Want to become Business Analyst...qualifications needed?

[Whorty]

Thats not bad at all - Thats a 120K salary assuming 220 days and paid out tax efficently you are in the top 1 per cent

Exactly. Not complaining and very pleased with my lot, but just saying in 10 years the rates that I see haven't really changed much. And they are lower than people I know were getting back in the crazy days of Y2K

[HugeWhale]

I'm also considering a move as a Business Analyst on a contract basis.

A couple of questions, please.

1. Is Prince 2 still highly regarded in the industry? is it worth pursuing as a qualification? or am I better off just building some solid project experience?
2. How is a Business Analyst different to a Project Manager?

Re Q 2. My take based on large projects and big clients. Others will have a different take.

In the old days the project manager had to do everything. They had to understand the requirements, analyse the problem, produce options for a solution, conduct an investment appraisal, produce a business case for action, obtain funding, produce an outline project plan, benefits realisation plan, resource and risk management plans and then actually manage the project to completion.

Relatively recently, in the last 20 years IME, this was broken into two roles: the BA and the PM who would actually manage the project.

Now things seem to be changing again. The BA role is being taken over by specialist Requirements managers, benefits managers, project planners etc. The PM role is often subdivided into risk managers, cost controllers, project planners etc. particularly on large multi-year projects.

If I wanted to get into this game now, I would look for a role as a Requirements manager (liaising with clients to produce system requirements and user requirements documents) and build from there.

Good luck.

[MSC7]

I went for the Busainess Analysis ISEB modules/Diploma when I was perm, asked for business facing roles bridging between IT and it stuck out well (+experience) when entering contract market.

[blackeye]

In my experience as a non-IT investment banking BA, domain knowledge is what you need. Core BA skills are fairly easy to acquire, however domain knowledge and a deep understanding of the particular business function is what makes you valuable.

My advice would be to join a change team in a bank as a permie junior BA. Don't go down the IT route unless you love it, because you'll get stuck with working with techie people (yuck).

But then, I'm just a fluffy millennial BA that produces awesome slide decks and massive documents

[PerfectStorm]

In my experience as a non-IT investment banking BA, domain knowledge is what you need. Core BA skills are fairly easy to acquire, however domain knowledge and a deep understanding of the particular business function is what makes you valuable.

My advice would be to join a change team in a bank as a permie junior BA. Don't go down the IT route unless you love it, because you'll get stuck with working with techie people (yuck).

But then, I'm just a fluffy millennial BA that produces awesome slide decks and massive documents

Do you think you could put that into a nice PPT with a SWOT analysis for me? :-)

[l35kee]

In my experience as a non-IT investment banking BA, domain knowledge is what you need. Core BA skills are fairly easy to acquire, however domain knowledge and a deep understanding of the particular business function is what makes you valuable.

My advice would be to join a change team in a bank as a permie junior BA. Don't go down the IT route unless you love it, because you'll get stuck with working with techie people (yuck).

But then, I'm just a fluffy millennial BA that produces awesome slide decks and massive documents

I don't agree with that. What you're describing isn't a BA, it's a subject matter expert, and a good BA knows how to utilise one of those effectively.

[cojak]

I don't agree with that. What you're describing isn't a BA, it's a subject matter expert, and a good BA knows how to utilise one of those effectively.

In the 'Old Days' (5 years ago), domain knowledge was EXACTLY what BAs needed, as well as BA skills.

These days SME's are used instead of BA's, in the mistaken belief that BA skills just happen.

Good Luck with that idea (as I've seen in too many crap agile projects).

[cojak]

Oh - and you don't need BA qualifications - you do need BA skills.

The two are NOT the same.

[l35kee]

In the 'Old Days' (5 years ago), domain knowledge was EXACTLY what BAs needed, as well as BA skills.

These days SME's are used instead of BA's, in the mistaken belief that BA skills just happen.

Good Luck with that idea (as I've seen in too many crap agile projects).

Not sure if you were agreeing with me or not lol. To clarify, I mean that to be a good BA does not mean you have to have specific domain experience, or to put it the other way, not having particular domain experience does not put a BA at the bottom of the pile.

A good BA can jump into most areas without prior experience and do a good job, usually because they are inquisitive, ask lots of the right questions to the right people (aka SMEs) and do it quickly.

An SME knows the ins and outs of a particular domain or process, but they are not a BA. A good BA does make use of these SMEs though.

Oh - and you don't need BA qualifications - you do need BA skills.

The two are NOT the same.

The only good thing I can say about BA qualifications are that they are something else to add to your CV. Not much more than that.