Tools and Certificiatons to Become a Successful Business Analyst

Certifications have been trending over a lot these days, and people are indulging themselves in it to gain some knowledge and acquire new skills. It can be done both online and offline and depends on you and your preferences.

Before getting into knowing which Business Analyst certification would be apt for you, let us first try to understand what it is and what skills are required for you to have and learn during this certification.

What is Business Analysis?

Let’s start by understanding the basics of business analysis.

Business analysis is a process to identify the needs and requirements of any business and providing appropriate solutions to any problem an organization is facing.

Given below are the various ways in which BA is being used in the industry:

• Identifies the problems
• Helps in discovering the business needs
• Provides solutions to business problems
• Document and manage all the necessary business requirements
• Decides various BA techniques

So, to become a successful Business Analyst, you can start by learning a few tools and improving your soft skills.

The tools that you can attempt to learn are:

1. MS Word — For requirement gathering
2. MS PowerPoint — For presentation purposes
3. MS Excel — To document the information
4. MS Visio — For diagrams and vector graphics
5. LucidChart — For data visualization purposes
6. Mindmeister— for visualization and sharing content via the cloud
7. Jira — For bug tracking and prioritizing the assignments
8. Trello — It is used as a project management tool
9. Process Street — For managing business procedures and checklists
10. Pencil — For drawing purposes
11. Balsamiq — For creating wireframes for websites
12. Kissmetrics —To keep a track and have insights
13. SQL Querying — For creating and managing databases

The purpose of these tools are:

• To remember the changing requirements.
• To sync up with the development team.
• To coordinate with the QA team.
• To discover the requirements for a project

Apart from these, you should have the following qualities to become a good Business Analyst:

1. Communication Skills — Having good communication skills goes a long way irrespective of the business field you are into.
2. Analytical Skills — Needless to say, a business analyst is expected to have good analytical skills if they want to gather and understand the requirements.
3. Creative Thinking — It will come in handy when you have to understand the requirements and translate it.
4. Decision Making Skills — During your job, you might have to make a lot of decisions in different fields, and so you have to be good at it.
5. Problem Solving Skills —Since the job has many aspects to it, you might face some issues or troubles which you will have to handle and find a solution to it accordingly.
6. Managerial Skills — You will have to manage simultaneous tasks and projects.

So, in order to learn these, you have to enroll yourself in a good online or offline course. Now, considering the online market and what all it has to offer these days, the best option for you is to go for online training programs.

Certifications

All of these certifications will help you in one way or the other. You have to decide in which group you are lying in, someone who is just getting started or someone with a few years of experience. Once you have decided that where you stand, you can move ahead to choose the best certification for you.

There are four certifications that will help you boost your career. Depending upon your prior experiences, knowledge, and skills, you can select the course that is best suited for.

1. Entry Certificate in Business Analysis (ECBA) — This certification is designed for the entry-level candidates who are just getting started in the Business Analysis field.
2. Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) — CBAP came into the picture for professionals having over five years of industry experience and want to get certified for it.
3. Certification of Competency in Business Analysis (CCBA) —This certification is for practitioners who want to be recognized for their expertise and skills by earning formal recognition.
4. PMI Professional in Business Analysis (PBA) —  The PMI-PBA Certification carries a high level of professional credibility as it recognizes individual expertise in business analysis.

Final Thoughts

On the end note, we want to mention the importance of having clarity in your mind, working hard and practicing. You have to remain consistent and follow a schedule to be successful at it. You have to focus on the topics you don’t know and keep on revising and practicing the topics that you already know.

Business Analysis is one of the best trending careers in the market right now. According to LinkedIn, it is going to be among the top 10 careers in the next five years. Since it is so much in demand, a candidate with relevant skills will also be paid a lot. So choose the right certification and move forward in your career.

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