If you are a passionate business analyst, driven by your work, crafting performance goals can feel challenging, especially when you feel torn between serving your organization and advancing your own career.
However, having a set of goals is critical to taking ownership of your career and making the most of your work.
In this video, Laura dives into the essence of professional development goals for business analysts. You’ll discover how these goals are not just milestones, but catalysts that propel your career forward.
Discover exactly where you stand as a business analyst by taking our FREE BA Skills Assessment. In this free assessment, you will:
- Discover the essential skills to succeed as a business analyst.
- Gain clarity on your strengths and transferable skills.
- Define an action plan to expand your business analyst skill set.
>> Click here to take the FREE BA Skills Assessment <<
Performance Goal #1 – Broaden Your Skills by Using New Techniques
Your experience broadens as you use more techniques. Even if you are working on projects in the same domain, working with the same stakeholders, and using the same methodology, new techniques can help explore the requirements in a new way. And over time, you’ll expand your business analysis skill set.
Consider the following specific goals for your performance plan:
- Use a new elicitation technique to discover or validate the requirements.
- Experiment with a new visual model to clarify a complex concept.
- Consider a new type of requirements document to address a currently unmet need, such as a business process model, scope statement, or use case.
- Earn a business analyst certification.
Participants in The Business Analyst Blueprint® program learn and apply techniques in business process analysis, use cases and wireframes, data modeling, as well as the end-to-end business analysis process.
Download the FREE Business Analyst Skills Assessment
In this FREE assessment, you will:
- Discover the essential skills to succeed as a BA.
- Gain clarity on your strengths and transferable skills.
- Define an action plan to expand your business analyst skill set.
>> Download the Assessment <<
While you can broaden your BA skill set even while working in a consistent BA role, changing things up just about forces you to use or improve your skills. So let’s look at a few ways to change things up.
Performance Goal #2 – Work in a New Domain
Your business analysis skills become more valuable as you learn to work with new stakeholders and gain a broader exposure to new domains. Doing the same type of work, but in a new context, takes your skills to the next level.
For one of your performance goals, look for an assignment in a new business unit, department, or business domain.
Performance Goal #3 – Work in a New Methodology
Working on different types of projects exposes us to new methodologies and types of requirements specifications. It also challenges you to discover the core business analysis principles that are relevant, regardless of what type of project work you are working on.
As a professional development goal, ask to be assigned to project work on a team that uses a different project methodology or tool set to broaden your experience.
Performance Goal #4 – Improve Your Business Analysis Process
With exposure to different projects, stakeholders, domains, and methodologies, you learn what works well and what doesn’t work so well. Often your business analysis process stays the same, even while your work changes and matures. Look for ways to incorporate what you’ve learned into your organization’s BA process so other BAs can benefit from your insights.
Goals in this area could include updating a template, documenting an as is process, or creating a tip sheet.
Not sure how to improve your business analysis process? Here’s a video walking you through the 8-step business analysis process framework we teach at Bridging the Gap.
Performance Goal #5 – Strengthen Stakeholder Relationships
When we have stronger rapport with our stakeholders, it’s easier to get more work done. Â Yet, if we’ve worked in the same organization for awhile, it’s easy to become complacent and rely on existing relationships to get work done.
Set a goal to strengthen your relationship with a stakeholder, improve a troublesome relationship you’ve let linger this year, or form a new relationship with a stakeholder assigned to upcoming projects. Often simple techniques, such as engaging stakeholders more effectively, can make significant improvements in relationships.
Performance Goal #6 – Mentor Other BAs
Your ability to lead others will help you move into more senior BA roles. Become a mentor to a newly hired business analyst, a professional that’s interested in business analysis, or another member of your department.
You don’t have to be the expert in all areas of business analysis to mentor someone in an area of business analysis. For example:
- If you have a technical background, but your fellow BAs are from the business side, offer to perform a technical review of a requirements document or answer questions about technical terminology.
- If you are from the business side, share your subject matter expertise with a fellow BA who comes from outside your domain and offer to provide process overviews as they get up-to-speed on a new project.
- If you learn a new BA technique or are really good at a particular kind of visual model, offer to share your knowledge and conduct a peer review for other BAs in your department.
As you share what you know, you’ll be building your reputation as a leader and a team player, which can lead to positive outcomes for your BA career. You might also consider sharing your knowledge in a more formal way, so let’s talk about that next.
Performance Goal #7 – Share Your Business Analysis Knowledge
Sharing your knowledge will not only demonstrate your leadership skills but could eventually lead to a larger role for you within your BA team.
Consider starting a ‘lunch and learn’ with your fellow BAs. This doesn’t have to require a lot of time if you use available resources to structure these sessions. For example, one of our readers hosted monthly meetings to discuss these 53 tips for discovering all the requirements and share best practices.
Performance Goal #8 – Take on Non-Business Analyst Responsibilities
If you’d eventually like to move out of business analysis or up into a BA leadership role, it’s important to diversify your work experience and build skills that are not formally part of the business analysis toolkit. You can do this by looking for new responsibilities outside your current work, or taking on hybrid business analyst roles.
Ripe options include project management, technical architecture, business process analysis, or product ownership.
Performance Goal #9 – Take On More Senior Business Analyst Responsibilities
On the other hand, if you’d like to stay within business analysis for the foreseeable future, consider looking at how you can take on new senior business analyst responsibilities. Pay the most attention to areas where you can increase the value BAs add to projects or solve current issues that are holding your organization back.
Performance Goal #10 – Get Involved
The business analysis profession is a thriving and open community that welcomes professionals from all kinds of career backgrounds, industries, and career levels. It’s never too early to get involved. Check for a local IIBA Chapter meeting to attend (most allow non-members to attend for a nominal fee) or get involved virtually.
3 Rules of Thumb When Setting Performance Goals
- Be sure your performance goals align with the mode your organization is in, so that achieving your goals also adds more value to your organization.
- Instead of looking at performance goals as things to do that are above and beyond work as normal, look at how you can transform the work you are doing anyway into a professional development opportunity.
- Focus on performance goals that actually get you where you want to go. In this next video on Hybrid Roles, you’ll learn how to expand your role in meaningful ways, while also letting go of responsibilities that no longer are serving you and your career.
Download the FREE Business Analyst Skills Assessment
In this FREE assessment, you will:
- Discover the essential skills to succeed as a BA.
- Gain clarity on your strengths and transferable skills.
- Define an action plan to expand your business analyst skill set.
>> Download the Assessment <<