A bit about IT business intelligence
It so happened historically that business representatives and programmers do not understand each other very well. On the one hand, there are complex technical terms and solutions that are not very interesting for non-IT people. On the other hand - constantly changing customer desires, which are so difficult to keep track of the ordinary developer.
How to prevent real chaos in this situation? Business intelligence comes to the rescue.
Standard requirements for the nature of business analytics: teamwork, ability to identify and solve problems, perseverance and creativity. Brrr ... It’s as if I’m reading the description of another boring job.
Having discarded all the excess tinsel, I would say that the main qualities for our profession are independence and the ability to find an approach to a person.
Business analysts, by the nature of their activity, are most often located somewhere between the team and the client. The customer will first of all contact them with new requirements for the system, a list of necessary changes, or a complaint about another bug. In such situations, it is necessary to independently decide on further actions, inform the team, suggest a way out of the situation, or organize a meeting for wide discussion.
Many IT colleagues are familiar with these kinds of situations and have sufficient stress tolerance to solve them (make corrections at the last moment or find a critical error on Friday night). Therefore, if you want to try something new and additionally pump over “soft” skills - I recommend trying your hand at business analysis.
Most often I meet fellow representatives of two areas.
The first are people who deliberately, either on their own or at the behest of their parents, entered the relevant specialty at the university, confidently unlearn it and received basic knowledge of system analysis and the surrounding areas.
The second - those same IT workers who at some point were tired of programming, and they began to wonder “why?”. “Why am I doing this?”, “Why are we working on this module now?”, “What problems will the client solve?” And so on.
Honestly, I myself do not know if this or that path has advantages. It can be safely stated that people who themselves were engaged in development prior to analysis understand programmers better and can translate customer requirements into a technical language in more detail. On the other hand, people who have received specialized education, usually immediately possess a large set of techniques and tools necessary to collect requirements and describe how systems work.
I think that half of the answer to this question is already in the question itself and the title of the post that we are discussing. Obviously, we just need to be able to simultaneously understand business matters (it would be generally ideal if the analyst would also know the subject area of a particular customer with whom he works), and technical knowledge will also not hurt.
It is worth remembering that, perhaps, all the conversations on the customer side come down to one thing - money. Obviously, there are only two global ways to increase profits: increase revenues or reduce costs.
If a client is looking for solutions in IT, most often they are shifted to two areas:
To solve the problems of the first type, the analyst needs both skills directly from the customer’s subject area, and a general analytical mindset, the ability to quickly understand the problem and learn. It is impossible to simultaneously understand in all directions, so when you change the project and the client, you will have to immediately switch to a new topic.
Fortunately, the tasks of the second type are a little more general and you can get ready for them. Here, knowledge in the areas of UX or UI, understanding how advertising and promotion on the network, the ability to think as a user will be very useful. Nobody will require you to have experience working as a designer or a marketer, but it’s still worth reading articles on design on Habré or Medium to understand trends, bad and good practices.
If you came to work as an IT analyst, you will definitely have to communicate with a team of developers, testers, designers and managers. This is where previous work experience in such positions can really come in handy.
On the topic of necessary technical skills and how to develop them, I would like to write a separate article, but in a nutshell I can say:
Perhaps all the analysts with whom I had to work had a very broad outlook. With such people it was possible to discuss fishing and world politics. Despite the apparent insignificance, I believe that this is a very important aspect - a considerable part of the business is not done at the negotiating table, but during lunch and coffee breaks, accompanied by informal conversations.
I will only add from myself that I managed to establish the strongest relations with project partners by discussing German beer and Norwegian fjords. In general, study, study and study again!
Despite the fact that, at first glance, this may seem too complicated and long to study, do not rush to panic. The truth is that much of the described one way or another develops with you along with studies, work experience or reading such articles here. The rest is parts that are built on an existing foundation, and this is always faster and easier.
As soon as you feel that the usual development starts to get boring, but there is no desire / opportunity to develop to an architect or lead, try playing the part of a client and start asking questions. Suddenly like it and come to our analyst shelf?
How to prevent real chaos in this situation? Business intelligence comes to the rescue.
Two important assumptions
First of all, we’ll agree on two important things:
- I started my career and continue beyond the borders of my native country. Therefore, all the observations described in this and subsequent articles are based on the realities of the Western market.
- I myself have a technical education in the field of artificial intelligence and always try to keep a balance between development and business. The tasks of analysts in the banking sector, real estate and other areas may differ, but here we will conduct a conversation exclusively within the framework of IT.
Who might like being a business analyst?
