The responsibility set of a business analyst would require him to fulfill different duties in different phases of a project and they are elucidated below −

Initiation Phase

This phase will mark the beginning of a new project and a business analyst will vary out the following responsibilities −

●      Assist in carrying out the cost-benefit analysis of the project.

●      Understand the business case.

●      Ascertain the feasibility of the solution/project/product.

●      Help in creating the project charter.

●      Identify the stakeholders in the project.

Planning Phase

This phase will involve gathering the requirements and planning, how the project will be executed and managed. His responsibilities will include the below functions −

●      Eliciting the requirements

●      Analyze, organize and document requirements.

●      Manage requirements by creating Use-cases, RTM, BRD, SRS, etc.

●      Assess proposed solutions.

●      Liaise and enhance communications with stakeholders.

●      Assist in formulating the project management plans.

●      Help in finding the project’s scope, constraints, assumptions and risks.

●      Assist in designing the user experience of the solution.

Executing Phase

This phase marks the development of the solution as per the requirements gathered. The responsibilities include −

●      Explain requirements to the IT/development team.

●      Clarify doubts, concerns regarding the proposed solution to be developed.

●      Discuss and prioritize project scope changes and gain agreement.

●      Create beta tests scripts for initial testing.

●      Sharing the developing modules with stakeholders and solicit their feedback.

●      Following deadlines and manage stakeholder’s expectations.

●      Resolving conflicts and manage communications with the project team.

Monitoring and Controlling Phase

In this phase, the project is measured and controlled for any deviations from the initial plans. This phase runs simultaneously to the execution phase.

●      Developing test scripts and conducting comprehensive module and integration testing.

●      Conducting UAT (use acceptance testing) and creating testing reports.

●      Gain acceptance/approval of the deliverables from the client.

●      Explain the change requests to the development team.

●      Monitor the development of the change requests and verify their implementation as per the project’s objective.

Closing Phase

This phase marks the closure of the project. The responsibilities are −

●      Presenting the completed project to the client and gain their acceptance.

●      Create user-training manuals, any functional material and other instructional guides.

●      Conduct elaborate integration testing in production environment.

●      Create final product documentations, document project lessons learned.