Business Analyst Skills to Learn in 2021

I’ve talked in the past about the key skills for business analysts and have an ebook that goes more in depth about them.

Among the key skills are documentation and writing skills, requirements elicitation, problem solving skills, visualization, and communication skills. 

Nothing has changed here. These are still all skills you need as a business analyst. 

They’re not the only skills that are useful to a business analyst though.

Here are 3 business analyst skills to learn in 2021.

1 - Languages / No Code Tools

If you don't know how to code or use a no code tool like Tableau or Power BI, this is the year to learn.

Building skills in these tools will make it easier for you to analyze and visualize all the data you’re dealing with.

This will save you time and make you more effective. 

2 - Agile / Scrum

If you’re not already familiar with agile and scrum then it’s time to get familiar with them. 

Scrum and agile often show up in tandem though it’s possible to run agile projects without employing scrum. 

Agile projects focus on flexibility in the development process and are used for the vast majority of IT development projects.

Increasingly, agile shows up in other development cycles as well, overtaking the waterfall approach except in cases where cost and infrastructure is prohibitive. 

For a good intro to Agile and Scrum, check out this edx course.

3 - How to Think About Problems

Very defined problems are a great way to start learning a new skill. But as you’ll quickly find when you’re in a business analyst job, every problem isn’t the same and they’re often much more ambiguous than the exercises you worked through in school. 

This is why you should know how to think about problems, not just how to work in a well-defined space.

This will help you be much more effective than simply working through technical exercises.

My course Think Like an Analyst focuses on this aspect of analytics.

Those are my top 3 business analyst skills to learn in 2021.