Feature: The Role of Business Analyst - a Need but no Room for HCI?

Business Analyst and Systems Analyst are job titles most of us are familiar with. But do you know what an analyst is supposed to do, and do you agree with the validity of such a role? In this brief article I will take a look at what is being asked of Analysts by potential employers and whether somebody with education in Human Computer Interaction could do the job, by discussing my personal experience interviewing for one such position.

Until recently, my only knowledge of the Business Analyst was through advertisements for city jobs with salaries containing more zeros than Africa's national debt. The positions all sound very important, the introduction to a recently advertised Business Analyst position read:

'The main purpose of the role will be to design and specify innovative solutions which meet the business requirements allowing the business benefit to be attained; and to facilitate divisional communication and awareness of the standards and quality expectations within the System Analyst teams.'

Sounds impressive, and I am sure this would impress people at parties. A long list of skills were specified for this job including:
* three years in a similar position;
* eighteen months of Life Insurance related experience;
* experience of the technical infrastructure involved in systems delivery;
* knowledge of UML and RUP;
* ideally an IT professional with proven analytical skills; and lastly,
* experience as a team leader.

That's quite a lot of stuff. But hold on, there is no mention of ethnographic skills, task analysis, mental models, user profiling, Persona and Scenario building, interviewing or other kinds of information gathering or interpretation. I was taught on my Masters degree in Human Computer Interaction that these things are important when analysing business problems, and I believed it. Perhaps, have I been conned?

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has been advertising for an IT Business Analyst:

'IT Business Analysts have the prime responsibility for articulating business requirements for technology change in the Exchange and agreeing an appropriate solution. They help set the technology framework within which the Exchange realises its business initiatives.'

This sounds like the job for somebody like me as I do have software development experience, however, once again a list of 'essential' skills are specified including five years in a similar position; CRM; Information Management; NCR Teradata toolset; Microsoft Server 2003; Prince Methodology, UML and RUP and so on. The advert lists over twelve essential skills. The advert also lists desirable 'Personal Qualities' the applicant should possess, including being customer focused, analytical and thorough. This is quite typical of Business Analyst adverts, in fact the majority include these kind of personal, or 'desirable', qualities.

It strikes me as odd that a company should be looking for an analyst and declare that 'analytical' be a desirable and not an essential skill. I also find it odd that so many technical skills are essential. I hardly need to say that technical people are not the best at understanding and translating user needs: this argument has been made many times and I will not repeat it here.

After reading many such Business Analyst adverts whilst looking for a new job some time ago, I lost hope. I could not understand how to find an analyst position fitting my skills. However, with perseverance I managed to secure an interview for a Business Analyst in a company. The advertisement described a person much like myself and expressed that analytical skills and an interest in customer needs were the essential skills for the position.

Things started quite well: a meeting with HR was followed by a meeting with the manager of the London office. The manager was quite interested in my background and placed value in my HCI training. This meeting was followed by a logic exam similar to a logic problem solving section of the GMAT. I cannot say I was impressed by this and felt rather diminished, proclaiming to everybody that would listen that I was not applying to MENSA.

After this episode I met with two Business Analysts stationed in Munich, where I would have to spend much of my time working closely with the customers. Both were very nice people, and we talked at length about the role and they felt sure I could help them better understand the needs of their customers and also with customer training. The analysts did repeatedly warn me that much of their time was spent supporting the users of the system. This stayed at the back of my mind and would make more sense later. After a further round of meetings with the manager and analysts, everybody was happy that we could work together.

And then came Christmas. Every year I visit my family in Manhattan, New York. I mentioned this to the manager of the company and I was asked to meet with a vice president in New York. This made sense as I expected that we would be working together to discuss the various aspects of the developing software. However, at this meeting all did not go well, I found myself talking to somebody who did not want to discuss customer needs, and instead had his interest in software. I brought into our interview the issue of the software development group being physically isolated in New York from the customers who are based entirely in Munich. I wondered how often the two groups met, and how development was organised. The answer was blunt, to paraphrase: 'the groups never meet' and 'the developers do not need to meet the customer, that is your job as a Business Analyst, you provide requirements and we write the software'.

At this point I felt very uneasy; after all I do have principles. I did not resign from a well paying job to study customer centred software development for a year without having some idea that it is necessary. I decided the topic was worth discussing before reaching the point of being offered the job. I mentioned to the VP the advantages of building relationships between development and customers. I described that much time and effort can be saved, and mistakes avoided by mutual understanding through strong customer and development team relationships. My words fell on deaf ears and I realised the analyst position was clearly defined and change would probably only be made after mistakes had been made, and a customer had been made unhappy. And the position of Analyst within the company meant dealing with immediate customer issues and relaying customer requests to the development team. Our relationship ended after that meeting: I expressed my concern for the issues and they made it clear they would prefer somebody without my interests.

After this experience, I certainly believe more than ever that there is room for those with qualifications and experience of customer centred design principles in the position of Analyst. However, finding those with the power and faith to appoint these people to an analyst position will continue to be a difficult task.

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