Challenges to a New Business Analysts and Their Recommendation

A Business Analysts acts as a connective link between Client and Technical team so their role become very important. They basically do multitasking like understand and manage several stakeholders, communicate requirements and manage their expectations. These activities often involve challenges related to interaction, negotiation, elicitation and document requirements. In this article we will discuss about various challenges faced by new BA and possible recommendations. 1) Lack of Domain Knowledge: BAs often work in different domains such as Banking, Insurance, Finance, Healthcare, and Education etc. which may create a lack of understanding. If a BA is not aware of terms, processes, or concept used in a particular domain. He may not be able to understand the needs clearly, hampering the process of documenting the requirement correctly and application or product develop may not meet the user need. Recommendations- Before initiating any project if the domain is new to BA he should get basic knowledge about domain from SMEs, research or webinars in order to get the requirements correctly. 2) Changing Business need or Requirements: many clients or stakeholders are unsure about the requirements during initiation of the project and they may ask for change in requirements which may be frequent because of unclear needs, competition which is often the cause of delays in timeline and budget overrun (Scope creep). Recommendations: establishment of formal change control board to review and approve changes. Use of project Management Tool like JIRA to keep a track of changing requirements and their impact on project. Keep a buffer for tome and budget which make the project flexible. 3) Managing Communication: communicating the requirements to the development team as it solely depend upon the requirements communicate by a BA so nay communication gap or difference in language or misunderstanding may lead to change in project scope. Recommendations: Make sure to communicate requirement to team clearly and correctly by using process flow diagram, storyboards or in points so that there is no misunderstanding. 4) Unrealistic Expectation: sometime due to lack of knowledge clients may demand unrealistic expectation which may not be practically possible to complete. Recommendations: Use Prototypes, wireframes and mock-ups to make them understand what is practically possible to achieve or what not. At same time suggest them some alternate solution which are realistic and possible to complete within budget and timeframe. 5) Lack of Stakeholders engagement: stakeholders involvement is must for project success but many times stakeholders may not be involved due to their prior engagement, lack of interest and conflicting ideas. Recommendations: BA should always record the requirement discussions or crucial decision taken and distribute them to all the stakeholders in meeting minute so as to keep all on same track and may ask their reviews, adjust the schedule according to stakeholders’ availability. 6) Mind-set: A BA should always have a positive mind-set to deal with situations like Lack of co-operation from team members or stakeholders, limited technology, conflict between stakeholders but BA should always have a positive approach in order to complete his work. Recommendations: Keep yourself finding solutions rather than involving yourself in unnecessary drama and wasting time. 7) Non – Alignment of gaols among Business Owners: If the goals are not clearly defined this may lead to changing needs and priority which is a serious roadblock to project progress. Recommendation: prioritizing the features which are of utmost priority using MOSCOW will be helpful. 8) Conflict with the users: during production stage user may complain or give a negative feedback. Recommendation: Understand what user did not get and make them understand using user manual and still did not understand ask for some time to figure it out. 9) Feasibility constrain: the project progress may hamper due to operational, financial, legal, technical or time constrain. Recommendation: Perform feasibility study which outline the advantages and disadvantages of various options. 10) Insufficient training: lack of skilled person may lead to inefficiency in team performance. Recommendations: try to reach out to skilled person or expert in order to increase the efficiency of tasks. Every challenge to a BA is new opportunity to learn and grow. BA approaches or strategies may fail but they also give you opportunity to learn and grow and come up with new ideas provided a BA should always have a positive mind.