Comments on: What is the Difference Between a Business Analyst and a Systems Analyst?

By: Linto Thomas

Linto Thomas — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:06:40 +0000

Hi Laura Brandenburg

Thank you for the information . It is very helpful

By: Laura Brandenburg

Laura Brandenburg — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:47:22 +0000

Crystal,
You are welcome. Congrats on your new opportunity and I’m so glad the article has helped you. You are right, they can be 2 separate roles, but often we find them combined. Or, it could be that it is a BA job under an SA title, which is also very common and was my early career experience. It really depends on the job responsibilities.

The courses page lists all the courses we currently have available. Some are only available right now as self-study.

http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/business-analysis-training-courses/

Get in touch via the contact form with what you are looking for and we can make some more specific recommendations for you.

Laura

By: crystal

crystal — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:34:10 +0000

Hi Laura,

I haven’t been here for awhile, just really busy with study and volunteer job these few months.

I just got a job offer as system analyst trainee for a big finance/ insurance/ banking company, the initial contract is 4 months. I was just doing online searching try to find out more article about the difference between business and system analyst. Then I am here 🙂

Although system analyst requires a lot of tech skills, such as a good programming foundation– which I don’t have! but after a few hours online research, most of article point out they are actually have quite similar approach as not much organization really separate these 2 roles ( wish I HOPE it is the case in my company as well)

Just want to say thank you so much for all of the article online, which helps me a lot! especially the local IT organization volunteer idea which is the milestone for me to launch this job!

Thanks again and I will come back to study more your online resource soon. Just wondering do you have any training class commerce soon? would like to be equipped some BA/SA knowledge before start the role.

Cheers,

Crystal

By: Laura Brandenburg

Laura Brandenburg — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 17:04:00 +0000

Hi Pierre, Nicely put. Indeed as businesses and technology solutions have gone more complex, business analysis has emerged as a specialty instead of a small responsibility within a larger programmer or programmer analyst role. That’s an important part of our history that we lest not forget!

For readers interested in personal stories from BAs growing up in the profession through this blended SA/PM role, you might check out the interviews with Steve Blais and Rick Clare, both of whom came from this background.

http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/essence-business-analysis-steve-blais/

http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/elevating-the-role-of-the-business-analyst-interview-with-rick-clare/

By: Pierre Fromager

Pierre Fromager — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 22:47:13 +0000

There is a historical dimension to this as well.

Back in 1981, I took a ‘programming’ course and the team roles then were ‘programmer’ (what we would call a developer or software engineer today), operator (who loaded the tapes and took backups) and systems analyst. The SA, then, was what we call a BA, an BSA, an SA and a PM!
Over time, we have seen specialisations develop in IT, with the BA and SA roles diverging somewhat.
If the organisation is small, a BA/SA would look at both the business and the technical side of the problem in equal measure.
If the organisation can afford, the BA can focus more on the business side, while keeping an understanding of the technical challenges. The SA can worry more about the technical side of existing systems and proposed architecture, while still keeping an eye on the business needs.
Pierre