Business Analyst Without Domain Knowledge

Knowledge domains edit version 1 6 of the babok identifies the following knowledge areas for a fully rounded business analyst.

Business analyst without domain knowledge. Individuals can enter the field either with knowledge of a specific business domain such as workflow billing or customer relations or with knowledge in an industry such as finance telecommunications or government. An entry level business analyst cannot replace the domain expertise comes with experience. Domain knowledge becomes important for a practicing business analyst.

Domain knowledge grows with time spent on domain specific projects and it being dependent on the nature of a project that a business analyst is found to be working with. Inside i give you a solid overview of the banking industry from retail corporate investment to private banking. If you work as a business analyst and are struggling to understand the banking domain there s no better starting point than my book banking domain knowledge for business analysts.

While an analyst that is gifted in analysis skills and techniques might be able to do an adequate job without deep business domain knowledge it s reasonable to think that an analyst that does have a strong sense of business context should be able to more quickly determine the right questions to ask and the right approach for handling business challenges. An it business analyst should therefore have the iiba qualified business analysis skills. Without business acumen it is practically impossible to gain domain specific knowledge to understand the industry and organization and work on the data to contribute effectively.

It is a measure of your knowledge in that particular area. Functional knowledge or domain knowledge as a business analyst you should understand the business processes of the customer you are developing software for. I would never advise anyone to use the lack of industry knowledge as a crutch but it can allow you to ask dumb questions that someone with great industry knowledge would not ask.

While an analyst that is gifted in analysis skills and techniques might be able to do an adequate job without deep business domain knowledge it s reasonable to think that an analyst that does have a strong sense of business context should be able to more quickly determine the right questions to ask and the right approach for handling business challenges. Business analysts should know business analysis plus software development plus a fair bit about project management plus a bit about the industry they are working on. It is not possible to gain the domain knowledge through certification.

Industry knowledge will develop over time but having good business analysis skills will allow you to be effective in business analysis tasks even though you lack that industry knowledge. The ba input is used through the life cycle of business intelligence and needs sound specific business knowledge the impact of any strategy implementation and a tactical day to day understanding of the business.