
To BA or not to BA? …that is the question
In mid-September, my colleague Gary Cockburn and I will be running an interactive workshop at the European BA Conference called “Virtual Pace, Virtual Space”.
Creating this talk has inevitably lead to the age-old discussion which can be best characterised by a question like ‘Is there still a place for a Business Analyst in this new seemingly more technical world of virtual development, online companies and in some cases online products?’
Naturally, as a BA my answer is going to be a resounding YES!
FACT: Remote working and the new virtual world is increasing the distance between the customer (end-user) and the business.
This means getting closer to your customer and understanding them is more important than ever to help examine the way they think, building rapport and empathising with the customer.
As BAs, we don’t just gather a few ad-hoc requirements in a siloed fashion. We look to understand the whole service or customer journey from the user’s viewpoint (outside-in), using our BA tools and techniques to draw up models of the landscape.
Armed with this knowledge, we can then collaborate with Technical Architects and Developers to help build more ‘joined-up’ solutions for the customer.
So what exactly can a BA do?
Well, take a look at this from the BA Mindset by Yulia Kosarenko, which is a great demonstration of some of the things a BA brings to any problem.

Business Analysts lead the way in a customer-facing environment, they thrive when in front of a customer, getting the very best from your end-users.
So when you think about it that way, and admittedly with my obvious bias, I’d say every organisation would do well to expand their customer-facing team …and, if they haven’t already, create a Business Analysis function.
Oh, and if you want to know more about the workshop… click here now.
