How a businesss analyst can help a software project

Though sometimes analysts are confused as to why they are send to the software field where they have no experience?

The simple answer to this is  an analyst skills and experience can help the user representatives understand and communicate their needs more effectively to the project's official requirements analyst.

They work with the users to create process models for their business using notations and languages that the requirements analyst and developers can understand. These modeling notations include the classic data flow diagram, entity-relationship models and a data dictionary to document the data needs, and the various models supported by the Unified Modeling Language (UML).

They facilitate some business process reengineering to modify the current business processes to best fit with the CRM system. If a commercial CRM system is going to be acquired as a package solution, it's necessary to specify how the CRM system must be adapted, customized or extended to fit the business operations.

They use their business analyst experience to perform a gap analysis to help the business and the CRM system mesh together smoothly. That is,how they can serve as a true business analyst.

Another high-value activity for them is to help identify and document business rules. Business rules include corporate policies, government regulations, industry standards and computational formulas. Often neither the users nor the analysts do a good job of exploring business rules, but that constitutes essential information for the development team.

Customers sometimes find it difficult or tedious to participate in those reviews. They aren't sure what to look for, and they can get lost in the details. Maybe their our analysts could serve as a customer advocate to help make sure the documented requirements correctly represent the user needs and constraints.