement of the business and I agree that it not requires you to be super techy. Having knowledge on how latest systems work is enough.
Regards
Tyler
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Great article, thanks for sharing, my favourite are the first four points!!!
Completely agree with you. Thanks for sharing.
Nice post..
It is an informative post, all the points are explained really well. Business analysis has become vital for almost every business nowadays.
Business owners prefer Analysts with IT knowledge more as they can understand system well.