What is a Business Analyst?
Let’s start first by taking a look at what business analysis is. Here’s the definition found in the IIBA’s BABOK v2 draft: “…Business analysis is the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies, and operations of an organization, and recommend solutions that enable organizations to achieve its goals…” The first thing you should notice in the above definition is that the business analyst works in the context of an organization (not necessarily a business). The term “business” implies the ultimate goal of making money. But there are other types of organizations whose primary objective is not to make money. Such organizations include: not for profit organizations, government agencies, community groups, associations, etc. All these groups, including businesses use business analysts in the quest to achieve their respective goals. So a better term for the business analyst would be “Organizational Analyst” as analysts
