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Day: September 17, 2020

What Do You See as the Key Strengths of a Business Analyst?

Posted on by Imarticus

A business analyst is in demand in all kinds of companies. Businesses rely on these professionals to provide insights that will be used in decision making and running business operations. A business analyst course will help a person in understanding the nuances of the subject and in becoming an effective business analyst.
A business analyst is chosen based on different parameters. Make sure to brush up your skills before applying for s similar role.

Key Strengths of a Business analyst

Business Analysts are known for their professional and soft skills. They need to be ready for the hard work and time the job demands. Some of the major strengths of a business analyst are as follows:

  1. Identifying objectives: Business analysts are aware of the objectives of the business. Therefore, they work towards the goals set by the business itself. A business analyst knows how to do a job. Also, they know what kind of results have to be delivered.
  2. Good communication skills: A business analyst interacts with different stakeholders of business regularly. Therefore, he must communicate effectively. A good business analyst knows how to talk to people and getting the work done. A business analyst course will also help in understanding the kind of tone required.
  3. Strong reasoning ability: Business analysts are known for their acumen. Therefore, an ideal business analyst is someone who has strong reasoning ability and critical thinking skills. Also, these skills have to be brought in the day to day activities as business analysts manage huge data sets and points daily. Also, they have to extract a lot of information from these data sets. Good reasoning ability will help your cause. A business analyst course would help you with this.
  4. Time Management: Managing time is one of the most important strengths of a good business analyst. The work schedule of an analyst is quite hectic. He has to manage multiple tasks at the same time. Therefore, an analyst needs to manage time as the job role demands commitment and high work volume. Also, it is important for a business analyst to multi-task. The job demands a full commitment to the schedule.
  5. Good technical skills: Business analysts make use of different arithmetic models to come down to a conclusion. These models are developed for a better analysis of multiple data sets. Therefore, business analysts possess great technical and computer handling skills which makes their jobs much easier.
  6. Analytical skills: The work of a business analyst requires him to acquire analytical skills as analytics form a very important part of the job. Also, with good analytical skills, you can reduce the time taken by every activity. Also, a major part of the business analyst job is to crunch numbers and data. Therefore, a business analyst needs to make use of the different analytical tools to come to a conclusion or to even analyse the data in the first place.
  7. Decision-making skills: A business analyst is a respectable position in the company. They perform a pivotal role in managing the business. Also, a business analyst enjoys a great deal of autonomy. Therefore, he needs to make judicious use of his power and take decisions wisely. Also, these analysts are required to use their judgement in a lot of cases. Therefore, a good business analyst is most likely to have an impactful decision-making skill.

Conclusion

Business analysts are being demanded in all kinds of companies. They take up a professional approach to solve complex business problems. They play a very crucial role in running the business effectively and profitably.

Also Read: What is Life Like For a Business Analyst in India

What are the five must have qualities of a Scrum Master?

Posted on by Imarticus

A Scrum Master facilitates the inclusion of the Scrum methodologies to ensure smoother execution of the project plan. The roles and responsibilities of a Scrum Master lies somewhere between management and team leader. Finding a Scrum Master to fulfill the needs of the company is a very complex task, as the qualities needed for the role of a Scrum Master are carried by very few employees. The qualities vary from product to product, considering the unique features and the existing technicalities. Despite the individual requirements of the companies, there are five must have qualities of a Scrum Master:

  1. Effective communication skills: The Scrum Master is a person who takes care of all the communication between the product owner and the entire team members, communication within the team, without actually being included in the strategy flow of the product. Considering the Scrum Master does not enjoy the authority and power to scare the people to achieve the objectives, the only way left is best communication skills. Here values and ethics plays an effective role. Giving respect and getting respect go hand in hand via effective communication network.
  2. Healthy inter-personal relationship with team members (Community building and Servant leadership): Considering the Scrum Master understands the strength and weaknesses of the Product team members and the requirement of the projects, it is the core responsibility of the Scrum Master to guide the team members to remain organized, to speak out the problems and arrange the training and other such sessions as and when required. A Scrum Master may act as a team leader but does not enjoy the powers and authorities of a manager in real sense. The ultimate way to influence the team members is to command the respect.
  3. In depth understanding of product and the related market: One of the key roles of Scrum Master is to understand the problems faced by the team members. Knowing the work-related technicalities in detail, a Scrum Master can help the team members with proper solutions without taking much time. Prompt and effective solutions help team members to remain progressive on the decided roadmap to achieve the goal.
  4. Seeking continuous improvement: The ultimate objective of the Scrum Master is to improve the day to day working habits of the team members to improve the efficiency. The habit of an introspective and retrospective analysis of each and every process and procedure help the Scrum master to streamline and optimize the work as and when required. Scrum Master actually encourages the employees to step back and reflect to understand where they actually stand.
  5. Understanding the difference between Servant leadership and traditional leadership: The role of Scrum Master is not to decide what a team is supposed to do, but to help the team with the support as and when required to achieve the objective by eliminating any impediments if present.

