Tools

In their everyday activity, business analysts combine many responsibilities and tasks. Hence, mastering of work-simplifying tools is critical.

Project management tools. As a BA’s activity often includes a project manager’s scope of work, the associate software also comes in handy. The most complex, and therefore, the most popular are Atlassian’s Jira, Trello, and Asana, and the like. Each of them allows forming a big backlog, planning a sprint, allocating tasks for every team member, and even setting time limits.

Documentation tools. Since a BA’s job is hardly possible without compiling a variety of documentation, the relevant tooling shows up on a daily basis. Usually, it’s a wiki-like collaboration software that allows all participants to create and collectively edit “pages” or entries via a web browser. For instance, Confluence, a product from Atlassian, or DokuWiki are among the most popular.

Modeling tools. As we’ve already mentioned, building wireframes is one of the core responsibilities, among others. So, in addition to the system approach and the knowledge of Unifying Modeling Language, handling diagram software is mandatory. This type of tools enables BAs to simplify the building of system wireframes, flow and organizational charts, process and network diagrams. These include draw.io, Lucidchart, and Microsoft Visio, to name a few.