Business Analyst plays an important role in a lot of aspects of a company. A business analyst’s job involves a lot of research, data analysis and to some extent problem solving.  The BA is responsible for the success of the Requirements Definition (RD) Process including system requirement definition, business scenario development, conceptual and logical modeling, class diagramming, conceptual wireframing, and tools used to make information processing more efficient for initiative team.  The BA supports application development in the Systems Domain. The BA must understand the social landscape from an internal and external context. They must have participated in different online communities and technologies and be proficient at understanding the context and potential.

The Project Manager or Business Analyst must be a facilitator of training, coaching, and mentoring the utilization of new tools and cultures that develop based on people utilizing these new tools.  The BA works closely with tool vendors, social business consultants and other firms to ensure the business scenarios and technologies fit the Enterprise as well as individual units responsible for owning the context of the business execution.  The BA must navigate and integrate the ecosystem of people, processes, and technologies from a culture and community aspect for planning and execution for operational success.

The BA understands the technology and business environments, application and process capabilities, and architectural constraints, and is capable of leveraging and successfully applying this information to bring the best solution forward.  The BA works closely with Business Representatives (Supply Chain, Distribution, Marketing, HR, Communications, Customer Service, Product Development, and any other Business Unit you have for executing the Business), Application Architects, Data Analysts and Software Developers to provide analytical support to ensure system and business requirements are clearly documented and understood during the design and development of the application.

The BA owns and manages system and business requirements definition. The BA participates in a supporting role in the overall design and development of the technology solutions.  The BA must be able to resolve conflicts in non-threatening manner.  The BA must be able to communicate effectively both verbally and written requirements.

Responsibilities

The Social Media Business Analyst will play a leadership role in defining the future state business architecture as it relates to social media.  The role will be responsible for defining strategic and tactic roadmaps for the adoption of a social media solution.  The roadmaps must provide a clear strategy for addressing adoption, implementation, governance, security concerns, roles and process integration of social media.

• Develop a business architecture strategy based on a situational awareness of various business scenarios and motivations.
   
• The business architecture strategy will be focused on the successful integration of business processes with a social business solution.
   
• Apply a structured business architecture approach and methodology for capturing the key views of the business functions as it relates to social media.
   
• Capture the tactical and strategic enterprise social media goals that provide traceability through the organization and are mapped to metrics that provide ongoing governance.
   
• Describe the primary business functions that may benefit from social business solutions and distinguish between customer-facing, supplier-related, business execution and business management functions.
   
• Define the set of strategic, core and support processes necessary for a successful implementation of social business with the corporate environment.
   
• Recommend the selection of a social business solution which best aligns to the needs of the business architecture of the company.

• Lead the strategy, project planning, interactively gather information, implement, and operationalize the technology and business processes.

The job of a Social Business Analyst involves many aspects that span from business operations to technology implementation. It requires them to have constant interaction with the clients / customers and for them to be able to provide appropriate solutions in a timely manner. A Social Business Analyst will need to have good understanding of Business, Technology, and Culture of Social (eventually it will be the way a business is run, but must mature just like other business organizations like HR, Marketing, or Legal).  Here is a visual representation of where the job duties will fall:

Social Business Analyst - Current

Social Business Analyst - Future

A summary of the job duties of a Social Business Analyst are given below. Many of the job duties fall within each one of the specific spheres above and can be applied to Business, Technology and Social. A Social Business Analyst is going to need to perform many of these duties simultaneously, which is part of BA’s DNA.  Many of these job duties can be spotted on a resume based on project work, but can only be assessed by interacting online and or face to face interviews.

Opportunity Analysis

• Identifies cause-and-effect relationships and implementing solutions to address causes.
• Selects the most appropriate course of action.
• Develops initiates or leads an effort to improve procedures or implement new approaches for supporting solutions to problems or opportunities.
• Modifies their own behavior with the need, priorities and goals of the organization’s changing circumstances.
• Comprehends appropriate channels to quickly expedite customer services and deliverables.
• Demonstrates knowledge of the IT organization’s customers, policies and practices.
• Demonstrates a sufficient overall knowledge of technology to use internal and external resources of technology assistance effectively.
• Formulates specifications for complex systems or application programs.
• Stays abreast of new developments and attends professional development activities.
• To be able to understand and collect all the business requirements of the clients as well as partners a part of the initiative.
• Making of proposals and interacting with the client to ensure that the solutions that are being suggested are what he or she want and that they are viable enough to be implemented.
• Conducting basic analysis and research of the industry that the customer belongs to.
• Prepare and define the scope of the project.
• Determining the effort and the cost of the project.
• Drafting business requirements.
• Interacting and working with a team to ensure that they understand the project requirements and deliver solutions accordingly.
• Sets an example by behaving in ways that are consistent with company vision and values.
• Creates an environment in which employees have ownership of their jobs and area able to achieve job expectations.
• Assumes ownership and accountability for own performance management.
• Projects personal and company high standards and develops constructive, trusting relationships in all interactions.
• Assesses one’s own strengths and weaknesses and takes actions to improve.

