Redefining the Business Analyst

The title “business analyst” has been misappropriated by IT and needs to be immediately released and returned to the business side of the house. Who would have thought that a simple misnomer would have such far-reaching consequences? Well, certainly not those in IT; they innocently set out to improve service quality and relationships with their business customers by creating a well-intentioned liaison.

Let’s examine the situation more closely. It all started when IT needed better business requirements to build systems in support of the business. The business was reluctant to allocate a business resource to an IT project when it believed that IT should fund its own requirements gathering. While the need for this resource was clear and justifiable, the source of funding caused the business analyst (BA) to reside on the IT side, which is where the problem begins.