As a Sr. Business Analyst, should I learn a programming language?

[Ns1]

Background:

I have a background in accounting information systems. I'm currently on my first real software development project (F500 company, 20mil project) as a sr. business analyst.

I'm looking towards the future and am considering adding some programming skills to my toolbox. I'm thinking I would like sharepoint expertise or iOS expertise. Sharepoint seems hot, and I'm interesting in being the "guy in the middle" for iOS development, between the business/client and technical guys.

With that said, is it worth learning a programming language? I don't even know WTF I need to learn for Sharepoint, and I believe iOS = Objective C.

Thoughts?

I'm a CS dropout (dropped out after java programming) so I have some idea of what to expect.

 

[alkemyst]

Most analysts I knew came from the programming side.

 

[BoberFett]

You're a business analyst, so why would you want to learn a skill that will make you an part-time entry level programmer rather than a better business analyst? Spend your time on what will further your career there rather than split your attention. You don't have to know the nuts and bolts of the language to know the capabilities. Your job is (I presume, business analyst is a vague title that means different things to different companies) to find new ways to enable your company to increase efficiency/margins/etc. So understand the business case, don't strive to turn into a part time code monkey. Leave that to other people.

 

[Ns1]

I'm not looking at what I can do for my company now. I'm looking at what I can do for myself after this project.

Your point is noted. However, look at this sample job listing. Things in italics are things I don't currently do or don't currently know.

Position: Sr Business Analyst

Job Description



We are looking for an experienced Business Analyst to join our software

development team. Our growing software development organization needs talented

people who possess strong deductive reasoning, extreme attention to detail, persistence, patience and creativity.



Primary responsibilities include:

Elicit requirements using interviews, document analysis, conducts requirements workshops and surveys, documents business processes, use cases, scenarios, task and workflow analysis.
Critically evaluates information gathered from multiple sources, reconciles conflicts, decompose high-level information into details, abstract up from low-level information to a general understanding, and distinguishes user requests from the underlying true needs.
Proactively communicates and collaborates with internal and external customers to analyze information needs and functional requirements and delivers the following artifacts as needed:
Business Requirements Document
Functional Requirements Document
Use Cases
GUI, Screen and User Interface designs.
Successfully engage in multiple initiatives simultaneously.
Work independently with users to define concepts and under the direction of the VP of IT.
Drive and challenge business units (LOBs) on their assumptions of how they will successfully execute their plans.
Strong analytical and product management skills required, including a thorough understanding of how to interpret customer business needs and translate them into application and operational requirements.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills and the ability to interact professionally with a diverse group, including executives, managers, and subject matter experts (SMEs).
Serves as the conduit between the customer community (internal and external customers) and the software development team through which requirements flow.
Develops requirements specifications according to standard templates, using natural language.
Collaborates with developers and subject matter experts (SMEs) to establish the technical vision and analyzes tradeoffs between usability and performance needs.
Becomes the liaison between the business units (LOBs), technology teams and support teams.
Desired Skills and Experience

Must have skills:

BA/BS in Computer Science/Engineering or related discipline. Will consider candidates with equivalent experience.
SharePoint 2010 SME, Power User and site administration experience including site (templates, page layouts, permissions), user and content (lists, workflows) management.
Well-versed in SDLC and development methodologies.
Direct hands-on experience with ad hoc query software (SQL, Toad) and reporting software (Crystal Reports).
Proven data analysis, data verification and problem-solving abilities.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
Excellent listening, presentation, and interpersonal skills.
Ability to communicate ideas in both technical and user-friendly language.
Able to prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment.
Detail oriented and a problem solver.
Ability to work in a rapidly changing environment.
Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment.


Would like to have skills:

Requirements analysis experience for web and mobile (Android, iOS) applications.
Well-versed in functional testing methodologies.
Experience with HR and Payroll Systems (PDS Vista), Oracle eBusiness Suite.

 

[BoberFett]

I'm not looking at what I can do for my company now. I'm looking at what I can do for myself after this project.

Your point is noted however.

