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Readers of the business analyst mentor website, often raise the question, what are the typical daily business analyst tasks?
A business analyst spends a lot of their time engaging with business stakeholders to understand their business needs. To understand business needs a business analyst can use different techniques such as interviews, workshops, or observation type techniques.
A business analyst works interactively with stakeholders to continuously explore and dig deeper to confirm and re-evaluate the validity of requirements.
There is a point in the process where the stakeholders will be able to confirm that their requirements are understood and typically this is done once the business analyst has documented, verified, and validated requirements in formal walk-through sessions with stakeholders.
In an agile context the business analyst follows the same types of steps but will break down the work into smaller chunks (such as writing user stories) of business needs to validate and confirm.
What is a Business Analyst?
The role of a business analyst has evolved over the years, but the core responsibilities remain the same: to understand the needs of the business and find ways to improve efficiency. Business analysts typically have a background in business or IT, and they use their skills to analyse data and business processes.
Typical Business Analyst Tasks
What does a business analyst do all day? regardless of which methodology is applied, the following types of tasks are very commonly performed by the business analyst:
- Stakeholder engagement and collaboration;
- Problem solving;
- Elicitation techniques;
- Documenting business analysis findings;
- Managing requirements;
- Collaboration with IT teams.
Stakeholder Engagement and Collaboration
Stakeholder engagement and collaboration in relation to defining requirements. This could include individual meetings, interviews, workshop facilitation, prototyping or a combination of these and other analysis techniques.
Problem Solving
Business analyst will need to identify business problems and challenges and work on developing business solutions. Business analyst will also need to collaborate with cross-functional teams to address issues and implement improvements.
Elicitation Techniques
Elicitation activities
to identify, formulate and confirm requirements. Elicitation techniques are another important aspect of the business analyst role. Elicitation is the process of gathering information from stakeholders. This may involve using techniques such as interviews, focus groups, or document analysis.
Documenting Business Analysis Findings
Documentation of all business analysis findings in various models and text-based descriptions.
Documenting business analysis findings is another common task for business analysts. After conducting an analysis, it is important to document the findings in a clear and concise manner. This documentation can be used to communicate the findings to stakeholders and help make decisions about business requirements.
Managing Requirements
The business analyst will work with stakeholders and project delivery teams to prioritise the implementation of requirements, address any changes requested to requirements and in general maintain and manage the requirements through the life cycle of the project or solution delivery.
Collaboration with IT Teams
Business analyst will need to work closely with IT teams to ensure that business solutions align with business requirements. The business analyst will also need to work with IT teams to bridge the gap between business stakeholders and technical teams.
Typical Business Analyst Day
The daily tasks are very varied for a business analyst, which is part of the appeal of performing the role of the business analyst.
Of course, a typical day may vary depending upon the project needs and the stage of where the project is at.
A business analyst will typically have goals in mind in what they are seeking to achieve for that day and may spend a good proportion of the day in meetings, interview or workshops gathering requirements and seeking consensus. The remainder of the day could be spent on documenting the requirements and supporting the delivery team on delivering the solution.
Typically, a business analyst should not be expected to work incredibly long hours unless there is a specific implementation taking place and there is a need for the project team to be available to support the project delivery.
The business analyst can be at the centre of most business initiatives, whether it is improving business processes to reduce costs or seeking to exploit new opportunities or markets. So, a business analyst does need to be flexible in adapting their daily tasks and switching their mindsets to new challenges.
Entry-Level Business Analyst Day to Day
An entry-level business analyst day to day junior business analysis activities may include in the first few weeks of a project:
- Reviewing meeting minutes from previous day to identify any assigned tasks;
- Shadowing a more experienced business analyst on calls or in meetings;
- Attending team stand-ups to learn about what everyone is working on;
- Working on assigned tasks;
- Preparing for and attending client or stakeholder meetings with a more senior business analyst;
- Attending training sessions on the company’s products or software applications;
- Researching industry trends or best practices related to assigned project;
- Attending product demos for clients or stakeholders.
What is a Business Analyst Day in an Agile Environment ?
The day-to-day tasks of a business analyst in an agile environment can vary depending on the project they are working on. However, some common tasks include:
- Gathering requirements from stakeholders;
- Translating requirements into user stories;
- Working with developers to ensure that user stories are implemented correctly;
- Conducting business analysis;
- Documenting business processes;
- Testing business processes.
Day-to-day activities of a business analyst in agile will involve attending daily stand-ups and informing the team what you did yesterday, and will be doing today and advise of any blockers.
During the sprint cadence you will be involved in refining the product backlog and preparing user stories for the forthcoming sprints.
You will also be involved in sprint planning and supporting the product owner explain user story details and also be expected to attend team retrospectives and provide feedback on how the team can improve.
At the start of any agile project you will be expected to support the product owner in getting a team consensus on the definition of ready (DoR) and definition of done (DoD).
It is important for the business analyst in an agile team to work collaboratively on a daily basis with your team members and support each other for the good of the product and organisation.
With a sprint cadence a business analyst schedule can be organised accordingly to take into consideration the sprint cadence and agile events and backlog refinement.
As you can see, day to day activities of a business analyst in agile environment is very important and a business analyst has a role to do. They are responsible for ensuring that the business requirements are understood and translated into user stories that can be implemented by the development team. Business analysts also play a key role in testing business processes to ensure that they are efficient and effective.