A servant leader is different from a traditional leader in a way that servant leader always thinks about the team members. The traditional leader serves the organization, whereas the servant leader serves the people in the organization. The execution of the management’s decision lies in the hands of employees, and employees tend to respond to those who think about them prior to the organizational goals. A servant leader understands that the employees not only work for the organization, they work for themselves too. Taking care of individual requirements to the best of the capacity is the role of a Scrum Master. Hence, a Scrum Master must have the core qualities of a servant leader, rather than a Traditional leader.

Also Read: Roles & Responsibilities Of Scrum Master

Role of Business Analyst in Agile

Posted on by Imarticus

Business analysts’ community has been talking about ‘agile business analysts’, and this topic has been so much on the focus that there are courses conducted on how to become one. There is a LinkedIn group named ‘Agile Business Analysts”. After all, what is it about? Some people even wonder that they never come across any mention of business analyst while talking about Agile. Agile focuses on the concept of providing value to the clients, and this underlines the need for a business analyst. The difference is that in Agile, the entire team collaborates to do business analysis. There is indeed a substantial difference in the way business analysis is done in Agile and other businesses.

Business Analysis in Agile

Agile business analysis is different from the usual business analysis. Business analysts usually work on large volumes of documents. The agile business analysis emphasises on a smaller number of documents. To find a solution for a business problem and to decide on the documentation, an Agile business analyst work in collaboration with other members of the team. Another major difference is the concept of iterations, which are a time-boxed delivery cycle. They are short, unlike traditional projects. Each iteration goes through the complete cycle of requirement gathering to development, testing, and delivery. During each cycle, the team collaborate to determine what sort of analysis is needed to create a bigger picture without spending much time in building an inventory. You may enrol in a business analyst course to acquire the skills needed to excel in this role.

What is the Role of a Business Analyst in Agile?

  1. Business Advisor: The main role of a business analyst in Agile is to support the product owner. An Agile business analyst scrutinizes the business domain, stocks and grooms the backlog.  Business analyst courses focus on building these critical skills. The product owner is the ultimate decision-maker, who is responsible for representing the business needs and understanding the requirements. It the business owner who decides which requirement is important. However, the product owner may trust a business analyst if he/she is able to demonstrate good business analysis skills.
  2. Domain Analysis: The business analyst is responsible for analysing, understanding and explaining the business domain and identify the problem that requires a solution. To achieve this, an agile business analyst facilitates discussions on revising, creating and/or elimination of business processes, what are the requisite information and who are the stakeholders, what are the systems involved etc.  Along with this, the business analyst also facilitates the discussion about the policies and rules to guide the project. A business analyst needs to look into the requirement models and see if the models can be used even after the project is done and settled.
  3. Stocking the Product Backlog: This means that the business analyst is responsible for creating a catalogue of user stories that represent the project. Each user story narrates the specific feature or functionality of the project that is valuable to the user or software solution.
  4. Grooming the Backlog: It is upon the business analyst to maintain the backlog so that it can be used as a tool. A business analyst can provide information on the value of the different elements in the product backlog perceived by the stakeholders.

The role of a business analyst in traditional software development was clearer and well-defined than the modern context, such as Agile business analyst. The role of product owner sometimes masks that of the business analyst, however, the business analyst is responsible for providing adequate support to the product owner ad to ensure close collaboration between the team members to ensure the smooth execution of the project. Enrolling in a good business analyst course will help you understand more about the role.

Also Read: Rethinking the Role of Business Analyst