Business analysts come from a wide variety of industries and from varying backgrounds. Because of this, you need to be flexible in your expectations of the type of work you will perform as a business analyst.

More than 50 major domains or industries that hire business analysts including the web development, web design, e-commerce, software development, information and marketing industry.

As the business analysis industry matures, software developers, database designers, software architects, project managers and professionals with diverse backgrounds are taking on formal business analysis jobs.

As a software development team begins to improve its development processes, many people become Business Analysts simply because they begin picking up the requirements gathering and analysis tasks that are left lying undone on their team.

These are the Accidental Business Analysts. They did not plan to take on the title, and in some circumstances, many still bear titles other than “Business Analyst”.

Like programmers, business analysts seem to come from different backgrounds.

One business analyst that I worked with in the past had a degree in computer science. He worked as a programmer for many years on our team.

He eventually became our business analyst because none of the rest of us wanted to spend time with the customers. For some strange reason, he was eventually promoted to team manager!

Another business analyst I worked with had a degree in business. He was hired as a systems analyst with the Federal Reserve Bank.

Even though he had no real background in technology, his role was to talk to managers about what they needed in the systems and translate and communicate those needs to the IT personnel.

Other business analysts I am acquainted with have backgrounds in biology, literature and even theatre!

While those business analysts who took college classes in business and computer science may have been introduced to the process of requirements gathering and business modeling, most did not. Where do they get their skills from?

As an Accidental Business Analyst, chances are that you start out simply winging many of your tasks and responsibilities. Even in situations such as these, your ability to lead, understand and communicate with customers, your understanding of your business domain and your ability to express customer needs to IT and vice versa will serve you excellently.

However, as the business analysis industry comes to maturity and you begin to grow your career, you should take the time to understand what a business analyst really does.

You should move towards excellence by finding out what makes a good business analyst, sharpen your requirements gathering and analysis skills, your business understanding and even your interviewing skills.

A little UML and Use Cases wouldn’t hurt you either? You will want to understand how to balance the business side of a project with the IT side of the project.

You should grow your value to your company by learning how to take a high level view of business issues as well as getting down to understanding processes and how systems support these processes.

The Business Analyst Boot Camp provides complete end to end training for business analysts.

The Business Analyst Boot Camp training is designed to be an in-depth online business analyst training that takes you from beginner to mastery in all the skills and competencies you need to be a great business analyst.

The high level summary of the Business Analyst Boot Camp curriculum is below. If you would like to download the detailed curriculum, request for the detailed business analyst training curriculum here:.

INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS ANALYSIS COURSE

1. INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS ANALYSIS

REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING COURSE

1. REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING
2. ADAPTING PRACTICES TO PROJECTS
3. AGILE REQUIREMENTS METHODOLOGY

CREATING THE BUSINESS CASE COURSE

1. DEVELOPING VISION AND SCOPE
2. MAKING THE BUSINESS CASE

RISK ASSESSMENT AND MITIGATION COURSE

1. RISK ASSESSMENT AND MITIGATION STRATEGY

ELICITING REQUIREMENTS COURSE

1. STAKEHOLDERS & REQUIREMENTS SOURCES
2. ELICITATION TECHNIQUES

ANALYZING REQUIREMENTS 1 COURSE

1. THE REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS LIFE CYCLE
2. PRIORITIZING REQUIREMENTS
3. BUSINESS PROCESS MODELING CONCEPTS & PRACTICES

ANALYZING REQUIREMENTS 2 COURSE

1. RELATIONSHIP MAPS
2. PROCESS MAPS
3. CONTEXT DIAGRAMS
4. EVENT-RESPONSE TABLE
5. BUSINESS POLICIES
6. ACTOR TABLE/MAP
7. USE CASES I
8. USE CASES II
9. STORYBOARDS
10. DATA MODELING
11. STATE DIAGRAMS
12. BUSINESS RULES

SPECIFYING & DOCUMENTING REQUIREMENTS COURSE

1. CREATING A USER REQUIREMENTS DOCUMENT
2. CREATING A SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
3. SPECIFICATION DOCUMENT

VALIDATING REQUIREMENTS COURSE

1. CREATING TEST CASES
2. CONDUCTING PEER REVIEW
3. USER ACCEPTANCE TESTING

MANAGING REQUIREMENTS COURSE

1. CHANGE CONTROL
2. ATTRIBUTES & TRACING

MODELING WITH UML 2.0 COURSE

1. UML ONE
2. UML TWO
3. UML THREE
4. UML FOUR
5. UML FIVE
6. UML SIX
7. UML SEVEN
8. UML EIGHT

INTRODUCTION TO OBJECT-ORIENTED CONCEPTS COURSE

1. OBJECT-ORIENTED CONCEPTS

Click here to request the detailed business analyst training curriculum