Training, Coaching and Mentoring-II - Business Analysis

Hopefully the topic on Insurance was helpful...Today lets touch upon Business Analysis

Background
Who is a Business Analyst? Who activities does a Business Analyst perform?
In an IT based project, Business Analysts form the bridge between Business and IT. For Example, say we are implementing a Policy Administration System and have a Rate Structure Table that needs implemented, the business has been rating policies in Excel for past 20 years and now they want their Rates, Rating Factors, Discounts etc to be available in the Policy Admin Software so that when an Underwriter or Operations are processing a Quote for a Policy or Rating the policy for Renewals or some mid term endorsements, the UI properly allows them to rate the policy, just the way they have been doing it in the Excel form. Moreover the UI can also display log messages as to why a particular rating factor was applied, so that the Underwriter can view them and take corrective actions, if necessary.

Now this above is a Business scenario which a developer may not understand (Unless he has spent a few years in the Trenches and understands the business well, this is usually not the case)

This brings us to our Savior, the Hero - The Business Analyst. The Business Analyst is a person who not only understands the business, but also understands the IT aspect of it, which means he can ask the right questions to the End users and SMEs by holding workshops and then translate the Business requirements to High level design documents and specs that the Application Developers can comprehend and produce loads of software code that does what it is exactly supposed to...or so we hope.

For the requirement sessions or Gap analysis sessions as they are called, to proceed, the BAs are equipped with their quiver full of Use Cases. Use Cases are the documents that take a particular functionality and describe the application, System and user level interaction in that particular functionality using various scenarios. This helps clarify the various processes that business follows and sets the expectation from the business side as well as the IT side on how the future application to be implemented looks like.
Along with the getting the requirements on the functional scope, BAs are also involved in the business process mapping of the whole scene meaning for an insurance company that has been in business for say 30 long years, that has 12 regional offices and 200 adjusters, operators and underwriters that handle the day to day business. The Users are used to do the business in a certain way based on the IT application limitations, the business outlines and statutory and state mandated requirements set out. The job of the Business analysts here is to select a functional area, map the process using a process mapping application like Visio. For this, the BAs hold sessions/workshops with the business to understand their current process with the objective that how they can better the processes in the future. Help the organization in improving their bottom line. run the processes more efficiently so as to benefit the entities involved.
To give an example of business process improvement, there was an Insurance company that used a pretty outdated software to quote an insurance policy to an insured, who was (say) calling in for the first time. For this, the agents sitting in their office with the insured would first send the policy information to the insurance company via fax. It would be received by an operator who would then load the data in the system and give out a quote to the agent via another fax. This would take up atleast 30-40 mins for getting just an insurance quote. you don't want to know how long it took to bind and issue the policy. Anyways, by mapping the process flow, the BAs were able to show the organization that implementing Internet based IT solution would not only resolve the timing issue it would also fix any bottlenecks related to data inconsistency or incorrect data entry thus saving the insurance company tons of money and a happy customer in return.

Coming along, the BAs also help in System Testing, Regression Testing, End user testing the final application after it gets developed. They also help the Testing Team to design and develop the Test cases and Test scenarios.

Business Analysts are a very Unique breed and they gain expertise by their specific overall background, business knowledge by executing various projects etc

PreRequisites
Now we come to what it take to be a BA. If you are already in the field, you can skip this. If you are trying to enter into the field of business analysis, this may give you some idea.
The first and foremost prerequisite to being a Business Analyst is to have a an eagerness to understand the business domain which can be anything from Insurance to Banking to Manufacturing. Choose an area of your liking and move ahead.

The 2 main functions that a BA performs and would work towards his benefit if he has gained skills and knowledge in these areas
1> IT Process and Methodology
   - i.e. Understand the IT Process lifecycle, the Inputs and deliverables for executing any project, using a specific Project Management Methodology

2> Business Knowledge
  - Knowledge of the particular domain that you will be responsible for.

After you have acquired the knowledge, it is important to have some exposure via some realtime project exposure, there are some online and classroom courses also available that give you some first hand exposure via case studies etc

Let me know if you have any specific questions or viewpointd, i will be glad to answer and will try to guide and direct you in the proper direction

Do let me know through your comments if you found the article helpful.