What exactly is the role of a business analyst in proposing solutions to business problems?

Question

I am learning business analysis theory and I am confused about the extent to which the BA proposes the solution to the business problem.

I understand that business analysis is generally defined as the practice of identifying business problems and then proposing solutions (I realise there's more to it than that, but this is the bit I'm interested in). However having completed a couple of Udemy courses on business analysis fundamentals I have found that these courses stop after describing the process of eliciting, analysing, and finalising requirements - they don't seem to cover the "proposed solutions" side of things.

One of the courses I listened to did mention that it is not the role of a business analyst to provide technical specifications (e.g. around IT infrastructure), that is the job of the systems analyst. But it would be useful to see a concrete example, so I can understand the point at which a high level BA solution is then handed on to someone else to elaborate/implement. what constitutes the point at which a business analyst has successfully "proposed a solution"?

It would be great if this could be explained within example, ideally in an IT Project since that is the space I work in. i.e. for a given set of requirements for an IT project, what would the BA's proposed solution look like? Is it just the requirements? And if not, what form does it take? What part of the proposed solution is the responsibility of the BA and what is the responsibility of other team members (e.g. systems analyst)?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Business Analysis principally involves understanding, describing and proposing the functional aspects of the solution but usually not the technical implementation of that functionality. So a BA might specify what customer interactions are required, what information is needed at each point, any calculations and other processing that should be performed, but typically would not be expected to make decisions about what technologies to use or what code to write.

Most software development tends to happen in a more or less iterative and collaborative way however. A BA may well be part of the conversation about the technology; the technical architect and developers often get involved in discussions about business functionality. Don't think of it in terms of "handing over" or "finalising" a proposal because that's not often the way things work. Nothing is "final" before it is implemented and tested and proven in practice. Some things are never finished until you eventually stop using them (perhaps several years hence) and throw them away.