10 Soft Skills of IT Analyst !!!

10 Soft Skills of  IT Analyst  !!!

1. Negotiation skills: This will be of value when facilitating negotiations between IT and business users, you and IT regarding development resources, and you and the business users trying to minimize project scope creep.

2. Active listening: This will be of great value when trying to collect business requirements, provide quality internal client service, and when gathering information for status reports.

3. Dealing with conflict: This will be of value when IT and users disagree and/or when deadlines are being missed and tensions are running high.

4. Quality client service techniques: As a representative of the IT community, providing quality client service to the business users you support is critical to your job performance and career advancement.

5. Decision making: There are many formalized decision making techniques, such as a decision matrix, that can help you make quality, business appropriate, and defendable decisions that can help you to best service your internal clients and maximize your job performance.

6. Problem solving: Like decision making, there are formalized problem solving techniques, such as Five Whys and Brainstorming that can help you discover a problem’s root cause and define potential solutions.

7. Strategic thinking: Very often a business analyst must think outside-the-box to find innovative business solutions that meet their internal client’s needs. An understanding of strategic thinking techniques can help facilitate this process.

8. Technical writing: A key role of business analysis is the creation of business requirement specifications and other forms of documentation. Your ability to develop coherent, informative, and usable documents is a requirement for professional success.

9. Presentation and public speaking: Don’t underestimate the value of creating and delivering quality presentations on topics such as application designs, project status, and business requirements. Generally speaking, the people listening to your presentations are senior IT and business management people. Your ability to impress them with your presentation could have a significant effect on your career growth.

10. Team building: As a business analyst, you may be required to lead formalized and/or ad hoc teams. Your ability to structure, coordination, and lead these teams can not only make you more successful in your current role, but position you for future IT senior positions.

Top Characteristics of A Great Project Manager

VISION

An effective project leader is often described as having a vision of where to go and the ability to articulate it. Visionaries thrive on change and being able to draw new boundaries. It was once said that a leader is someone who ‘lifts us up, gives us a reason for being and gives the vision and spirit to change’.

 
Command authority naturally.
In other words, they don’t need borrowed power to enlist the help of others – they just know how to do it. They are optimistic leaders who are viewed in a favorable light and are valued by the organization.

Good Communicator
The ability to communicate with people at all levels is almost always named as the second most important skill by project managers and team members. Project leadership calls for clear communication about goals, responsibility, performance, expectations and feedback.
 
Possess quick sifting abilities, knowing what to note and what to ignore.
The latter is more important since there’s almost always too much data, and rarely too little. Ignoring the right things is better than trying to master extraneous data.


ENTHUSIASM/PASSION
We tend to follow people with a can-do attitude, not those who are always negative and give us all the reasons for why something can’t be done.


COMPETENCE
The team must believe that the project manager knows what he/she is doing. Leadership competence does not however necessarily refer to the project leader’s technical abilities in the core technology of the business.


Ability to Delegate Tasks
Trust is an essential element in the relationship of a project leader and his or her team. You demonstrate your trust in others through your actions - how much you check and control their work, how much you delegate and how much you allow people to participate.


Set, observe, and re-evaluate project priorities frequently.
They focus and prioritize by handling fewer emails, attending fewer meetings, and generally limiting their data input.


Exercise independent and fair consensus-building skills when conflict arises.
But they embrace only as much conflict as is absolutely necessary, neither avoiding nor seeking grounds for control of a particular project segment.



PROBLEM SOLVING
A great project manager not only has to have all of these qualities but also know when to employ them and to what extent.

 
Cool Under Pressure
In a perfect world, projects would be delivered on time, under budget and with no major problems or obstacles to overcome. But we don't live in a perfect world - projects have problems. A leader with a hardy attitude will take these problems in stride. When leaders encounter a stressful event, they consider it interesting, they feel they can influence the outcome and they see it as an opportunity.

 

Tips to be A Highly competitive Mobile App Developer

1. Demonstrate your understanding of the ‘why’ behind the app Developers who understand the 'why' behind the app are the most successful because they can offer the end user or the C-suite a return-on-app investment," says Bratton.


2. Be able to communicate to non-technical folks as well It's important that mobile developers are able to step outside of their technical shells and express the limitations and possibilities provided by mobile technology in a way that non-technical people can understand,

3.Always keep your skills and industry knowledge sharp
Staying abreast of the latest mobile-technology languages is key. For instance, honing the fundamentals skills (Java or C++ for Android and Objective-C or Swift for iOS) is a given.

4.Developers should also have experience working with APIs and SDKs made available by larger social media platforms (e.g.Facebook or Instagram). After all, social media is making a huge impact on the landscape of mobile applications, helping apps build audiences and boost demand.

