Do You Feel Lucky Just to Be a Business Analyst?
Laura Brandenburg, ACBA, CBAP
Business Analysis Training | Business Strategist | Helping business analysts, product, project, and technology professionals create business value and advance their careers with practical, real-world online training
It's likely that you consider yourself lucky to have found a role for the skills you enjoy the most - creative problem solving and collaborative communication. You get to take big ideas and make them real.
You excel at creating clarity out of ambiguity, alignment out of disagreement, and order out of chaos. You create positive change for your organization. Your work has meaning, and perhaps you are even creating outcomes that actually matter to you personally.
In so many ways, you have a role it seems like dreams are made of - at least for your, shall we say, unique way of looking at the world. You just can’t help yourself from finding improvements (or as some say “problems”) everywhere you look. But your (mostly) sunny personality, engaging nature, and ability to get things done and keep everything organized more than compensates for your occasional bout of critical rants and analysis paralysis.
And yet, you are certainly not alone if you face any of the following challenges:
Yet, despite all of these very real challenges, you feel incredibly lucky. You probably landed in this role almost by accident, without a formal degree or business analyst certification, and you are just waiting for everyone else to figure out that you don’t really know what you are doing. (And if you don't feel that way now, I'm guessing there was a time you did.)
You are grateful just to have this job that comes with a competitive salary, a retirement package, and health insurance, and that you enjoy at least most of the time. Especially with how layoff news keeps escalating.
It doesn’t feel right to ask for more. These challenges are just what we have to deal with, right?
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There was a time that I thought so too.?
Truth be told, for most of my corporate career I felt like I was in a made-up role created on the back of a dysfunctional organization, not a role that I could actually make a career out of.?
Obviously, I was wrong.
I am beginning to think that this feeling of being lucky is a big reason why imposter syndrome is so pervasive in our profession.
This all leaves us settling for crumbs when we could have a whole meal - and a 5-star, 7-course one at that!
Perhaps if we stopped feeling so darn lucky and started seeing how needed and essential our skills are, and chose to stand in the immense power of doing work that matters, things would start to shift. For each of us individually, and as we do it for ourselves, collectively for the profession as a whole.
What do you think? Do you feel lucky just to be a business analyst? Is it time to stop feeling that way? Let's discuss.
Experienced Senior Business Systems Analyst
2 年commenting to spread
Ask to Uncover? Question Workshop | Helping Tech Teams & Consultants Deliver the Right Solution Through Better Questions | Corporate Trainer & Speaker | Author of Amazon Bestseller, 'Rock Your Role as a Salesforce Admin'
2 年I love this post! My network is full of Salesforce Business Analysts and Admins, both roles that I believe have the ability to be incredibly influential inside an organization. So, if you think you're "just" a BA or Admin you are, but if you know that you're in a position that can transform processes, impact an organization's top and bottom line, and improve associate and customer experience, well, then you are!
Creative problem-solver ?? | Analytical thinker ?? | Community builder ?? | Forever Learner ?? | Shepherdess ??
2 年I think most of us feel, to some degree or another, that we don't know what we're doing! The less time in a role/company, the stronger it is. But I even occasionally felt that way after twenty years in mortgage! I think the trick is to learn to embrace "beginner's mind" and not expect that you'll know all the answers all the time on all the subjects. Just going out and doing what you do know how to do and allowing space to stretch and expand helps get over that imposter syndrome.
Outcomes Engineer ?? Helping you analyse → connect → and get stuff done in the real world!
2 年I definitely feel lucky… ??I only stumbled onto the BA role by accident (like many). I can’t even think what I would have turned out to be otherwise!! Great topic! Here’s my thoughts ?? There’s parts of the BA role that are pretty uncomfortable: challenging assumptions, asking tough questions, facilitating hard decisions and more. Im far more likely to feel the tinge of imposter syndrome when I’m doing those parts of the role. My brain is asking: is the thing I’m seeing real? Why has no one asked this before? We work in a lot of uncertainty and it’s probably natural to feel uncertain about things in that environment (including our approach). The problem becomes when that stops us from actually doing our job.