Is Business Analyst a subject matter expert?
After being on the profile of a Business Analyst for around 5 years now, and working on almost 9 different projects in different domain areas, I wonder – is Business Analyst really a subject matter expert?
If I correctly understand the term “expert”, then it means being someone who has very deep understanding of the domain. Industry usually refer to BA’s as domain experts. BA’s are the responsible people who understand the requirements from clients/stake holders and then communicate with technical team regarding the requirement in detail. However, even this is true that BA’s usually keep on changing projects and with every project, usually their domain area changes. Now in this situation how many BA’s can “actually” have the confidence to call themselves as “Subject Matter Experts”???? So if this is the condition, then how can a BA ever have Project Ownership??
By Rishi Srivastava
Hi Rishi…Very interesting question “Is Business Analyst a subject matter expert?”. I would say it depends on what kind of company you are working for or what career path you have chosen. A Business Analyst have 2 different career paths. I am trying to explain both of these separately:
1. Career in an organization whose core business is IT (Deliver IT products or services to other companies): If A BA is working in such an organization, he is expected to work on multiple functional domains depending on the projects in hand and market demand. For example, if you are working on banking domain now and after completion of this project, your company can deploy you in any project in hand regardless of what domain you are experienced in. So we can say they are expected to have knowledge of everything but Jack of nothing. So the question arises here, what skills are important to lead you to higher level when domain expertise does not matter. I would say, that are versatile personality and learning speed. The more comfortable you are in adopting new cultures (customer culture, team culture n size), new domains and new technologies, the higher level you achieve.
2. Career in an organization whose core business is not an IT: If A BA is looking to work in such an organization, he is expected to work on a specific functional domain. He might have to work on many projects but within the same domain. Here a BA need to have a deep understating on that domain. His role is more into consulting than just a requirement gathering. He/ she is more responsible for process improvements and change management than just interacting with subject matters for a project which have already been finalized by senior management. So here, more and more domain knowledge you have, the higher level you achieve.
Analytical, communication and customer relationship skills are expected from every BA irrespective of any industry or company you are working for.
Hello Gagan,
Thanks for your valuable inputs…
As per your thoughts, if a BA is working for a service oriented company, he/she is expected to work on multiple functional domains depending on the projects in hand and market demand. This means we cant actually term the above mentioned BA’s as SME’s. (Unless obviously the experience is every domain is BIG). This makes me think what exactly is the growth prospect of a BA in service oriented company then. Will having knowledge of everything but being jack of nothing lead a BA to a management position anytime down the line in the career? Looks like I need to give it a thought and also try to find out with “The Guru BA’s” of the industry on this.
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