Understood, but my answer would be the same. If you want to learn some basic development, as a business analyst I would recommend becoming a master of query and reporting tools. The learning curve is much lower than an actual programming language, you'll get valuable output much sooner, and I think it would apply more to your position Of course I'm making some assumptions about what your position actually is.

Edit: Thanks for posting the job description.

As I suspected, SQL and Crystal would be the query and reporting I was talking about. Learn those well.

Beyond that, I don't think you need to become a Sharepoint developer, which can be quite in-depth depending on what you want to do with it. There's a big difference between a Sharepoint power user which it sounds like they want and a Sharepoint developer. Basic administration should be enough.

 

[Ns1]

Understood, but my answer would be the same. If you want to learn some basic development, as a business analyst I would recommend becoming a master of query and reporting tools. The learning curve is much lower than an actual programming language, you'll get valuable output much sooner, and I think it would apply more to your position Of course I'mmaking some assumptions about what your position actually is.

thanks, this helps. my position is literally everything in the above ad that is not bolded, and is what I would expect to do in the future as a business analyst.

 

[brandonb]

I would learn business intelligence.

Main things being:

1) SQL (OLTP)
2) Reporting (be it Crystal or something else)
3) Analytic (OLAP) and Data Warehousing.

 

[Ns1]

I would learn business intelligence.

Main things being:

1) SQL (OLTP)
2) Reporting (be it Crystal or something else)
3) Analytic (OLAP) and Data Warehousing.

Man, I don't even know how to go about learning this stuff. At least with programming I can pick up books and development software and start coding. Where the hell do I start with BI?

info to myself:

Are you looking to learn about buisness intelligence (BI) as a generalist (knowing the concepts and a broad view of technologies supporting BI), or are you looking to understand specific vendor tools and technologies at a deeper level so you can use BI technologies to develop data warehouses and decision support systems?
Links:

http://www.kimballgroup.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Kimball
http://www.microsoft.com/BI/en-us/pages/home.aspx

Clarification added 6 months ago:

The best place to start to learn about BI is with the original architect of data warehousing, Ralph Kimball, and the Kimball Methodology. The first link below points to Kimball's web site and has enough free information to get you started. I regard his books as classic works on data warehousing. For a background on Kimball and his methodology see the second link to the Wikipedia entry.

When you are ready to look at specific technologies and tools, I recommend Microsoft's BI tools. The 3rd link below will get you started with the Microsoft BI tools.

Because Microsoft BI tools come with Microsoft SQL Server, and you can get the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (latest version) full featured developer edition for $60, you can start learning with the enterprise-class tools at low cost.

Best of luck to you in your BI journey.

http://www.inetsoft.com/evaluate/whitepapers/

 

[Pia]

I looked into customizing Sharepoint for a bit (I guess this would lie between "power user" and "admin") and my key conclusion was that I don't ever want to touch Sharepoint again. I'm a programmer by trade, but I think it would be easier to overlook and/or tolerate Sharepoint's terrible UI if I wasn't.

 

[Ns1]

I looked into customizing Sharepoint for a bit (I guess this would lie between "power user" and "admin") and my key conclusion was that I don't ever want to touch Sharepoint again. I'm a programmer by trade, but I think it would be easier to overlook and/or tolerate Sharepoint's terrible UI if I wasn't.

I'm an end user and SP makes me want to kill myself.

 

[Scout80]

If you want Business Intelligence the Kimball Group is the way to go. His books are excellent. I have 4 of his books on my desk at work and can honestly say I have read three of them so far.

As a software engineer, I can appreciate it when a business analyst can understand basic programming ideas. Where I work, BAs are required to understand our database structure. Those that don't bother to learn what an index is tend to have poorly thought out designs.

It all depends on how detailed/technical your designs and discussions are with programmers/engineers.

 

[Ns1]

If you want Business Intelligence the Kimball Group is the way to go. His books are excellent. I have 4 of his books on my desk at work and can honestly say I have read three of them so far.

As a software engineer, I can appreciate it when a business analyst can understand basic programming ideas. Where I work, BAs are required to understand our database structure. Those that don't bother to learn what an index is tend to have poorly thought out designs.

