What does 2019 hold for business analysts?
by Ananya P. Co-founderPredicting the future is quite precarious. However,
based on long-term trends, we can foretell to an extent what to expect in the
immediate future.
Will the demand for business analysis work fall? Or
will it increase?
Will AI take over the work of a business analyst’s?
Will the opportunities grow and reduce for business
analysts?
Will
our lives be better or worse?
Here are my top 5 predictions for Business Analysts for the year 2019.
1. A significant shift from building a software to renting the software – This requires new skills for Business Analysts
Organizations, the world over, struggle with legacy
applications which they had developed. Legacy in-house applications require
significant maintenance costs and are difficult to upgrade with respect to new
technology.
The market for the products, especially products
available as ‘Software As A Service’ (SAAS) has dramatically increased over the
last 20 years. This trend will continue to increase, and organizations will be
able to use a large number of products available over the cloud-based
environments.
This shift from building software to renting the
software will require different kind of skills from the BAs. Business analysts
need to understand the price features, compare products, as to how these
products integrate between themselves and with the legacy applications.
Business analysis will have more to do with integrating applications than
constructing applications.
2. Near 100% percent dominance of agile methodologies – Get
comfortable with Agile and DevOps
The dominance of agile on projects is nearly 100%.
Whichever client we interact with, hardly any of them are considering the
waterfall development model anymore. Business analysts who stick to the old
methods of development will find it difficult to work. It is essential that
every business analyst must adapt themselves to working in the new agile
environment. In fact, many organizations are looking at methods which would
possibly be called as extreme agile, something like DevOps where each
requirement is turned over to production one at a time rather than waiting for
a bunch of requirements to go into production together in a stipulated time.
3. The Rise of the Digital Era – Tremendous opportunity for Business
Analysts
When we talk of digital technology, the 5 key ones
are Social media, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud and Sensors (IoT). Let us discuss
the impact of each of these digital technologies on business analysis.
Social media
The rise of social media provides tremendous power
to an enterprise to sell and market their products. Organizations are
increasingly leveraging digital media. Business analysts will be asked to do
projects which would enable the organizations to leverage new digital media
channels.
Mobile
Mobile devices are gradually taking over from
desktop and laptop computers. We have noticed a major change in the way our
customers are using content. This is going to be a permanent feature for
businesses hereon. Users will be primarily using mobile devices as it allows
them flexibility. Applications which were designed in the legacy environment
have to be migrated to the mobile platforms. This provides a platform for the
business analysts to go and talk to the businesses and figure out how all the
applications developed over the last century can also be made mobile enabled.
Analytics
Analytics is yet another interesting field which is
growing very rapidly. As the web, cloud, and IoT, systems collect an
increasingly larger amount of data, the importance of analytics will continue
to rise. This will be a fantastic opportunity for business analysts to start
leveraging the power of analytics. Of course, this will require a good amount
of re-training and re-skilling on the part of a BA, as many of them may not be
familiar with the statistical and analytical methods. But I am 100% confident
that most business analyst would make great analytics professionals as they
already have a deep understanding of business and technology.
Cloud
Similarly, organizations are now more open towards
adopting cloud-based approaches to deployment. Cloud provides extremely stable
and scalable IT infrastructure at a very reasonable cost. This again requires a
lot of work in order to move legacy applications from on-premise deployment to
cloud-based deployment.
Sensors
Sensors too will bring a whole lot of automation
possibilities which was earlier considered extremely difficult. Sensors will
revolutionize agriculture, healthcare, building management, autonomous
vehicles, and many industrial scenarios. This provides tremendous potential for
business analysts in contributing towards business growth.
4. Changing skills expectations
One thing for sure is that the skills which were
helpful when business analysis was done in a traditional way, will possibly not
be the right skills for the future as we move away from ‘building to buying to
renting’ software. The skills are obviously different as the rise of the
digital era demands a different kind of skill set than what we are
traditionally used to. Some of the skills though will continue to have great
relevance. Behavioral skills, communication skills, stakeholder management
skills, etc., which were a part of the BA learning process, would continue to
pay very rich dividends. The technical skills, on the other hand, would require
a complete changeover from what we have known in the past.
5. Increasing possibility of working from a remote location – A
better work-life balance
Another good news for BAs probably would be that the
organizations, in accordance with the times and owing to improved
infrastructure, may be open to working with a remote manager.
This would specially generate opportunities for
women, who were unable to work due to travel constraints and family
commitments. They would now be able to re-enter the workforce and yet, by
working remotely, will be still able to meet their familial responsibilities.
My sincere suggestion to women employees, who were
unable to work earlier, would be to hone their skills and then try and convince
prospective employers to allow them to work from home. This would be beneficial
to all concerned, the individual, by re-starting their career; the
organization, by having a larger group of skilled professionals to choose from;
and the nation- by generating more employment.
I would love to hear from my fellow BAs about what are their
predictions for 2019.
About
Adaptive US (Think BA. Think
Adaptive.)
Adaptive US provides CBAP, CCBA, ECBA, and AAC training online and
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offline. Adaptive US is an endorsed education provider of IIBA®
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Created on Nov 27th 2018 05:32. Viewed 499 times.