Knowledge Audits of Business Analysis: Core Competencies, Critical Skills, and Strategies

Running head: KNOWLEDGE AUDITS OF BUSSINESS ANALYSIS
Knowledge audits of bussiness analysis
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Knowledge audits of bussiness analysis
1. Core competencies of business analyst:
Synopsis:
The BABOK guide recognizes the dynamic nature of today’s business requirements and
provides guidance to the organizations for the skills they must seek in a business analyst role to
select the appropriate one for the position (Hathaway 2014). It is a framework that describes the
process that must be followed for doing a business analyst task for delivering solution as per the
organization needs (Prahalad 2008).
Critique:
These skills are very important to realize and do justification to the role and serve the
organizational requirements effectively. However, these skills are not the only requirement for
the role (Hailes 2014). Some additional skills that help the professional to survive in the
competition are (Park and Jeong 2016):
Relationship-making Skills:
The ability to connect to the stakeholders and the team members and build trust.
Self-management:
Ability to work independently in a project and analyse the requirements
Identification of ambiguity:
Ability to identify ambiguity at the beginning of a project to avoid faults in the later part.

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Knowledge audits of bussiness analysis
Facilitation skills:
Ability to facilitate project specific meetings to extract necessary information for the
execution of projects. It is also referred to as ‘JAD sessions’ or “requirements workshops.”
Reflection:
BABOK guide categorize and organize the task of business analysis into six knowledge
category (Paul, Yeates and Cadle 2014). Knowledge areas specific to the BABOK guide are:
Business analysis and planning:
It requires analyst to do a thorough analysis of a business problem to have a deeper
understanding of the requirements and make the correct judgement of the topic. This helps to
make effective planning for completing the task correctly.
Elicitation and collaboration:
The analyst should have the ability to elicit proper information from the team members so
that the team members get much more engaged in the project so that effective collaboration can
be arranged for any project.
Requirements Life Cycle Management:
It is not only enough to understand the requirements for any project but also the analyst
must have the ability to manage those requirements effectively for the entire life cycle of the
project.

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Knowledge audits of bussiness analysis
Strategy analysis:
This requires the ability to analysis various strategy to suggest the appropriate one for
completing a project.
Requirement analysis:
It describes the ability of a business analyst to analysis various requirements and based on
that design effective solution to meet the requirements perfectly.
Solution evaluation:
It is not sufficient to design a solution to problem, it must be properly evaluated to assess
the quality of the solution and this quality is must for the role for the business analyst.

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Knowledge audits of bussiness analysis
2. Critical skills of business analyst:
Synopsis:
Traditionally the role of business analyst was often limited to the SME or the subject
matter expert (Hass 2011). However, in these years the organizations all over the world has
realized that it is not enough to have persons that are expert in only one domain as business have
more dynamic and complex in nature and so is the role of a business analyst (Yeoh and Popovic
2016). Still, it is very much important to analyze the methods and various qualities that are
relevant to the role of a SME.
This section has clearly mentioned the core skills that the organizations should look in a
business analyst for enhancing their business practises beyond just requiting SMEs.
Critique:
The core skills are very important for the role for the business analyst. Apart from the
core skills some important skills specific to the business analyst role are (Lang et al. 2015):
Documentation skill:
It can be thought of a part of the written communication skill which is very important for
creating effective documentation which is very much essential considering the agile nature of the
business world. The documentation must be unique to avoid any legal issues due to plagiarism.

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Knowledge audits of bussiness analysis
Knowledge of Analysis Tools:
It is essential for business analyst to have knowledge of various business analyst tools
like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Knowledge of some visual modeling tools like Microsoft
Visio is an advantage.
Reflection:
The core skills that are must for the role of business analyst are listed below:
Excellent communication skill:
Business analyst should have a good communication skill as they often need to handle the
clients, lead various teams and attend important meeting for the organization. In order to
effectively listen to the team, clients and then forward opinions on that needs good
communication skill (Muler et al.2016).
Problem solving skill:
Business analyst should have excellent problem solving skills as various projects the
organizations deal with often face various problems in terms of planning, designing and
execution.
Critical thinking skills:
The ability to think critically is another important skill for the role business analyst. This
very skill helps to choose particular option from various available options as proposed by clients
and stakeholders to suggest the most effective solution for the need of a project (Yeoh and
Popovic 2016).