Career as a Business Analyst

The 21st century business analyst’s world is multifaceted. As a mediator, moderator, connector and ambassador, the business analyst must bring the business needs together with IT resources. Successful business analysts tend to be clear communicators, smooth facilitators, precise analyzers and team players. Plus, the ideal analyst has the versatility of various business functions, such as operations, finance, engineering, technology or architecture


What Does a Business Analyst Do?

The analyst works with the business to identify opportunities for improvement in business operations and processes
The analyst is involved in the design or modification of business systems or IT systems
The analyst interacts with the business stakeholders and subject matter experts in order to understand their problems and needs
The analyst gathers, documents, and analyzes business needs and requirements
The analyst solves business problems and, as needed, designs technical solutions
The analyst documents the functional and, sometimes, technical design of the system
The analyst interacts with system architects and developers to ensure the system is properly implemented
The analyst may help test the system and create system documentation and user manuals


How Much Do Business Analysts Make?

Depending upon which business analyst career path you choose, you’re certain to benefit from a highly rewarding and lucrative career. To give you an idea of how profitable this field can be, take a look at these job titles and average salaries, based on U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, for a variety of business analyst jobs:

Average Annual Salary

Information Security Analyst :  $86,170

Computer Systems Analyst : $79,680

Management Analyst:  $78,600

Financial Analyst:  $76,950

Budget Analyst: $69,280

Certifications
Business analysts who want to enhance their expertise and expand their career options achieve industry-recognized certification. The current leader in business analysis certification is the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA®). The IIBA offers the prestigious Certified Business Analysis Professional™ (CBAP®), a designation accomplished by candidates who successfully demonstrate their business analysis expertise. As a candidate, you’ll need to detail your business analysis work experience, and pass the CBAP exam.

 7 Qualities of A Good Business Analyst

#1 – Good Business Analysts Have the Basics Covered
#2 – Good Business Analysts are Resourceful
#3 – Good Business Analysts Grow their Toolbox of Skills
#4 – Good Business Analysts Create Alignment and Ownership Around the Solution
#5 – Good Business Analysts Create Clarity
#6 – Good Business Analysts Don’t Rely on Cookies
#7 – Good Business Analysts Have a Strong Dash of Project Management

Common Myths about Employment Background Checks

Myth #1: Employers are only looking to see if your resume is accurate

In Reality: When an employer runs a background check, they may be looking for salary history, criminal activity, credit scores, professional licenses or designations, drug use, or professional and personal references.

Myth #2: You can lie about how much you made at previous jobs

In Reality: While there are plenty of creative ways on an interview to evade disclosing your salary history, a prospective employer can ask your former employer or request copies of your W-2 forms.

Myth #3: Employers simply call the references you provide

In Reality: An employer may choose to conduct their own background check or to use an agency. Background investigation companies often work with other agencies that pull criminal histories, check applicant credit, perform drug testing, and collect fingerprints.

Myth #4: Anything you've ever done is going to show up in a background check

In Reality: Consumer reporting agencies must follow the standards established by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and cannot report tax liens, collections, and civil suits after seven years or bankruptcies after 10 years, but time limits for reporting negative information do not apply for jobs paying over $75,000.

Juvenile criminal convictions cannot be reported. Adult criminal convictions can be reported at any time (although some states impose their own limits).

Background investigation companies also have their own information collection and reporting policies - they may set their own limits for how far back into an applicant's history they will look, they may not report low-level misdemeanors at all, and they will almost always require derogatory claims in writing - for instance, if a previous employer says they wouldn't re-hire you, the agency would request that as a written statement as opposed to just accepting the information as part of a phone call.

If the employer is conducting their own background investigation, they may not check out-of-state criminal records or run detailed credit reports - but they might be more likely to get an off-the-record negative reference from a former employer.

Myth #5: A negative finding automatically means you won't get the job

In Reality: Just because something unfavorable shows up in a background check doesn't mean you won't get hired. The truth is that most people leave at least one job on bad terms at some point in their career. And state laws determine how information discovered during a background check can be used - for example, under Pennsylvania law, an employer can only make hiring decisions based on an applicant's criminal record if the convictions relate to the person's suitability for the position.

Myth #6: As a job seeker, you're powerless

In Reality: An employer must receive your written permission to conduct a background check before even beginning the process. If they choose not to hire you based on findings in a background check, they have to provide you with the report along with contact info for the consumer-reporting agency. If there's anything inaccurate on the report, you should immediately contact the agency and ask them to correct it.

Regardless of whether the employer conducts an in-house or external background check, job seekers still cannot be denied a position for any reason that falls under certain protected classes. In Pennsylvania, these include race, color, sex, age (over 40), ancestry, national origin, religious creed, having a GED rather than a high school diploma, handicap or disability, or relationship to a person with a disability. If you have been a victim of employment discrimination, you have the right to file an employment discrimination complaint.

Author: 

Rita Friedman

Certified Career Coach, PhillyCareerCoach.com