I’ve recently published a new book, “A Navigator to Business Analysis”. A thing that many people might find surprising is that the second half of the book is dedicated to things which on the surface aren’t part of business analysis. Here is the list of modules in Part 2:

Module 7: Enterprise Architecture 
Module 8: Project Management 
Module 9: Service Management 
Module 10: Security Management 
Module 11: Compliance & Regulation  
Module 12: SDLC

In this post, I’d like to delve into the reasons why I think understanding these subjects is a must for a BA.

Enterprise Architecture

Modern organisations move towards the digital world and at the same time they have a lot of legacy systems and business processes established over time. These systems and processes must be changed to move into the digital future.

The BAs need a good tool to deal with this complexity. The Enterprise Architecture discipline provides useful frameworks helping you to

  • describe the current state of an organisation
  • identify its value chain and its components to be moved to the future state
  • align all these changes with the organisation’s strategic intent and tactical objectives.

Project Management

I’ve been involved in multiple projects for the last two decades. The projects were of different scales and nature. However, there is one common element in all of them: a project manager and a business analyst were the two sides of the same coin. Their skills and joined efforts made a project successful and delivered good value to the business, which is why it’s important for them to have an understanding of each other’s goals and tasks.

In the book, I share my insights about the project management world and what is important for you to know to help you collaborate effectively with any project manager.

IT Service Management

Computers, smartphones, tablets and many other gadgets are now an integral part of our both personal and business lives. So in the business world, the ITIL framework helps us manage

  • switches and routers
  • firewalls
  • servers
  • databases
  • applications
  • IT assets
  • IT processes
  • the complexity of linked networks
  • the people engaged in these processes.

So, what’s a value of knowing about ITIL?

Firstly, knowing the core principles of ITIL, you will communicate with IT stakeholders in a confident manner.

Secondly, you will be in a much better position to answer questions “What is the current state of (enterprise, department, solution etc)?” and “What is the impact of change that comes with the introduction of a new solution?”

Knowledge of the current state and relationships between processes, IT services and their underlying components gives you this visibility and helps assess the impact of the proposed change.

So…

Hopefully you are now convinced that understanding these subjects is extremely useful for a business analyst. But each of these areas is a discipline in its own right with books, conferences, forums and so on, and you might be wondering where you would even start.

Indeed, it can be rather overwhelming. This is why I distilled the huge amount of information available in each of these areas down to the essentials which are vital to a business analyst.

Part 1 and Part 2 of “A Navigator Into Business Analysis” together will be a powerful source of knowledge both to people who have recently started their BA career and want to quickly acquire effective skills, as well as those who have been around for a while and are keen to advance their skills and grow their professional value.

Find out more about the book

Check out the free sample

(If you’ve previously purchased BA Kickstart, get in touch for an extra-special price.)

In part 2 of this post, I’ll discuss more subjects relevant to a business analyst: security management, compliance & regulation, and SDLC. Stay tuned!