This week I received another request from a recruiter seeking a person to fill a vacant Business Analyst (BA) position. In my role as coordinator of the Australian Computer Society IT Contractors and Consultants Special Interest Group I am often asked by recruiters if I know of any people who are currently looking for work. During the dark days of the dot com bust my answer was always yes, however today (thankfully) my answer is often no.
My approach when I receive a request from a recruiter is to examine some of the details of the role. This helps me in identifying possible candidates. During this examination I am continually amazed about the confused nature of the BA role. The role definition is often a confusing set of requirements which span across technical and non technical areas.
It is not uncommon for a BA role definition seeking detailed knowledge of J2EE or .Net. Sometimes programming skills are mentioned as very desirable. I am often left wondering do they want a Business Analyst or a Systems Analyst.
The term “Systems Analyst” seems to have fallen out of favor in the last 5 years or so, but I don’t think the requirement has gone away. Business Analysts and System Analysts are different roles. They perform very different functions during the software development life cycle. Both roles are needed and both are very important.
The Systems Analyst role attempts to provide a bridge between the business requirements and the technical definition of the IT solution. The Business Analyst role is primarily about documenting and gathering the business requirements. The important point to note that the two roles are complimentary, you need both to make a successful IT project.
Source
My approach when I receive a request from a recruiter is to examine some of the details of the role. This helps me in identifying possible candidates. During this examination I am continually amazed about the confused nature of the BA role. The role definition is often a confusing set of requirements which span across technical and non technical areas.
It is not uncommon for a BA role definition seeking detailed knowledge of J2EE or .Net. Sometimes programming skills are mentioned as very desirable. I am often left wondering do they want a Business Analyst or a Systems Analyst.
The term “Systems Analyst” seems to have fallen out of favor in the last 5 years or so, but I don’t think the requirement has gone away. Business Analysts and System Analysts are different roles. They perform very different functions during the software development life cycle. Both roles are needed and both are very important.
The Systems Analyst role attempts to provide a bridge between the business requirements and the technical definition of the IT solution. The Business Analyst role is primarily about documenting and gathering the business requirements. The important point to note that the two roles are complimentary, you need both to make a successful IT project.
Source
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