Requirements Analysis

• Translates pure business elements and functions as well as technological concepts into language that is understandable to the audiences receiving the information.
• Identifies and analyzes problems and opportunities based on business and IT strategic and tactical goals, objectives, and visions.
• Analyzes business processes problems and opportunities based on business strategic and tactical goals, objectives, and visions.
• Works at one’s own discretion, independently of outside influence or control, contributing to high morale and group commitment that supports goals and objectives.
• Originates action to achieve goals or influence events beyond what is mandatory.
• Restates the content and feelings expressed in information received from the spoken communication of others accurately.
• Communicates effectively, in both verbal and written form, with diverse groups, regardless of level or function.
• Sensitive to hierarchical structures of groups and organizations.
• Seeks ways of going beyond the limits set by structure to help bring out the best in individuals and groups.
• Encourages highly energized, productive, inclusive and meaningful participation and knows how to engage people in planning and decision making.
• Conducts meetings to obtain, qualify and evaluate information to support the definition and clarification of requirements and needs.
• Understands what customers really want and then measures actions and improvements against that vision.
• Provides friendly, caring service and handles any customer situation with confidence and a sense of urgency.
• Develops rapport, mutual trust and understanding of customers overall business and related computing needs.
• Produces and communicates the meaning of business process and domain models.
• Creates business cases to provide support or definition to the strategic direction of a business area
• Studies situations and actions, separating them into parts, and identifying common elements, themes, and risks.
• Seeks growth of knowledge an understanding of customers, business, industries, technologies, processes and systems.
• Identifies and analyzes system objects and presents the findings in a manner that supports facilitation to differing audiences.
• Gathers, organizes and evaluates information in a logical systematic fashion, recognizes patterns and similarities between past and present and across customers and industries.
• Produces and communicates the meaning of system process and domain models.
• Understands the relationship of business processes and domain models to system models.
• Identifies the specific data elements and their attributes as they relate to business needs for returning and reporting information.
• Identifies the sources of data and how the data is used and interacts with systems and applications.
• Identifies the specific data structures as they relate to the sources and targets in order to facilitate collection, storage, and extraction of data.

Requirements Management

• Identifies and determines the impact to changing requirements on scope and development effort.
• Traces requirements to understand dependencies.
• Utilizes people effectively by allocating responsibilities and authority to them as appropriate.
• Mentors for knowledge, skill and behavior development.
• Identifies and offers opportunities to learn and develop.
• Participates in cross-functional teams to work on problems or opportunities.
• Works cooperatively with other team members to accomplish goals.
• Develops effective work relationships on all levels of the organization.
• Plan, tracks, and manages the components required to support successful completion of projects.
• Adheres to project management methodology to staff and projects or significant assignments.
• Follows current enterprise standards and methods to provide consistency in the environment using preferred tools and techniques.
• Identifies the need for new or improved standards and methods to provide better communication and stability within the technology and business areas.
• Assigns resources, ideas, time and people to accomplish a goal.
• Uses criteria to determine the relative importance of problems/goals/options.

Knowledge and Skills

• An understanding of .NET/J2EE/HTML/PHP/JS/HTML5/FBML
• Understanding or working knowledge of API’s, Integration Technologies, Mobile, Data Modeling
• An understanding of Social Technologies such as Twitter, Facebook, Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Youtube, Disqus, Pluck,WordPress, Posterous, Sharable Widgets, JIVE, Newsgator, Sharepoint, RSS Readers and Socialtext.  Must have an understanding of integrating these tools and technologies internally and or externally or both.
• An understanding of Social Monitoring Tools configurations, implementation, and reporting such as  Radian6, Crimson Hexagon, Lithium, Google Analytics, and Google Alerts.  Must have an understanding of what is needed and how to use working knowledge is a must.
• An understanding of applications for managing customers, employees, and businesses management information such as Siebel, MS Dynamics, Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Peoplsoft, SAP, Kenexa, Taleo
• An understanding of analysis concepts, database design, SQL, UML and software engineering is an added advantage.
• Excellent presentation, written and oral skills.
• Working knowledge of Software Development Lifecycles and methodologies and tools to get technology.  These would include Visio, Quality Center, Jira, Caliber, MSTFS, BluePrint, Sharepoint, Clarity, Basecamp

Educational Qualifications and Experience

• B.A. or B.S. degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Marketing, Communication, Journalism, or related field, or equivalent work experience
• 10+ years of systems and/ or business analysis or design experience in a systems or technical type role (e.g., application development, use of SDLC)
• 7+ years of personal experience with utilizing and participating with Social Technologies and Online Communities
• 10+ years of Business experience within Retail, Healthcare, Financial Services, Product Management, Software, Government, and or Non-Profit
• Works on extremely complex problems; assignments involve new technologies or new applications; recognized as enterprise-wide resource.
• Assist in the definition of objectives to support project success, review and track the completion.
• Mentor other associates within the IT and Business disciplines.
• Assigned projects of critical importance to support of key customers, development of new projects of strategic importance.
• Exercises independent judgment in developing methods, techniques and evaluation criteria for obtaining results.
• Prior experience in dealing with technical teams.
• Prior experience working on rapid technical development and collaborative project environments.
• Experience in drafting proposals and request for proposals.