Must have soft skills for business analysts in 2024

Hard skills will get you a job, but soft skills will take you to the top!!

My last article on “Top IT Skills for a BA” was liked and appreciated by professionals; here I am back with the next one, this time with the soft skills that you need to nurture/hone as a Business Analyst professional.

Soft skills, though, typically are not the top skills people wish to acquire/learn but are equally essential for a professional to grow up in his career.

As we all know, a business analyst analyzes an organization and designs its processes and systems, assessing the business model and its integration with technology to achieve a certain objective.

Business Analyst typically has to talk to the stakeholders, get the requirements, document the requirements, get the development team’s nod on the same, negotiate with both the parties for the requirements, sign off, get the requirements to sign off from the stakeholder/sponsor.

This certainly calls for a good amount of ability to communicate effectively, convince/influence without authority, negotiate, etc.

Here is a good list of skills you need to acquire/hone over the years to be a better Business Analyst professional:

1. Communication Skill – As a BA, we need to be effective communicators establishing a bridge between the various stakeholders
2. Negotiation Skill – Balancing between those demanding requirements of the customer/stakeholder and the internal organization would need a good amount of negotiation skills. Creating a fine balance while looking at the requirements from a holistic point of view will for sure make us a perfect BA.
3. Facilitation Skill – As a bridge between stakeholders, we need to have excellent facilitation skills to ensure that communication is proper and all the requirements are articulated well and explicitly.
4. Analytical thinking Skill – Get analytical and problem-solving skills brushed to analyze all the scenarios well, come up with solutions, and ensure that there are no conflicts in the team and all the members communicate well with each other.
5. Problem-solving Skill - A definite skill for all BA, as explained in the point above.
6. Decision-Making Skill – You have come up with multiple options for a particular problem using your analytical skills; now, you need to weigh the options well and come up with a decision to present to the steering committee; this is why you need this skill.
7. Ability to see the bigger picture – This is a very important skill for all BAs; focusing on the given set of requirements and not seeing the bigger picture lot of times leads to a situation where the product does not see the light of the day or gets abandoned. Hence this is one of the very important skills to have; you need to have good business knowledge and knowledge of technology/business advancements to see a bigger picture and keep it in mind while the designing of the system is being carried out.
8. Ability to appreciate and empathize – See the points coming from all stakeholders and the basis of all requirements and make a good judgment of the same keeping all in mind.
9. Ability to influence without authority – As BA’s there are numerous meetings we need to spearhead/facilitate, this is where we need to be good to influence senior stakeholders and decision-makers/sponsors of the project.
10. Good interpersonal skills – Above all skills, we need to have good interpersonal skills and a good rapport with the team and all stakeholders to make the project successful.

Above all these skills will make you a better professional each day, these skills are something we learn with each day and polish with each day in our professional lives.