How to Help New Business Analysts Capitalize on Transferable Skills

Introduction

• Speaker: Laura Brandenburg, Bridging the Gap
• Audience: Senior business analysts, managers, directors
• Focus: Helping new business analysts leverage their transferable skills

Importance of Supporting New BAs

• Mentoring new BAs contributes to leadership roles and credibility
• Helping new BAs builds the overall business analyst profession
• Gratitude for those helping new BAs

For New Business Analysts

• Also valuable for new BAs to understand what to look for in mentors
• Can be used as a resource for mentors

Steps to Help New BAs

1. Assess Existing Skills and Experience

• New BAs often undervalue their existing experience
• Focus should not be on exact terms or specific templates
• Core analysis and communication skills are often already present

2. Use Training Programs

• Business analysis training helps identify and formalize existing skills
• Courses can reveal prior experience and build upon it

3. Skills Assessment

• Create or use a provided skills assessment tool
  • Can use job descriptions or tools provided by resources like Bridging the Gap
  • Bridging the Gap offers a downloadable skills assessment
• Walk through skills assessment with the mentee
  • Explain terms and assess depth of experience
  • Example: Process Model
    • Described as a visual model with activities, decisions, and pathways
    • Help them realize if they’ve done something similar

4. Project-Based Evaluation

• Start with discussion about the biggest project they've worked on
• Ask targeted questions:
  • Role and responsibilities
  • Communication with stakeholders
  • Types of meetings and documentation
• Extract business analysis experience from these discussions
• Example: Experience from the testing process can translate to BA roles

5. Terminology and Translation

• Many times, the exact terms will differ
• Realize that different terms can describe similar skills
• Examples:
  • Wireframes vs Prototypes
  • General documentation vs BA-specific documentation

Next Steps for Mentors

• Give mentees assignments to formalize their experience
• Identify and fill any gaps in their skills
• Download and use the assessment tool provided

Community Feedback

• Encouragement to share experiences with the broader community
• Examples can be useful for everyone in the profession

Conclusion

• Gratitude for helping new BAs
• Reminder of the mission to help BAs start their careers