Many a times, I come across a job description for a Business Analyst and to my surprise the job wanted the Business Analyst to have skills of a Project Manager, Software Designer, and Software Tester. How can one person perform all the tasks described unless the project team was two people the Business Analyst and at least one developer? I don’t know where the collective description of a Business Analyst came from, but all that concerns me is that a Business Analysts job description could alarm people out of a career in this field.

A Business Analyst is the liaison between the business people and the technical people in a company. The business people viz. the stakeholders of the project, are the ones whose business needs are catered to by a software company. The technical team is trained to cater to a business need. It is the role of the Business Analyst to capture the business needs and understand the pain areas of a company to explain it to the technical team.

The demand for Business Analysts is growing and is expected to grow over at least the next 10 I asked a number of expert Business Analysts to answer this question: What do you think are the important skillsets every business analyst must possess?