How To Become Business Analyst? - Prerequisites

Do you have below questions in mind?
I want to be a business analyst, but I'm not sure about the skills required to become a Business Analyst?

I'm not sure which training should I undergo to become a Business Analyst?

I'm planning to switch my career to Business Analyst but I’m not sure if I have required skills to adapt easily?

Then, you are at the correct place because this article explains the prerequisites of becoming business analysts.



I often come across people asking these questions and honestly speaking, even I had similar questions in the earlier stage of my career. I've tried to explain prerequisite for the Business Analyst profession based on my personal experience and I would appreciate if you can also contribute by sharing your thought in the comment section of this article. Before I start with prerequisite for Business Analyst, let’s see who Business Analysts is;

Business analysis is a research discipline of identifying business needs and determining solutions to business problems. Solutions often include a software systems development component, but may also consist of process improvement, organizational change or strategic planning and policy development.

Below are the basic prerequisites for the Business Analyst position, however, other skills will be learned and developed with the experience.



#1. Domain Knowledge:

Domain knowledge (like Healthcare, Banking & Finance, Payroll, Oil & GAS, etc.) plays a very important role for Business Analyst position as it helps to make decisions and also to understand the business requirement in order to propose the quality solution. Lack of domain knowledge can make Business Analyst’s life miserable (Generally company hires BA professional if they have a minimum of 3 years of domain experience). I would encourage to have enough domain knowledge if you are looking for a Business Analyst position.


#2. Analytical/Analysis Skills:

One of the major role of a Business Analyst to analyze the business requirement and for that BA should be expert in understanding what client is trying to say and also should be able to frame and divide in business requirements. The BA should have the skills of qualitative analysis skills to analyze the record, finding patterns for the organization’s growth and take strategic decisions. Below may help you this:



#3. Documentation Skills:

Being a BA, you need to prepare various documents, hence you should have documentation skills and articulation skills to create self-explanatory documents. You should be able to understand the business requirement and able to write each requirement in simple language (without any technical jargon) so that it could be used by any business stakeholder.

You may like to read: - Top 10 Documents Created By Business Analyst


#4. Communication & Interpersonal Skills:

You should have excellent communication and listening skills in order to fully understand the client’s requirement, drive meeting and other requirement gathering sessions. This is the must-have skills for the Business Analyst because most of the time you will have to play smart in order to understand Business Requirement and baseline the same. Any miscommunication can make a bad impact in the later phase of the project, hence Business Analyst should be smart enough to communicate properly to keep every stakeholder on the same page.


#5. Qualification/Experience:

Most of the companies prefer B.E. or MBA degree with at least 2-3 years of experience for a BA position. However, experience and domain knowledge matter a lot in the Business Analyst profession but some big companies especially MNC CMM level 5 prefer MBA. Don't worry if you don't have an MBA degree, there are a lot of companies which prefer talent and experience, hence keep gaining experience and skills. You can go for some certifications specially designed for Business Analyst.


#6. Certifications:

Having a certification for BA professional is always a plus point to get qualified for the BA position and it also helps to get the higher position in the current organization as you stand ahead in your peer group. Some of the famous certifications for the BA are CBAP Certification – IIBA, Certified Software Business Analyst: (CSBA), etc.



#7. Convincing skills:

These skills will help in proposing a suitable solution for the business even if the client is not willing to accept it. Business Analyst should be able to sell the product in order to be successful in the Business Analysis field. This is a must-have skill especially when you are working on Business Case.


#8. UML diagrams:

Being a BA, you will have to create various diagrams to show requirements in pictorial format, hence BA should know UML diagrams to achieve the same. UML diagrams help to demonstrate the requirement for Business stakeholders and could be one of the best tools for quality requirement gathering. "Use Case" diagram is the one which you will come across very frequently and you may find this article interesting:- [Use Case] What? Why? and How? All You Need To Know


#9. Proactive, Ownership & Leadership:


Business Analyst should be proactive and willing to take ownership of various tasks. Business Analyst should also have leadership skills in order to manage projects. These skills are self-explanatory, however, continuous improvement may get you the best position in the professional world.


#10. Training and (Functional/UAT) testing skills:

The BA should have the training skills as well as the basics of testing in order to contribute to product development. In the IT industry, it’s BA’s responsibility to perform functional testing and assist clients to perform UAT. Hence, start learning if you don’t have these skills. Sometimes getting UAT to sign off becomes the challenge to deploy your projects, hence with little knowledge, you can get this phase i.e. UAT of the project completed.


#11. Excel and Presentation Skills:

You should have MS office skills, especially Excel and PowerPoint for reporting and presentation purpose. You will be responsible for maintaining records and preparing various presentations, especially for Business Case. Below article may be very useful for you;



#12. Some Technical Skills:

Some technical skills would be plus point (especially if you are looking opportunity in IT sector) to grab BA position, however, it’s not mandatory. Having some technical knowledge will help to prepare many important documents in IT projects.


These are my view on prerequisites for the Business Analyst profession and feel free to share your experience in the comment section to help other readers. I would be more than happy to read your comments.

3 Comments

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