What Not to Do! How to Be a Bad Business Analyst

No one wants to do a bad job, but unfortunately not all BA's impress
their clients.If you don't want to be a bad business analyst, here are
a few things that you really should avoid.3 - Saying "yes" to every
request from the business.It is really important to listen to the
business, but we are Analysts, not Dictaphones.Our job is to put
ourselves in the shoes of our Stakeholders - we need to understand
their current practices and their vision of the future. What makes you
stand above the pack is to really question the wish list, encourage
lateral thinking and make sure both you and the stakeholder understand
the value of every requirement you capture.2 - Taking the "I'm a
bridge between the business and IT" analogy a little too far.It is
important that the BA is the main point of contact between the
Business and IT, however, if you really want your developers to
understand the solution they are building - let the Developer and the
Business have a conversation without you always being there.We should
be facilitating communication and stimulating ideas - not being road
blocks.1 - Being a know it all.There is nothing worse than the BA who
knows it all, doesn't really speak with the business and makes people
feel uncomfortable for questioning "their requirements". Not listening
to the business and just writing requirements is the best way to leave
a long and lasting bad legacy!!Implementing a new system is a
difficult time for any organisation, jobs are lost, changes are
introduced and everyone is under loads of pressure to get things
right. Be wary of the challenges that your stakeholders are facing-
help extract their requirements and really work hard to understand why
they need them.