How to become a real analyst requirements. Part 1. Great analysts are born or become?

“Great analysts are nurtured, not trained. To work as an analyst requires a lot of personality traits, and not the knowledge of any technology. There is no standard training course or job description for such a specialist. They come to analysts from different professions, and most likely, all newbies have gaps in knowledge and skills. ”
Wigs Carl, “Developing Software Requirements”, 2004

Karl Wigs wrote his book almost 10 years ago, but the situation has not changed - real analysts of the unit.
This series of articles is for those who are going to become a professional requirements analyst. The information is collected from personal experience, the book by Karl I. Wigs “Developing Software Requirements”, as well as from the experience of other analysts from the Internet.
Dear habravchane, I urge to comment on my articles and, thereby, correct the situation of the small number of good analysts, giving advice and advice to newcomers in this difficult matter.
Let's define - who is the requirements analyst, what skills should have a person who wants to engage in the analysis of requirements.
Among the participants of any software development project, there is necessarily a person who, explicitly or implicitly, performs the role of requirements analyst. Being, in essence, a software developer, he masters the duties of an analyst and works with users, collecting, analyzing and documenting requirements. However, not all developers are able to correctly formulate software requirements and communicate with the client. Training allows you to improve the professional skills of employees performing the role of analyst, but can not compensate for the lack of interpersonal skills and interest in business.
What is the main task facing the requirements analyst?
The most important task of the analyst is to reflect the views of interested parties and persons in the specification of requirements and transfer information to other persons participating in the project. The analyst helps the project participants clarify whether the wishes they express out loud are really what they really need. The analyst teaches, asks questions, listens, organizes and learns.
The main success factors are patience and a sincere desire to work with people.
The basis of the Analytics skill is personal skills, without which you will not develop in this profession. Be prepared for the fact that you have to constantly learn something. And as you master the new, you will understand that you know too little. By choosing the profession of an analyst, you choose a certain style of thinking, communication, development, and life itself as a whole. Without some skills and the desire to develop them, it is better to leave this profession altogether.
What kind of skills should an analyst have?

Listening skills

Active listening involves eliminating interference, maintaining a polite posture and eye contact, as well as repeating key points to reinforce their understanding. You need to instantly grasp what people are saying and be able to read between the lines in order to discover the things they are embarrassed to say. It is important not only what they say to you, but also how they tell you this.

The ability to interview and ask questions

Much of the requirements information is extracted from conversations with people, and therefore the analyst must be able to communicate with different people and groups. There are different interlocutors: someone wants to tell everything that he knows and even off topic, someone answers only specific questions, someone gives out wishful thinking. And only with the help of the right questions from the huge flow of information can we identify essential requirements.
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Communication skills

The ability to organize a friendly atmosphere is one of the necessary skills of the analyst. Of course, this skill is not as important as the first two. But in comfortable conditions it always works better.

Ability to observe

Observing how the user performs his duties or works with an existing application, an experienced analyst will identify moments that the user has not even mentioned. Observation helps to steer the discussion in a new direction, in order to reveal additional requirements, about which no one has said anything.

Stress resistance

In the process, there is a huge amount of information (often contradictory) and data that can at one point radically change the understanding and direction of analysis and design. The analyst should be ready for this, to be able to navigate in the new conditions, not to panic.

The ability to analyze and process information

The analyst deals with a large amount of erratic information collected in the first stage. The ability to process a large amount of information and analyze it will allow you to structure the data and build a clear and clear picture.

Ability to solve problems and resolve conflicts

A large number of stakeholders and project participants can work in the project, each of whom has his or her own vision and vision. The analyst must have the ability to listen to all parties, summarize the information, make the best decision and convince the parties of its correctness.

Negotiation skills

The analyst should be able to organize people with different interests to work together, and feel confident in conversations with employees holding different positions in the organization. Consider how difficult it is to deal with employees from virtual groups that differ by geographic, temporal, cultural or linguistic basis.

Teamwork skills

The result of the Analytics work is used by many project participants. He should be able to work in a team, trust his colleagues and be aware of the responsibility towards them, doing his part of the work.

Creativity

The analyst is not just a stenographer who records all customer statements. Analysts invent requirements. They offer innovative product features, new market opportunities and business opportunities and think how to surprise and satisfy their customers. An excellent analyst is creative: when he talks about the system, he manages to surprise the client - he does not even always suspect that such functionality is possible.

Knowledge of the subject area

An analyst who understands a business is easier to communicate with clients and understand them, he manages to identify unspoken assumptions and implicit requirements. It can offer options for improving business processes, as well as valuable functionality that users do not even think about.
The analyst must be able to use different means of collecting information and present this information in various ways in a normal and understandable language. Have simultaneously developed communication skills, knowledge of the psychology of interpersonal communication, technical knowledge, knowledge of the subject area, business and personal qualities suitable for this work.
For people who love to solve complex problems and want to become professional analysts - nothing is impossible! The main thing is to understand that your vocation is to be a translator from an incomprehensible language to an exact language, from the language of the hotelkeys to the language of functionality, from the language “but if” to the language “it is done this way!
I look forward to the comments of those who have already taken place as an analyst, and can share their observations, and those who are confronted with analysts by the nature of their activities, and can share their grievances or admiration for interacting with them.
We will meet again next time on the topic “Different methods for creating and identifying requirements”.