"business analysts"

[Mirinjawbro]

Hello all

in the last year or so when looking for jobs i've found that most of the analyst roles i go for are also now looking for some sort of qualification. or actually more towards the below

-agile methods
-workshops
-prince 2
-waterfalls

just of the top of my head

are any of these business analyst qualifications worth doing? has anyone taken the route from an analyst (stuck on excel, power BI etc) to this? or combined both?

thanks

[Freakuk]

Prince2 would be waterfall (methodology), Agile being another.

I don't think there's anything really new in what BA's would do regardless of methodology, you probably already work in this way but you may not be aware.

[Mirinjawbro]

thankyou.

i just seem kind of stuck now at the level im at.

senior analyst is about as far as i can go without something else.

business analyst day rate seem to be 100-300 higher than current

thanks

[sir humphrey appleby]

I've been a BA for a large corporate canadian bank and moved to the local authority a few years back, I've done a number of the BCS exams, which are good for the theory, methods, and documentation that is required.

I found them very useful but I had a slight advantage as I had training on the job beforehand when I moved over from a testing role.

No one has mentioned Prince 2 to me in the last 8 years of being a BA, also people talk about using agile but I am not too sure they understand what that means in experience.

[Aunty Pasty]

I thought Prince2 was a project management qualification.

Waterfall and Agile are just methodologies for how a project lifecycle is handled. Agile is the current flavour and waterfall is seen more as old school.

[Scabutz]

Interesting, when I recruit BAs I dont ever look for a qualification. If you are joining an organisation that uses PRINCE2 or SCRUM then its useful to have knowledge of that methodology you'll be operating in, but no need for a BA to be qualified in them.

If the jobs you are going for require a qualification then maybe get a scrum one, be quicker and easier than PRINCE2 which isn't very popular these days.

Have you thought about progressing to product owner/manager as a natural step from BA. Again no formal qualifications required there

[Mirinjawbro]

my last 8 years or so is all performance analyst / reporting analyst really. just typing analyst in reed brings up 50% of business analyst roles which seem a mix.

thanks for the replies

[Freakuk]

Aunty Pasty said:

I thought Prince2 was a project management qualification.

Waterfall and Agile are just methodologies for how a project lifecycle is handled. Agile is the current flavour and waterfall is seen more as old school.

They are, but BA's are generally key within projects, although BA could well be called an SA on Agile projects.

[RizzoTheRat]

Could also be worth looking at the OR Society and OR/OA jobs, pretty much identical to BA but slightly different domain knowledge.