For the last decade the software developer has been the only rock star of our Internet driven world. That’s about to change. The gee-whiz effect created by Web 2.0 applications, social media, smart phones and cloud computing has worn off and people don't need to be programmers any more to use these technologies; now companies want to use them to drive business and make money. That’s where the business analyst comes in.

Kevin Brennan, Vice President of Professional Development at the International Institute of Business Analysts (IIBA) puts it like this, “The concept of IT/Business alignment is problematic at best – to say that IT needs to be better aligned with business presumes that it might have some other purpose.” Exactly. In business (unlike in research or academic organizations) the only reason for technology is to enable companies to better respond to change, to cut costs and make money. This calls for people who understand business and technology and see how to combine the two in profitable ways.

In a series of conversations, Kevin Brennan and I discussed the new role of the business analyst and what the future holds for people who build careers in this field. To structure our conversation, we articulated a central idea or axiom and then defined four key propositions that flow from that axiom. Presented below are that axiom and our thoughts related to the four key propositions.

CENTRAL AXIOM: Pressing economic needs for business agility are changing how companies operate and business analysts are indispensable in leveraging new technologies to support the agile enterprise.

If change is the one predictable thing in a world where everything else is so unpredictable, then companies optimized to deal with change will certainly be more successful than companies not optimized to deal with change. That’s why responsiveness and agility are so relevant to this economy. That’s why agility and the business practices that bring it about are the foundation for business success.

Web searches on phrases such as “business agility” and “IT agility” illustrate the rapidly growing popularity of agile practices. Many well known companies around the world are either proclaiming their intentions to be agile, or announcing the availability of products and services to help their customers become agile.

To actually become agile though, companies need to adopt agile practices (many of them pioneered and proven by the agile IT community) and use the newest generation of web-based technologies to create systems that support agile and responsive operations. Enter the business analyst - someone who speaks both the language of business and the language of technology and can creatively apply technology to meet business needs.

PROPOSITION 1. Companies need to redesign workflows and operating processes to continually respond to changing market conditions and customer desires.

MICHAEL H. - The next wave of innovation and productivity will be process based. A combination of processes that are coming to be collectively known as the agile or real-time enterprise will become the basis for successful business practices in this century. The agile real-time enterprise is an organization that employs a set of processes enabled by information technology with an organizational structure that allows it to acquire and act on up-to-date information to continually improve existing operations and devise new operations as conditions change and opportunities arise.

Companies can no longer attempt to fine-tune their operations to fit some present set of conditions and then expect to simply run those operations unchanged for years and years. The electronically connected real-time economy of the 21st century behaves like a gigantic stock market with all the unpredictability and opportunity that implies.

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