Where Business Analysis Skills are Used

Who uses Business Analysis Skills and what is Business Analysis? IIBA® (International Institute of Business Analysis)™ defines the discipline of business analysis as “the practice of enabling change in an enterprise by defining business needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.” The definition describes work which could be performed by almost any employee in an organization. Anytime an employee puts an idea in the suggestion box, it is possible they analyzed a need and are recommending a solution.

From its beginning the IIBA® has consistently preached that your job title does not need to be Business Analyst for you to be a person who analyzes a business. Initially many people who joined the IIBA® were called Project Managers or Systems Analysts. But because the association used the phase Business Analysis, the job title Business Analyst has grown significantly with career paths including titles like Junior BA, Senior BA, IT BA, etc. Yet beyond these obvious titles Business Analysis Skills are used by many more people with varied titles. At the risk of missing some, I have identified many disciplines which share business analysis skill sets and responsibilities.

I’m sure I’ve missed some. For example, attorneys use elicitation, stakeholder analysis and technical writing. I didn’t include them because I decided to stay in the “business” arena. Please comment below with your title/role if I missed it.

If you see your discipline here and aren’t familiar with business analysis tools and techniques, take a look at our Business Analysis Fundamentals class, you might be surprised to find out how much business analysis work you are doing.

“IIBA®, the IIBA® logo, BABOK® Guide and Business Analysis Body Of knowledge® are registered trademarks owned by International Institute of Business Analysis.

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