“A major issue for business analysts… is the definition of the business analyst role. business analyst job descriptions are unclear and do not always describe their responsibilities accurately.”
Paul, Yeates, Candle; “Business Analysis”, Second Edn, BCS. pp. 5.
Indeed, “Business Analyst” is currently used for too many role descriptions, and often, the professionals hired become the victims of other people’s failure to clarify expectations.
I once landed a NetSuite BA role, and in all honesty, whilst I could do the business process mapping and capabilities at a high level, that ERP software package is so complicated the BA work couldn’t be done in isolation to knowing the ins and outs of what was possible technically. NetSuite was being used across three continents and had been bespoked to every part of the global business. Much of the tailoring was uncontrolled Javascript snippets embedded into the platform’s workflows and business rules. I still wonder how you bring such a thing under control. But the real issue was advertising/recruiting a “Business Analyst” instead of a “NetSuite Systems Analyst”.
The lack of role clarity and the wrong team mix proved disastrous for project quality. This situation could have been avoided if the hiring process had clearly asked: “Do we need a SME, a BA, a functional analyst – or all three at same time?”
Making things worse is a contingent of ‘non-technical’ BAs currently advocating a completely hands-off approach for the industry (‘not to influence the solutioning’) whilst technical/system analyst roles are being put to market under the banner of a Business Analyst, resulting in non-technical BAs being hired for them. What a dire state of affairs.
“The job role’ systems analyst’ tends to be used rarely these days” (Paul, Yeates, Candle. pp. 7.)
Let’s make Systems Analysts great again!