Before you spend all your time and money and do all these courses and certifications, wouldn’t it be great if you could evaluate if business analysis would be right for you? How can you make sure that you will like the business analyst job before you actually invest in it?
If you are still researching the business analysis field, please check out this article: what is business analysis exactly? and also this article: what does it take to be a business analyst? Those two articles will give you a good background before doing this self evaluation.
In this article, we will explore some key innate traits that you already have, that will help you determine if business analysis is a good fit for you so that you can make a more informed decision as you look to enter the business analysis world.
I do not want you to start evaluating yourself if you’re going to be a good business analyst solely based on business analysis skills – presumably, you are just starting out, so you don’t have any of these skills yet! You will learn these skills as you get into the career. What we will be looking out for, in this article, are behaviors you already possess that will be helpful for you to determine if business analysis is right for you. You can also watch my video on this below as I explain some of these traits to look out for.
1. Curiosity
Do you have a desire to seek out new information? Are you delighted with the learning new things that you did not know before? Are you curious about a variety of topics even when there is no relevance to anything you are doing currently and no monetary gain? Are you interested in a vast variety of topics?
If you answer is yes, then you have what I call natural curiosity, which means that you enjoy knowledge gathering and you seek out a variety of new knowledge on your own. This will help you as a business analyst as it will give you the push to go beyond the details you are given and look deeper to uncover root causes and find better solutions to business problems. Just by having that curiosity to push you to find out more than what is placed in front of you.
2. Understanding the Why
Are you dissatisfied until you understand the why behind something? That will also be a good indication if business analysis is right for you. If you are the kind of person that is bothered when someone gives you a shallow answer or an answer that does not quite explain things and you keep asking yourself why? Why would they do that? Why did they say that? Why? Why? Why?
You may not be as intrigued with what or how, but the why is very important for you and surface-level answers do not satisfy you because you want to go deeper, then you already have the type of thinking that will suit you well as a business analyst.
3. Always Solutioning
Are you the kind of person that people come to for advice? Are you always the one helping people find a solution to their problems? Are you the kind of person who thinks of a better way to do things every time you have a bad customer experience? These are great indicators that you would be a good business analyst.
When you go through a bad experience at a place of business, whereas the average person just says what an awful service and throws up their hands, you are thinking of a few steps that you can see to make the experience better. To you it is obvious and you can clearly imagine how much better the service could be with a few steps that you’ve already imagined and you can almost visualize them working in this way. If you are already doing this, then it is a great indicator for success in the business analyst career.
4. Reading Non-fiction
Another indicator that you would be a good business analyst is reading a lot – but not reading novels. If you like reading non-fiction, then that is a good indicator. Reading things life biographies, scientific articles, reports and other documents. Reading a lot of fact-based material is a good indicator that business analysis is right for you because you will have to read a lot of documents as a business analyst.
5. Writing
Another strong indicator of success as a business analyst is a love for writing. This time it does not matter what you are writing, could be novels, could be letters, could be article – as long as you enjoy writing. This is helpful because business analysts write a lot of documentation so if this comes naturally to you already then this is a good measure to evaluate if business analysis is right for you.
6. Communication & Translation
Do you think of yourself as a good communicator? Are you able to translate complex ideas? For example, when you are talking with friends and family do you find yourself saying things like “what they mean is…” or “what he is trying to say is…” Are you the person others look to make sense of what is being said?
If you’re the kind of person that can take a lot of different varying information and somehow narrow it down to me to make sense and then explain that to somebody else, then that would be a great way to test if you’re going to be good as a business analyst.
7. Interact with Strangers
As a child your mother always told you not to talk to strangers but in the business world, we can’t quite live by that rule.
Are you sociable? Are you able to communicate clearly to strangers? It doesn’t mean you have to be an extrovert, you can be an introvert, but you must be comfortable with talking to new people as the need arises.
The reason why that is important is because you are going to talk to a lot of different stakeholders and everybody’s personality is different. As a business analyst you will spend a lot of time talking to strangers so being able to strike up a conversation with people you do not know will be helpful.
8. Embracing Change & Ambiguity
Are you able to thrive in an environment where there’s constant change and ambiguity? Change is something that we all struggle with, but change is the only constant.
You can measure how comfortable you are with change in many ways: do you move a lot, or have you been living in the same are all your life? Do you often redecorate your home? Are you often trying new restaurants and new recipes? Have you changed job functions over the last five years? How have you reacted when your company changed leadership or business processes in the past? These are some of the questions you can ask yourself to see how you have been reacting to changes.
People generally do not like change, however, as a business analyst your entire role is to facilitate change so if you are comfortable with adapting to change then that is a strong indicator for success as a business analyst.
Conclusion
So there you have it! These are the things I think you can use to gauge whether you are going to be a fit for the business analyst career. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but I believe these touch on key areas that you should use in your self-evaluation as you look to start your career in business analysis.