One of the bigger challenges I've heard is phrased in a few different ways: "I don't have enough time to analyze things... I'm always in catch-up mode... I feel like a bottleneck, like the team is waiting on me."

I don't want you to be a sad, stressed-out Business Analyst, so here is a solution.

We've all been there. You come out of a meeting, walk straight into your colleague's office and say, “Wow, that stakeholder is cray-cray.” Given the number of crazy individuals in the workplace, it's amazing that anything gets done.

But the vast majority of them don't fit any clinical definition of crazy. We have to assume that our stakeholders are mostly rational. So what's the problem?

This points to a new trend in BA hiring: qualitative testing of the candidates’ abilities by getting them to provide an illustration of their work. And it’s brilliantly effective. The manager gets a good idea of what the candidate can actually produce on day one of the job…

But only if it’s done effectively. 

We heard two questions several times from readers: (1) What does it mean to be a lean Business Analyst? And (2) how can I put these principles into everyday practice?

Let's address both of these right now.

The demands on an agile Business Analyst's time, energy and focus are really challenging... In agile environments, we're working in 1- to 4-week sprints. The luxury of taking weeks and months to figure out approaches and to develop requirements is just not there.

So how do we tackle this?

In a recent webinar, I encouraged Business Analyst job-seekers to think of themselves as marketers. However, one of the most common problems coming out of that presentation was this: If I have never been a Business Analyst, how can I know their managers' needs and problems?

I’ll offer three approaches here.

How much UML do you need to know as a Business Analyst? 

We won't make the decision for you, but here are the five questions you need to look at.