The Value of Adaptability: A Business Analyst's Journey from Finance to Software at Tacta

As of today, our business analyst Senka has spent the last 4 years bridging the gap between business and IT.?

In this interview, she talks about the business analyst (BA) role at Tacta, her professional journey, and how her background in finance helped her on a project she worked on.

Navigating the Complexities of Business: The Business Analyst's Role at Tacta

Nowadays, the role of a business analyst is in between business and IT by analyzing and translating business requirements from clients into functional units (stories) for developers to work on. This involves understanding both the technical language and processes of IT as well as the business side- being able to communicate effectively with clients.

I believe it’s crucial to understand both sides, both the IT lingo and the business aspect.

At Tacta, we adapt the Scrum framework, which means that team members are part of Scrum teams within the company.?

In their day to day, they participate in stand-ups and catch up on the most important tasks that bring the team closer to their sprint goal. Of course, as a part of Scrum, there are also Scrum retrospectives and planning events every two weeks.?

I’m a real fan of the fluidity of the BA in Tacta. There aren’t that many constraints, which leaves space for creativity as well as building a partnership with both developers and clients. There are so many things that can be learned and tried out.

Senka says that her role is similar to the proxy product owner role as she performs everyday tasks a PO would have: maximizing product value, managing the product backlog, and assisting developers during functional development.

For BAs at Tacta, it is not just about analyzing functionalities but also testing stories after their development, monitoring the project, and managing the release process. Basically, the BA role at Tacta is different from a traditional one in the fact that the BA is involved throughout the whole product life cycle.

For me, it is very important to have the freedom to find my own pace and to use the tools I like.?

It also helps when the whole team is focused on the business domain and product value understanding through a common language. When that happens, the BA stops being a mere translator between the two parties; instead his/her role brings up teamwork between developers and clients and they all work together on software quality.

From High School IT Competitions to a Career in Software Business Analysis

Senka developed her love for the IT field after participating in IT competitions during high school. She went on to get a degree in IT management but when she started her first job as a financial business analyst, she still held on to her dream to work in the IT industry.?

In her role as a financial analyst, she worked extensively with data refinement and analysis. She would receive raw data from the Business Intelligence unit, analyze it and prepare reports for the upper management.?

However, her work was different from the current one in that it was more operational and involved more work with Excel, manual tasks, and was less team-based.?

So, one day, she came across a job post for a software business analyst at Tacta and applied. She says that she was invited to complete a BA task in 7 days. I didn’t have a vast knowledge of the role’s responsibilities back then, so I basically had 7 days to do extensive research on how to do the task, she remembers.?

I must’ve done something right because they offered me a position, she said jokingly.

In reality, it was her enthusiasm for knowledge while keeping in mind satisfied customers, that has made her such a valuable part of our team. To this day, those two things have remained her main motivation.

After two months, she got the opportunity for her own project and team, to work on a business domain related to finance. This gave her the chance to use her financial background and suggest new functionalities that were developed afterward, related to tracking payment flows and improvements in processing incoming payments.

Find out more about the project here.

My way of working is to embrace the common goal we all have - product value, and work towards it, rather than taking sides between business and IT.

Shy to Speaker: How to Overcome Communication Challenges as a Business Analyst

To anyone at the beginning of their career in business analysis, Senka recommends educating themselves in the Agile and Scrum methodologies, while taking every opportunity to gain some experience.?

She states that every experience can be valuable given the context. For example, her knowledge of finance helped her with the Finance Service project she worked on.?

Overcoming communication challenges comes down to never being afraid to ask questions, and then ask some more.?

She also remembers being very shy at the beginning as it was a big challenge for her to speak in front of a large audience. Business analysts at Tacta usually have to present the project(s) to clients and end users as well as demo the work that has been developed.?

For people with similar experiences, she says the main key is to prepare well but at the same time not keep the presentation up too long. After that, practice makes perfect.

The bad news is that it might take you 15 takes to practice something, but the good news is that the 16th time you might actually start enjoying it.?