Business analysts play a central role in defining requirements for organizational changes – and it’s not possible to do that without considering data.
Every single business change involves changing business data: creating new data, sharing it, using it to make decisions or storing information for future use.
We cannot analyze business processes and disregard the data that these processes will use or update. Business analysis will not be complete without data-related requirements.
So besides mastering the core business analysis knowledge and techniques, every business analyst must learn the fundamentals of data management and analysis:
- The difference between data, information and knowledge
- Types of data (structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data, quantitative and qualitative data)
- Relational data structures: data entities, relationships, and attributes
- Fundamental data analysis techniques such as querying, transformation, and aggregation
- Data lifecycle
- Types of analytics
- Business intelligence personas and their needs
A business analyst who masters this knowledge and skills and continues to develop their competencies in the areas of data management, governance, and business intelligence, will be a sought-after asset with more career paths opening up in their future.
Employers that empower their business analysis resources to learn more about data will create a powerhouse to elevate their organization’s analytics and decision-making maturity.
If you are a BA leader, encourage and support your team to learn more about data, data analysis techniques and the fundamentals of business analytics. This is one of the best investments you will make.
My “Data Management for Business Analysts” corporate training includes both the theory and practical exercises – reach out to me directly if you would like more information.