It all depends on how detailed/technical your designs and discussions are with programmers/engineers.

Thanks, the bolded is exactly why I'm considering learning some more technical skills. I impress the tech peeps in my group all the time with my technical knowledge of shit not related to my role at all (such as SQL administration, which was useful while developing a Security FDS). I feel the architects appreciate not having to explain to me every basic technical concept.

I'll take a look @ the Kimball Group, seems like programming was not the way to go to advance my skills.

 

[Snapshot1]

I agree with the ideas of adding some sort query / business intelligence / database skills, these are not always strong in programmers but are very important in system design and interfaces, and can also be useful in creating and evaluating prototypes.

Good database design and implementation requires understanding the business entities and processes (presumably this is something you already know) and also the theoretical, empirical and practical aspects of data definition, structure, normalization and related concepts (things to learn).

Even if there is a DBA or similar to actually design and administer the database(s) this knowledge will help you communicate with them, and in small to medium size organizations there is often no such person, so you might end up doing some of it or at least supervising others who do.

Some database skills and experience can be quite specific to a product or even a version, but generally they are broader and more portable than programming language skills. For example most of my experience is with MS SQL Server but it was fairly easy to learn enough to deal with a system based on Oracle when that project came up.

Conversely in my experience expertise in the details of a particular language / dialect and the framework, APIs, tools, etc. that attend it is generally not that transferable to other languages, even though the basic concepts of programming are the same.

Snapshot1

 

[Leros]

My company has been teaching python to some of our non-technical people. They've been able to do great things with it.

There are a lot of stories of "I had this task that used to take me 1 week every month. I spent 2 days writing this script and it runs in 60 seconds. Now I can run this report daily and have more accurate data".

These are things that any programmer would know how to do, but a lot of people would never even think about automating.

 

[Train]

My company did a 1 day agile workshop recently, in which each team of 4 built a video game in one day. We used a simple sprite manipulation program called scratch, which let you drag and drop conditionals, loops, and event handlers into either game objects or the game background, it was simple enough for non programmers to pick it up and use it quickly.

It was fun watching sales guys and managers run into simple problems like race conditions or deciding to scope variables locally or globally while they attempted to build a game. I think they left with a slightly better appreciation of what kind of mind work programming can be, even in its simplest form.

 

[Dulanic]

I am in a similar situation, as a Operations Analyst myself. 2 years ago I knew nothing, I could barely use SUM in excel. Over the 2 years I have become pretty decent at Excel, Access and Sharepoint. Enough to display data in a pretty user friendly fashion which is really what my job is. My next goal is SQL. SQL is kind of king when it comes to analyzing and storing data.

My goal is not to be a master of any of these things as a analyst but more so to be comfortable with all to be able to fulfill at least a basic request using any of these method of relaying the information needed.

 

[Ns1]

I think it's time to learn some sharepoint administration.

We're rolling out SP 2010 to the entire corporation.

 

[Ns1]

any new thoughts?

 

[slugg]

any new thoughts?

Yea. Learn some basic SQL. You don't need to be an expert at all... Just spend a few hours learning how to do some basic queries. Just be able to think in "set logic" and declarative language.

Don't let the "declarative" word scare you; it's just fancy talk for a very simple concept. Instead of making a formula to compute an answer, which is probably what you're used to, you instead describe what the answer should look like. For example, you could say "I'm looking for a list of products made by Apple but not sold at Best Buy." Easy enough? As far as Structured Query Language (SQL), it's just a template you're supposed to follow so the computer knows what you're talking about, since computers are stupid.

Just knowing more or less how a query is formulated will seriously help you out. Nobody will pretend to care whether or not you're a database mastermind. But if you can understand some database basics, you'll be able to communicate a whole lot more effectively.

If you get interested, you can even get into reporting services. Crystal Reports and MS SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) are easier than you may think. 80% of the skill is the same as using Word and Excel; the remaining 20% is just some basic queries.

So... I hope I've convinced you to take a few hours to explore some SQL. I recommend starting with the Microsoft stuff, just because it's so easy to get set up and going. See the other thread where I replied to your post.