Standard requirements for the nature of business analytics: teamwork, ability to identify and solve problems, perseverance and creativity. Brrr ... It’s as if I’m reading the description of another boring job.
Having discarded all the excess tinsel, I would say that the main qualities for our profession are independence and the ability to find an approach to a person.
Business analysts, by the nature of their activity, are most often located somewhere between the team and the client. The customer will first of all contact them with new requirements for the system, a list of necessary changes, or a complaint about another bug. In such situations, it is necessary to independently decide on further actions, inform the team, suggest a way out of the situation, or organize a meeting for wide discussion.
Many IT colleagues are familiar with these kinds of situations and have sufficient stress tolerance to solve them (make corrections at the last moment or find a critical error on Friday night). Therefore, if you want to try something new and additionally pump over “soft” skills - I recommend trying your hand at business analysis.
How does the IT analyst journey begin?
Most often I meet fellow representatives of two areas.
The first are people who deliberately, either on their own or at the behest of their parents, entered the relevant specialty at the university, confidently unlearn it and received basic knowledge of system analysis and the surrounding areas.
The second - those same IT workers who at some point were tired of programming, and they began to wonder “why?”. “Why am I doing this?”, “Why are we working on this module now?”, “What problems will the client solve?” And so on.
Honestly, I myself do not know if this or that path has advantages. It can be safely stated that people who themselves were engaged in development prior to analysis understand programmers better and can translate customer requirements into a technical language in more detail. On the other hand, people who have received specialized education, usually immediately possess a large set of techniques and tools necessary to collect requirements and describe how systems work.
What skills do IT analysts need?
I think that half of the answer to this question is already in the question itself and the title of the post that we are discussing. Obviously, we just need to be able to simultaneously understand business matters (it would be generally ideal if the analyst would also know the subject area of a particular customer with whom he works), and technical knowledge will also not hurt.
Business
It is worth remembering that, perhaps, all the conversations on the customer side come down to one thing - money. Obviously, there are only two global ways to increase profits: increase revenues or reduce costs.
If a client is looking for solutions in IT, most often they are shifted to two areas:
- Internal - process optimization, development of control and monitoring systems, automation;
- External - updating the site to attract new customers, marketing, creating a mobile application.
To solve the problems of the first type, the analyst needs both skills directly from the customer’s subject area, and a general analytical mindset, the ability to quickly understand the problem and learn. It is impossible to simultaneously understand in all directions, so when you change the project and the client, you will have to immediately switch to a new topic.
Fortunately, the tasks of the second type are a little more general and you can get ready for them. Here, knowledge in the areas of UX or UI, understanding how advertising and promotion on the network, the ability to think as a user will be very useful. Nobody will require you to have experience working as a designer or a marketer, but it’s still worth reading articles on design on Habré or Medium to understand trends, bad and good practices.
Development
If you came to work as an IT analyst, you will definitely have to communicate with a team of developers, testers, designers and managers. This is where previous work experience in such positions can really come in handy.
On the topic of necessary technical skills and how to develop them, I would like to write a separate article, but in a nutshell I can say:
- If you do not have technical experience / education, take a look at a couple of computer science courses for beginners. Search for Computer Science 101 and upgrade to Coursera, Udemy, or edx. By the way, I am not in vain recommending foreign resources - the jargon in IT consists largely of Englishisms, and watching a video in this language will help you strengthen it;
- Try yourself as a tester. The next time you come across an error in Vkontakte, Facebook or elsewhere - remember and write down what exactly you did before, and suggest how the system should have behaved;
- Read at least a couple of articles on HR and product management. Imagine how you can share tasks between several programmers, how to compile a report on the work performed, how to describe the requirements of the customer.
From my own interesting observations
Perhaps all the analysts with whom I had to work had a very broad outlook. With such people it was possible to discuss fishing and world politics. Despite the apparent insignificance, I believe that this is a very important aspect - a considerable part of the business is not done at the negotiating table, but during lunch and coffee breaks, accompanied by informal conversations.
I will only add from myself that I managed to establish the strongest relations with project partners by discussing German beer and Norwegian fjords. In general, study, study and study again!
Instead of a conclusion
Despite the fact that, at first glance, this may seem too complicated and long to study, do not rush to panic. The truth is that much of the described one way or another develops with you along with studies, work experience or reading such articles here. The rest is parts that are built on an existing foundation, and this is always faster and easier.
As soon as you feel that the usual development starts to get boring, but there is no desire / opportunity to develop to an architect or lead, try playing the part of a client and start asking questions. Suddenly like it and come to our analyst shelf?