What separates a mediocre business analyst from a good one? What makes the good business analysts the best at what they do?

A good analyst is appreciated by stakeholders, coveted by recruiters and hiring managers, and has a wide variety of career options available to them.

We’ve broken down 5 secrets to being a successful business analyst:

1. Solidify the Basics

A strong foundation is key, so make sure to cover the skills that are at the core of business analysis. Good communication, problem-solving ability, and critical thinking – these underlie and branch into the more BA specific skills like creating requirements specifications, analysing requirements, creating visual models, facilitating elicitation sessions, and using the necessary business analyst tools.

The BCS Foundation in Business Analysis qualification is great start to learning the core concepts, tools, and techniques of business analysis.

Remember this is just the foundation…it doesn’t stop there.

2. Being Resourceful takes you a long way

Waiting for answers to come to you can waste a lot of time, especially with looming project deadlines. Knowing how to actively find the answers to questions differentiates a successful business analyst from a…business analyst.

Find alternative paths through the organisation and know when to involve the right people at the right time. A successful business analyst takes the initiative to work through challenging situations to come through to a solution.

3.Grow Your Toolbox of Skills

Doing the same things the same way every time can hinder your progress as a business analyst. Developing the ability to apply a wide variety of business analysis techniques increases your marketability and work efficiency.

A successful BA is someone who can identify and select the right tool for the job instead of relying on their go-to tools and attempting to make it work for every situation (which often doesn’t work very well).

It’s likely that you’ll be less brushed up on tools and techniques that you use less often, attending lunch and learn webinars are a good way to get a refresher on specific BA techniques and their effective use.

Attend our upcoming webinar on storyboards

Check out our pre-recorded webinars

4. Create Alignment and Ownership Around the Solution

As a new BA, you might be in a role where you are expected to be the one who writes down stakeholder requirements or where it’s the biggest contribution you can make at first. Every BA starts somewhere!

But to be a successful business analyst, prepare to go the extra mile. Learnt to put yourself forward to resolve stakeholder conflicts. This way when the solution is delivered, you can ensure that the business truly owns that this is what they wanted and is prepared to use it.

Understanding the business process or the underlying problem to be solved can lead you in this direction. So can creating clarity.

5. Creating Clarity

Business analysts bring a unique blend of critically important soft skills and analysis skills. Combination of these skill sets help the business analyst create clarity. And clarity does not simply mean that you get sign-off on the spec.

Rather than relying on just sign-offs and hundred-page documents, using analysis techniques to drill into details and ask relevant questions is what elevates project clarity. Focus less on sign-off and more on buy-in, get into the appropriate details to ensure true clarity emerges.

The BCS Diploma in Business Analysis is an internationally-recognised qualification that works to close any of these skills gap that you or your team may have, whilst developing a detailed understanding of business analysis best practice. Learn to deliver quality work and gain trust with stakeholders to excel as a successful business analyst!