Day in the life of a lead business analyst

About the role

As a lead business analyst, I am an enabler of change, I help organisations transform and achieve the strategic objectives by implementing business and technology changes.

I help business lines across the organisation to identify and define business problems, identify untapped opportunities, current and emerging risks, and the organisational consequences of not addressing them in a timely manner.

I provide expert advice on the business process improvements, digital and data solutions required to drive internal efficiencies, reduce, or eliminate duplication, risks and deliver value to the organisation, its stakeholders, and customers.

Leading a team of business analyst, I provide leadership and direction in the planning, managing, and delivering business analysis activities and deliverables for multiple, concurrent programs of work of strategic and operational significance. Being able to lead a team that helps achieve the organisational outcomes is very rewarding, it motivates me every day. 

The most important skills for the role

The most important skills in a business analysis role are communication, stakeholder management and creative problem-solving using data and triangulating with insights from observations, and feedback from stakeholders and customers.

On a daily basis, I enjoy engaging with a large, diverse, and dispersed group of stakeholders to collaborate, understand current state and pain points. Building on the strategic stakeholder relationships, I facilitate collaboration across the organisation and help unpack complex and challenging through engaging workshops, focus groups and deep dives. 

Through tailored communication and targeted collaboration, I help stakeholders to move away from siloed thinking to a broad, collaborative, and innovative way of thinking, interacting and decision making. 

Key challenges in the role

A key challenge in my role is to be able to identify and balance immediate needs with the overarching strategic needs and long-term goals. Unpacking a complex, multi-layered problem within limited time and availability of stakeholders is another common challenge.

Leveraging best practice frameworks from the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA BABOK), techniques and resources available internally in the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) (via the IIBA corporate subscription program), I am able to overcome these challenges.

Firstly, I gain a deep understanding of the current state, unpack all aspects of the business problem, then identify the immediate and future need before offering solution options.

I enable stakeholders to think strategically and visualise the big picture, to ensure processes and solutions future fit and best positions the organisation to achieve its strategy. Collaborating with key stakeholders I perform root cause analysis and define requirements for desired future change, limitations and risks.

I derive insights and trends from data, present tailored and curated information to stakeholders to influence and negotiate scope of changes to maximise the return of investment, business benefit and reduce risks.

A significant achievement

A recent initiative I led and delivered business analysis for, addressed multiple business problems through improving data quality in source systems. This involved identifying and archiving of obsolete, aged information in source systems. This initiative helped staff across the organisation, reduced transaction times and improved the reporting capabilities.

The future of business analysis professionals

Business analysis is both a role and a discipline and is rapidly evolving. Business Analysts are pivotal change agents who help drive successful change in an organisation. Business analyst role opens up many other career pathways such as product management, business data analysis, strategic, enterprise business architecture roles and leadership roles.

In future, business analysis roles will be fully integrated and assimilated across the organisation’s strategic functions and also domains such as organisational culture and workforce design.