The Business Analyst Trainee: the story so far

I started a mentorship program with Alex a few months ago after he agreed to guide me in my quest to become a business analyst. In the process, we established a few objectives and they included:
I. To ensure that I was well grounded in business analysis; this would be achieved by leveraging Alex’s knowledge and expertise.
II. To ensure that I succeeded in breaking into the BA profession.
The program would also give Alex some mentoring experience since this was his first attempt at mentoring.

Story so far……
Three months down the line, I believe that we have made tremendous progress with regards to our set objectives. Meeting once every week with Alex enabled me to learn a great deal about business analysis, right from the basics to the core subject matters like drafting scope spec documents, UML diagrams, SDLC methodologies to mention a few. Despite the challenges and personal commitments, Alex devoted a great deal of time and energy and this was reflected in the quality and over-all course content of the mentoring program. I must point out that I am not an expert business analyst since most of my knowledge and ‘skills’ are theoretical, however, working with Alex over the past months has given me a wider scope and perspective to apply to my role as a business analyst when the job eventually comes.
Strategy
Our initial goal was to start from the fundamentals of business analysis and walk our way up. We did do this over a period, but I managed to get ahead of the class through personal study and research. We then felt we were not covering enough ground, and honestly we really couldn’t do much about it since it was a once-in –a-week session, so we decided to concentrate on areas I couldn’t learn on my own.
As the program progressed, we also decided that it would be more beneficial if I had some ‘hands-on’ experience as a business analyst since I had already accumulated a lot of ‘theoretical’ knowledge. I started contacting local businesses to enquire about voluntary opportunities, but I failed to make a head way mainly because businesses were either not hiring or preferred people with experience. The recruitment agencies didn’t offer much either.
It is difficult to see how one can successfully break in to the profession as there appears to be very few opportunities for guys like me. (Read Adrian’s article on this matter at www.modernanalyst.com)
In recognition of this challenge, we changed our strategy and adopted a more effective, market focused approach to the mentoring.

So what does the future hold?
I have been pondering for some time about what the future holds especially with the current economic climate however, I am quite adamant that I have made a good decision to seek a career as a business analyst. I don’t expect the journey to be easy, although I expect our efforts (Alex and myself) to pay-off sooner rather than later…….it’s only a matter of time.