The job of the business analyst can be extremely challenging and demanding. Luckily, the field abounds with smart and ingenious people that you can turn to for advice and inspiration. Besides, with business analysis being such a comprehensive discipline, lessons can be learned from all aspects of life, literature, philosophy or art.
There are nuggets of knowledge scattered across hundreds of years and continents. Whatever the situation you find yourself in, chances are someone has been there before. Each generation of visionaries has spawned a new generation of people worth listening to. Who knows, in some time, some young person may be reading your quotes for motivation. We gathered some pieces of wisdom in quotes from these thinkers that you can use to stimulate and inspire yourself as a business analyst.
To be successful a business analyst must always work on self-improvement. The business analysis profession is constantly changing. New business analysis techniques
and tools appear almost daily. Here are some inspirational quotes, tag lines on improving oneself that may motivate business analysts to invest time and effort in their development and business analyst careers.
Quote 1
“If you always put a limit on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
Bruce Lee, Actor, Martial Artist, Philosopher
Quote 2
“The shift to life-long learning is absolutely essential. As the pace of technological change quickens, we need to be sure that employees are keeping up with the right skills to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. That applies to both technical and soft skills. There will be changes in both areas.”
Zvika Krieger, Head of Technology Policy and Partnerships Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, World Economic Forum
Quote 3
“We may have a perfectly adequate way of doing something, but that does not mean there cannot be a better way. So, we set out to find an alternative way. This is the basis of any improvement that is not fault correcting or problem-solving.”
Edward de Bono, Author, Six Thinking Hats
Proper communication and cooperation are necessary for a team to achieve set objectives. A good leader is a skilled communicator and knows how to get all team members invested. While working on a project, the analyst interacts with numerous stakeholders. For everything to go smoothly and get everyone working together, he must master these skills. No task can be done if it’s not understood. Let’s take a look at some inspirational quotes on teamwork from the renowned leaders and visionaries.
Quote 4
“My model for business is The Beatles. There were four guys who kept each other’s, kind of, negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was greater than the sum of its parts. And that’s how I see business. You know, great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.”
Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple
Quote 5
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
Henry David Thoreau, Philosopher, Poet
Quote 6
“Most people that derail as leaders in the corporate world, it’s not because they couldn’t do the math and calculate the return on investment properly. The issues are communication and understanding. All of what typically would’ve been called the “soft stuff”. You have to be authentic. You have to be dialled into the soft stuff.”
Douglas Conant, Businessman, Former CEO of Campbell Soup Company
Successful communication and teamwork are, of course, impossible without interpersonal skills. Meaning, the ability to be heard, to actively listen, and to facilitate relationships between all stakeholders. Outstanding leaders value each member of the team and appreciate everyone’s contribution. If you are having problems in some of these areas, look for inspiration and advice in some of the quotes from people with experience in the field.
Quote 7
“The art of active listening makes the speaker feel valued and respected. In making a conscious effort to not only hear the words, but to listen to the speaker’s intent by reading non-verbal clues, and by being genuinely caring, your communication and conversations become deeper and so do your relationships. When you listen this way, you foster the skill of active listening in others by acting as a model for effective and positive communication.”
Emilia Hardman, Author
Quote 8
“[Interpersonal] skills are not singular in nature meaning that one skill is intertwined and co-dependent on one or more other skills taken together. The vital point to understand, however, is that each skill is one that not only can separate you from the crowd of those seeking to enter an organisation or for those who wish to assume leadership role but also to highlight that each of these interpersonal skills is applicable to everything you do no matter where you work, live or to whom you relate.”
Catherine Pulsifer, Author
Observation, data gathering and analysis of said data are the very core of what business analysts do. The analyst must be able to understand the information available and capable of discerning vital from redundant. This enables the analyst to choose the right route among many available. The following quotes should serve to a better understanding of these principles.
Quote 9
“To behold, it’s not necessary to observe, and the power of comparing and combining is only to be obtained by education. It is much to be regretted that habits of exact observation are not cultivated in our schools; to this deficiency may be traced much of the fallacious reasoning, the false philosophy that prevails.”
