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Experience // The Role

BUSINESSANALYST

What the role really is, and why it matters

A Business Analyst (BA) stands between the business or user and the development team. The work starts with talking to people and gathering requirements to understand the problem and what users actually need, then analysing that and working with the teams involved — developers among them — to find a solution that answers the business and can genuinely be built.

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Business
User
Dev Team
BA

The BA sits between all three

Through to handover

Once the right solution is on the table, the BA presents it to users and stakeholders for a decision and then carries it into development. The BA stays involved across the whole process — writing documentation, supporting developers, testing the system (UAT and functional testing), and following up with users after handover — so the product ends up matching what the business needed.

Responsibilities[04]

What A BA Actually Does

The responsibilities of the role, drawn from what the work has actually been.

[01]

Gather & Analyse Requirements

  • Gather and analyse business requirements from users and the related documentation, and work through the direction of the product and system with PM, BA and developers so the design answers the business.
  • Analyse the existing system and applications (As-Is) to understand how the work is done today, where the problems are and what the limits are, then carry that into the design of the new web application (To-Be).
[02]

Design Flows & Write The Specs

  • Analyse and design system flows and business processes, and produce the documents that go with them — business flow, user and app flow, mockups, functional specification and system specification.
  • Write test scenarios, test cases and the user manual, to support both system testing and the people who will use the system.
[03]

Work With Users & The Dev Team

  • Meet and coordinate with users and stakeholders to collect requirements, explain how the work will go, verify correctness, and review the requirements until they are clear enough to develop against.
  • Work with PM, developers and the related teams to turn business requirements into functional requirements, and support the team throughout development so the product stays inside the agreed scope and requirements.
[04]

Test, Demo & Hand Over

  • Test the system (system testing / UAT support) to check functions, GUI, business logic and user flow, and find, analyse and follow defects through until they are properly fixed.
  • Demonstrate the system and run user training so users understand the functions and the process behind them, and support the system into real use.
In practice

What I Did As A BA

Three years in the role, across engineering, ISO, warehouse and ERP-facing systems. What the work actually looked like:

  • Analysed and gathered business requirements, then designed system workflows, UI and functionality for web-based applications.
  • Prepared documentation — workflows, application flows, mockups, specifications and test scripts.
  • Reviewed and tested system workflows against the requirements before delivery.
  • Worked alongside developers and project managers throughout the build.
  • Ran user training sessions once the system was ready to hand over.
3YSystems delivered[07]
  • Engineering Document Management System (EDMS)
  • Project Management System
  • Engineer Reporting System
  • ISO – Document Action Request (DAR)
  • ISO – Request for Action (RFA)
  • Armed Forces Institute of Pathology — Warehouse Management System
  • Web Application Service & Maintenance Interface (SAP Business One) — FILTER VISION PCL
Toolkit[07]

Skills That Matter

In my view the skills that matter are not only technical ones. They span several sides:

Thinking[04]
Analytical Thinking

Break a problem apart, separate the issues, and find the real cause.

Requirement Analysis

Find, analyse and prioritise requirements.

Problem Solving

Propose a way forward that actually fits the situation.

Process & System Thinking

Understand how process, system, data and users relate to each other.

Working with people[01]
Communication & Listening

Listen and speak across many parties — and translate the language of business into something the technical team understands.

Craft & tools[02]
Documentation

Write requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, flows and specifications clearly.

Technical Understanding

Know the basics of software development, databases, APIs and system architecture well enough to work effectively with developers.

Impact

How A BA Grows The Product

The value a BA creates depends on which side of the product they sit on — building something new, or looking after and growing something that already exists.

Track 01

BA building a new product

  • Builds a product that answers both users and the business, by understanding what users need and what is getting in their way.
  • Lowers the risk in development, by analysing requirements and validating the solution before a line of it is built.
  • Helps the product ship as it was meant to, supporting both the development team and the users across the whole process.
Track 02

BA growing an existing product

  • Keeps improving the product from user feedback, pain points and data, so it answers users better over time.
  • Cuts problems and operating cost, by improving the process and removing steps that were never needed.
  • Raises the efficiency and quality of the product, so users get through their work more easily and with less friction.
In Short

More Than A Middleman

So for me, a BA is not merely a coordinator between the business and the developers. A BA is one of the people who helps the team understand the problem, choose a solution that fits, and build a product of real, concrete value to both users and the business.