2 May 2014 - Added link to Overview of Business Analysis
Study Topics for Becoming a Business Analyst or a Better BA
This group of pages may take a long time to develop.My past as a Systems Engineer overlapped the duties of a Business Analyst (BA) and of a Project Manager (PM). I studied to fill my gaps in project management, but that career path seems blocked. Hiring managers in most industries want industry-specific experience, and Democrat administrations tend to decimate Defense during peacetime. In other words, there's no going home, and new opportunities are blocked.
Another relatively short learning curve for me is business analysis. BA skills might get me into a new industry as well as overlap with those of project management. That gives me an upward career path, once I get my foot in another industry. BA it is!
To secure such a position, I needed a plan for self-study. Obviously, one needs the right skills. One also needs the confidence to apply for positions. My problem: I have no budget for buying expensive books and taking courses.
Just learning what subjects I needed to study was a major task. When I look at that list, it's overwhelming! I needed a plan that would let me attack personal change, one adaptation at a time.
This plan should work for any self-study.
- Create a list of competencies required for the position.
- Evaluating how my skills match the qualifications of the desired position.
- List the subjects I need to master.
- Prioritize the list. Factors may include frequency of the skill in job descriptions, utility for other lines of work, how much experience I already have in the subject, and whether other topics build upon the subject.
- Find information resources for each subject.
- Create tasks that will help me to internalize knowledge and turn it into skills.
- Assign realistic due dates. I'm using Excel because, compared to Project, it's easier to add checkboxes, notes, and links to resources.
A Business Analyst Curriculum
Of the many sources of BA curricula, I found the course descriptions in LearningTree's catalog most helpful. The following comes thence; I will modify it as I get more information.On this page, I list only subjects derived from LearningTree's course titles. More detailed information will follow in separate posts because I want to point to information resources in the same space, and that will make things pretty crowded.
- Overview of Business Analysis
- Critical Thinking and Creative Problem Solving
- Business Process Improvement (BPI)
- Finance and Accounting for Nonfinancial Managers
- Building an Effective Business Case
- Modeling for Business Analysis
- Developing User Requirements
- User & System Requirements for Successful Software Development
- Agile Business Analysis
- Agile Software Development and Modeling
- Agile Test-Driven Development
- IIBA® CBAP® and CCBA® Certification Exam Prep
What topics would you add?