Wilhelm von Humboldt, Philosopher, Linguist, Founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin
Quote 10
“It’s important to leverage the data the same way, whether it’s a strategic or tactical issue: Have a vision for what you are trying to do. Use data to validate and help you navigate that vision and map it down into small enough pieces where you can begin to execute in a data-informed way. Don’t let the shallow analysis of data that happens to be cheap/easy/fast to collect nudge you off-course in your entrepreneurial pursuits.”
Andrew Chen, Head of Rider Growth, Uber
Quote 11
“I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is an evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”
Isaac Asimov, Author
With the complete overview and understanding of the relevant information in the pocket, it’s time to develop a plan and strategy for accomplishing desired goals. Suitable strategy can contribute to the reducing time, effort and resources necessary to complete the project. These quotes with planning advice from science, military, and everyday life can be successfully applied to analytics.
Quote 12
“Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small. The difficult things in this world must be done while they are easy, the greatest things in the world must be done while they are still small. For this reason, sages never do what is great, and this is why they achieve greatness.“
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Quote 13
“The bottom line is, when people are crystal clear about the most important priorities of the organisation and team they work with and prioritised their work around those top priorities, not only are they many times more productive, they discover they have the time they need to have a whole life.”
Stephen Covey, Educator, Author, and Businessman
Quote 14
“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends, there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.”
Thomas Alva Edison, Inventor, Businessman
Coming across a problem during the business analysis process is usually inevitable. And solving them presents the greatest challenge for the analyst. The best analysts enjoy being faced with a conundrum. It brings out the best in them and presents a real test of their skills and knowledge. Check these quotes on that, including one from the greatest (admittedly fictional) problem solver of them all.
Quote 15
“One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment…; if it doesn’t turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, The 32nd President of the United States
Quote 16
“The ideal reasoner would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all of its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it.”
Sherlock Holmes, Detective / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Author
Being under pressure is an integral part of an analyst’s day of work. The best of them thrive in these conditions, raising their game to respond to the challenges. Business analysis is not for the weak-hearted. If you find yourself with your back against the wall, look for motivation in the following quotes.
Quote 17
“When we started Pixar, I was really in over my head. But I look at being in over my head as a feature, not a bug.”
Ed Catmull, Founder of Pixar
Quote 18
“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time the tide will turn.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Author
The role of a business analyst became essential in modern business. Even more so with the introduction of an agile working environment and other novel ways the organisations operate. In these quotes, check out how contemporary thinkers and leaders see the place of BA within the organisation.
Quote 19
“I’ll often joke that when people ask what is business analysis, I say: You know all those times that people say ‘somebody should look into that?’ I’m the person that looks into that.”
Jonathan Haskel, Economist, Author, and Professor at Imperial College Business School
Quote 20
“An order shaper is the one who knows and has assimilated the customer’s pain. They need to participate in all the strategic planning and meetings, but the challenge is earning the seat at the table. While being a super order taker can achieve this over time, you can’t simply be a smiling face because you’ll get into a position of overpromising. Because the Business Requirements Manager knows how the company makes money, they can write business cases that demonstrate the impact of a project’s ability to help the company make money.”
Dave Ficken, VP, Corporate Information Systems, McDonald’s Corporation
And, for the end, a quote with a fun, summarising view on the business analysis from the outsider’s point of view.
Quote 21
Let’s see, you will need a project plan, resource allocation, a timeline, test cycles, a budget, a contingency budget, lots of diagrams, flowcharts, a media release, a strategic vision, a charter, technical specifications, business rules, travel expenses, a development environment, deployment instructions, a user acceptance test, stationary, overtime schedule, a mock-up, prototypes…” “Tell me,” she said, “did people who built pyramids have any of those?” “Mostly, they had beer. Come to think of it, if there had been such a thing as a Business Analyst in ancient Egypt, then the hieroglyph for it would have been very graphical if you know what I mean.”
Sorin Suciu, Author
Conclusion – Quotes Business Analysts Can Relate To
A lot of these quotes are, of course, not only applicable to business analysis. They usually can serve as lessons for every-day life and sources of motivation to keep pushing when you’re stuck. And these are just the tip of the iceberg.
Business analysis books and the internet are overflowing with little chunks of wisdom that you can use to inspire yourself and brighten your day and help develop your business analysis career and overcome challenges.