💥 100 Tips To Be A Fantastic Business Analyst 💥

1. BA yourself
2. Be nice
3. Understand project lifecycles
4. Be a mentee
5. Present well
6. Prep prep prep
7. Be on time
8. Work on your confidence
9. Don’t reject difficult things
10. Get good at cost benefit analysis
11. Be optimistic
12. Get your desk in order
13. Go to a conference or two
14. Help others
15. Be strict about your change management
16. Do your actions
17. Don’t be offended by the red pen
18. Volunteer to share your knowledge
19. Model
20. Learn, learn and learn some more
21. Offer plentiful walk-throughs
22. Finish your projects
23. Develop strategies for juggling
24. Clear paths for people
25. Categorise people but know your exceptions
26. Don’t jump to solutions
27. Form collaborative relationships
28. Find your key SME voices
29. Play requirements back
30. Work to uncover implicit requirements
31. Know your audience
32. Recognise that accuracy is important
33. Start with context
34. Document what you won’t build..
35. Get creative
36. Read widely
37. Don’t forget your non-functionals
38. Don’t gild the lily
39. Revisit your prioritisations often
40. Evaluate your own skills
41. Look for “free”/cheap benefits
42. Ask for feedback
43. Find balance
44. Connect with others
45. Know when to shut up
46. Be a mentor
47. Work as a team
48. Make your research visible
49. Expand your comfort zone
50. Be agnostic to the solution
51. Be flexible to software development lifecycles
52. Work with positive people
53. Don’t plagiarise
54. Create your own templates, improve others
55. Hone your toolkit
56. Encourage newbies
57. Don’t get stereotyped
58. Avoid too much future-proofing
59. The devil is in the detail
60. Order your own tasks
61. Decide what your goals are
62. Ask for help
63. Archive and catalogue
64. Have a to-do list
65. Its ok to make mistakes
66. Estimate using metrics
67. Add a glossary
68. Vanilla is not the only flavour
69. Get your must-haves right
70. Chunk up your work and take breaks
71. Speak up
72. Flesh out a plan but be flexible
73. Do it now
74. Be motivated and committed
75. Find your USP
76. Be an observer
77. Don’t cut corners
78. Run your own project
79. Display kindness and patience
80. Understand your Subject Matter Experts
81. Get your unfinished specs reviewed
82. Take the initiative
83. Keep your requirements updated to the end
84. Take a step back
85. Control/Challenge scope
86. Mock stuff up
87. Minute your meetings
88. Give people a “starter for 10”
89. Learn standards
90. Use data analysis tools
91. Use requirement ‘numbering’ for more than a unique reference
92. Don’t be vague
93. Find your best packages
94. Change control your documents
95. Understand development basics
96. Understand test basics
97. Conduct Stakeholder Analysis
98. Ask effective questions
99. Get qualified
100. Appoint a mentor

Thanks goes out to Bronia Anderson-Kelly for inspiring me to publish this list.