Feb 4, 2021
What is the role of a Business analyst in a Non-IT organization or Non-IT Project?
A quick highlight from the definition I have included below: “The second thing you should notice in the above definition is that the role of the business analyst is NOT confined to just business solutions or just IT solutions”
However I myself am guilty of normally boiling down the role and massively and incorrectly over simplifying what I do as being the “middleman between IT and the business”, so I can understand why this question has been asked.
However I have just finished a programme of work without any IT element.
Which very simply was transferring products & services (& hence legal contracts) from one legal entity to another legal entity within the same company.
Part of what I did was understand the perimeter of my work, what was I responsible for ensuring had a successful transfer?
Analysing if there was any impact to the customers or business units as a result of the transfer?
Was any change to operational processes required as a result of the transfer?
What was required in order to enable the transfer (aided by lawyers)?
I worked with the communications team to either develop or help develop communications both to internal stakeholders and to external stakeholders.
We had two main categories of external stakeholders, for one category I helped operational staff make the contact with those external stakeholders and aided in any queries or anything else required to enable successful transfer.
The second category I made direct contact with these external stakeholders and supported them through the process of the legal transfer.
I presented findings to internal stakeholders to give them comfort that full and proper analysis had taken place, so they were unlikely to get any surprises as the transfer dates approached, at the transfer, or soon afterwards.
Regardless of the category of external stakeholder, I also tracked all communications and progress of transfer, so that the project and business could have comfort that everything that needed to be transferred had been successfully transferred.
Long story short pretty much everything you would do on a project that involves IT minus the IT development and rollout part.
So what is a Business Analyst?
Let’s start first by taking a look at what business analysis is. Here’s the definition found in the IIBA’s BABOK v2 draft:
“…Business analysis is the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies, and operations of an organization, and recommend solutions that enable organizations to achieve its goals…”
The first thing you should notice in the above definition is that the business analyst works in the context of an organization (not necessarily a business). The term “business” implies the ultimate goal of making money. But there are other types of organizations whose primary objective is not to make money. Such organizations include: not for profit organizations, government agencies, community groups, associations, etc. All these groups, including businesses use business analysts in the quest to achieve their respective goals.
So a better term for the business analyst would be “Organizational Analyst” as analysts are involved in identifying problems, needs, and opportunities for improvement at all levels of an organization. Now, we are not proposing to change the name by which business analysts are called but just wanted to provide you with more insight into how broad the role of the BA can be.
The second thing you should notice in the above definition is that the role of the business analyst is NOT confined to just business solutions or just IT solutions; the BA’s task is to define the solution which helps the organization achieve its goals. There is a widely spread misconception among many which believe that every business analyst is involved in the development of IT systems. That is not the case! There are many business analysts who help the business improve the operational procedures, or business processes, or financial structure.
This makes it obvious, once again that the role of the BA can encompass a wide variety of responsibilities.
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Alastair Majury resides locally in the historic Scottish city of Dunblane, and is a Principal Consultant and a Senior Regulatory Business Analyst working across the country. Alastair Majury also serves on the local council (Stirling Council) as Councillor Alastair Majury where he represents the ward of Dunblane and Bridge of Allan, topping the poll.
Alastair Majury, is also a director of Majury Change Management Ltd is a highly experienced Senior Business Analyst / Data Scientist with a proven track record of success planning, developing, implementing and delivering migrations, organisational change, regulatory, legislative, and process improvements for global financial organisations, covering Retail Banking, Investment Banking, Wealth Management, and Life & Pensions.
For several years now, Alastair has worked extensively with a variety of financial institutions in order to offer the utmost comprehensive services. As a data scientist/business analyst, Alastair Majury is expected to find intuitive and sensible solutions to complex problems.
As a data scientist/business analyst, Alastair Majury has worked closely with several high-profile businesses, such as BNP Paribas, National Australia Bank, Standard Life and the Royal Bank of Scotland Group.A graduate of University of Glasgow, Alastair Majury earned his M.A. in Economics with Business Economics. Since then, Alastair has undergone several training sessions and earned multiple certifications for a variety of skills. More specifically, he has earned certifications in IAQ, risk management, resource management, and a bevy of other areas. Alastair Majury thoroughly enjoys his work.
What excites him most about being a data scientist/business analyst is that every problem has a variety of solutions. This allows for a great deal of creativity on his part. Providing ingenious solutions to his customers’ problems provides a great deal of satisfaction to Alastair Majury. Every single day can be a new and challenging problem.
Although he is a fierce and determined worker, Alastair also manages to find free time to embrace his hobbies and interests. Alastair is a major proponent of philanthropy and charitable endeavors. He constantly finds new and exciting ways to promote charities and philanthropic organizations in his community. He also tries to donate time and funds to said organizations whenever he can. Alastair Majury firmly believes that if we all work together towards a common goal, we can find peace.
