This post is for everyone who are considering a career in Business Analysis this year.

Whether you are starting from scratch or interested in transitioning from another professional career into Business Analysis, I want to share a few key points with you.

A few years ago, I was working on a business project with a group of police detectives. It was quite an unusual project for me but nevertheless extremely interesting. We were implementing a new criminal records system for the police force.

One day during this project, one of the police members on our team (playing the role of a subject matter expert) commented:

“Being a business analyst is like being a police detective, only for business problems!”

He elaborated that we do all the same things like interviewing people (witnesses), gathering information (evidence) and recommending solutions (finding the culprits). He went on to say that this is why a Business Analyst can make an excellent police detective and vice versa.

He was right, we are a bit like the detectives of the business world. A lot of what we do is to try and get to the root cause of a problem, understand the context, and recommend solutions.