Domain Experience

Business Analysts can specialize in software products and technologies specific to industries like manufacturing or healthcare, and some Business Analyst positions require domain experience for a specific industry or technology. Some Business Analysts also specialize in specific technologies like database management or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

What You Need to Know

Accumulating specific domain or technology experience gives you added insights and perspectives in a Business Analyst role specific to that domain. However, it’s not a career wrecker should you find yourself working with a new technology or industry where you lack deep experience. This is a personal preference determined by the career choices of a Business Analyst. Gaining domain knowledge comes from placements on projects in that particular domain that a Business Analyst has chosen to specialize in, and the more projects that are accomplished, the more domain expertise a Business Analyst acquires.

Six Sigma and Lean Management

These are entire management disciplines by themselves, and at their core, they are management techniques used to significantly improve quality and process management using statistical modeling methods in organizations. At a high level, these management principles are used to make organizational processes more efficient and effective. Organizations that are wedded to these disciplines usually require Six Sigma–certified Business Analysts so that they can deploy these techniques to drive organizational changes.

What You Need to Know

Organizations on a Six Sigma or Lean Management high usually mean it and will only work with Business Analysts who understand and have experience with these management disciplines. In short, you either have this expertise or you don’t. If this is the requirement to work on their projects, then you need to skill up. Fast.

For Business Analysts who want to work on projects that require this knowledge or for those who find themselves on a project with this requirement, there are many resources they can fall back on for knowledge acquisition and certification.

These management disciplines have been around for a while, and there are many institutions that offer training for them. In addition, there are numerous online courses, publications, as well as many more books that have been written about Six Sigma or Lean Management.

Web Services and Web Development

Most organizational digital transformations will involve web services and web development components. Web services is how different applications communicate with each other over the Internet, while web development refers to the development of web sites, web portals, web apps, and associated applications. The requirements scoped by Business Analysts will usually deliver elements of web services and web applications–related software as their end products.

What You Need to Know

While it is helpful for a Business Analyst to understand this functionality (it helps with requirements scoping), it is not essential to, for example, know concepts like the configuration of a web service call.

Application Configuration

I am hard-pressed classifying this as a “nice to have” technical skill as it is becoming more frequent for Business Analyst roles requiring some basic application configuration. In simple terms, application configuration refers to using the settings in a software application to make changes to the application so that end users can deliver different outputs from the application. Another way to look at it is when changes are made to an application without the modification of that application’s code or writing new programs and inserting them in the application.

This is a skill that is primarily determined by project requirements and organizational objectives. Depending on the type of Business Analyst role, some organizations require that a Business Analyst demonstrate knowledge of how to configure an application. Whether you need this skill or not comes down to the project you are assigned to and whether the organization you work for requires configuration skills for the role.

What You Need to Know

While application configuration is not a key requirement, the best Business Analysts usually have some configuration knowledge, and they tend to know how and when to use it. Fortunately, it is also easily learned as the more time spent inside an application, the more polished configuration skills become. Configuration skills are also driven by the application that a Business Analyst works with on a project as some applications are easily configurable and some require more technical expertise in order to configure them.

In terms of knowledge acquisition, there are thousands of online courses and professional certifications that provide instruction on how to configure any application under the sun in a matter of hours.

Programming Languages

Some Business Analysts having transitioned from software development environments understand one or more programming languages like Java, JavaScript, Python, and many more. Most Business Analysts will never write a line of code during their career, and I would tread very carefully if I am asked to write code as a Business Analyst given the technical competencies and skillsets it requires. A Business Analyst with programming experience can, for example, troubleshoot bugs and defects which hastens the defect management process, but then again that is not the essence of having Business Analysts on project teams. There are developers and quality assurance engineers on projects for precisely this reason.

What You Need to Know

If you have experience with programming languages, count that as an uber luxury for your Business Analyst technical skillset. Conversely if you lack this experience or skillset, there is no need to be anguished as you don’t need programming skills to be an ace Business Analyst.

Technical Certifications

There are certifications offered by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) which certify that a Business Analyst has acquired the experience and professional training required to become a business analysis practitioner.

There are also certifications native to different enterprise applications that offer professional training on end user functionality, configuration, and even customization.

Acquiring certifications as a Business Analyst gives you deeper insights into how these applications or disciplines (in the case of business analysis or Agile certifications) function or operate. They are not must-have’s unless you are in a Business Analyst role where they are a key requirement. In general terms acquiring certifications is a recommended career path if you intend to stay in the Business Analyst role for the long term.

What You Need to Know

Certifications are not must-have’s required by Business Analysts unless you are assigned to a project where it’s a key requirement for the role. While they signify expertise and professional competence in a given field, their absence in your skillset as a Business Analyst is not a deal breaker, and you can still deliver outstanding results without them especially if you have many years of experience.

This list of technical skills is by no means exhaustive, but these are the usual suspects when it comes to the technical skills expected to be deployed by Business Analysts. If you are wondering what determines the application of certain skills and not others on a project, that determination is usually driven by organizational cultures and project setups.

Nevertheless, there are some key technical skills that a Business Analyst is expected to have on day 1 on a project assignment. Does this mean you are useless without these skills? Of course not. If you find yourself in the unenviable position of running a project that requires these skills, you can quickly acquire these skills through self-study, practice, mentoring, or observation. In any case if you managed to get the Business Analyst role in the first place, then skilling up should not be an issue.

But there are skills that are not easily switched on and for which skilling up comes with hands-on experience and much more; to those skills we turn to next.