Automating the Business Analysis Professional?
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect the perspectives of IIBA.
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The beauty of technology lies in its dynamic nature and virtually boundless possibilities. That’s probably why we often hear a new flurry of terms associated with it. Today, it's AI, machine learning, and ChatGPT. Yesterday, the Internet of Things, blockchain, and Big Data were on everyone’s lips.
Business analysis professionals thrive at the heart of the action, as we make sense of ever-changing business needs and emerging developments to deliver a blueprint for those who bring it all to life.
One of these rapidly emerging developments is Intelligent Automation (IA)—AI and robotic process automation-driven (RPA) solutions. IA is already pivotal in streamlining and automating manual processes such as employee onboarding, records management, and inventory control.
Given the buzz around IA’s impact on entire jobs and industries, will business analysis professionals be immune?
It's Fascinating… and a Little Scary
It doesn't take long to pinpoint repetition in the business analysis field. Our job, in a nutshell, is to listen carefully, interpret the facts, and produce artifacts that can be delivered. With a bit of imagination, it's easy to imagine how automation could rapidly take over. Workshops could be silently recorded, transcribed, and curated into succinct meeting minutes and emailed to all participants in mere moments.
From there, it might be possible for IA to:
- Extract business requirements from meeting minutes
- Transform into sprint-ready user stories and acceptance criteria
- Decipher a series of steps and produce process flow diagrams
- Link to freshly generated test cases and produce a traceability matrix
- Send the results to a product owner for approval moments after the session
The scary part is that this technology already exists.
In the face of it all, have business analysis professionals simply disappeared from the chain? Who’s to say I even wrote this piece? (Rest assured, it's all me, but you get my point).
Business analysis professionals truly face an existential crisis. Nobody knows exactly what’s coming or when; the only certainty is change. Thankfully, navigating change is an area we’re well-versed in!
What’s Next?
Awareness is key, and our curious mind comes into play. We need to monitor emerging IA and how it might eventually transform the way business analysis professionals work. Technological innovation often introduces a lag, so we must stay ahead as it progresses.Beyond that, science becomes more of an art, as the human element comes into play. I firmly believe that, ultimately, business analysis is all about people.
We’re here to help deliver solutions to the business needs of people by interacting with people, such as designers, builders, and testers, and to serve a function to end users, who are also people! IA tools will quickly handle once mundane tasks, but human context, imperfections, and biases will continue to influence us. Our goals are built on who we are, where we come from, and our perspectives.
What culture are we nurturing in our local community? What exactly does success mean here to us? Is what we call a "product" the same as what you call it? Understanding value ties directly to the core foundations of business analysis, defined in IIBA’s Business Analysis Core Concept Model as, “the worth, importance, or usefulness of something to a stakeholder within a context.”
Much of this boils down to trust, communication, and empathy. Nothing gets a difficult workshop moving better than a human mediator who is understood. Metrics and scores can be applied in many ways, but instinct often guides them; customer success could be vastly different when sponsoring a banking app compared to e-commerce.
A developer would prefer an explanation over a whiteboard and caffeine over a thoroughly written specification, just as a tester prefers a peer review with a shared screen, compared to a voice recording. Ask an aspiring end user if they'd take a live demonstration over a step-by-step video guide. All the latter are valuable supplementary tools, however.
An innate part of us knows that human interaction is authentic, so we trust it. As impressive as IA will be, can it really trick a millennia-old human brain?
Business analysis professionals are at the forefront of human-stakeholder interactions and will play a crucial role in making sense of this changing landscape. Make no mistake: IA, along with a myriad of other mind-bending technologies, is coming, and it will transform how all businesses function.
In the future, the watchful business analysis professional will co-exist with technologies once predicted to replace them.
Ready to help your organization brave the future? IIBA offers a variety of globally recognized business analysis certifications. Explore the full suite of professional certifications today.
About the Author
Varun Prasad is the Business Analysis Manager at New Zealand Lotteries, where he leads the business analysis practice. He has transitioned through several roles over a thirteen-year career, including business analysis, data migration consultancy, software development, and I&AM (Identity and Access) consultancy. As an active member of IIBA, he looks forward to being part of and further contributing to the global business analysis community.
