Transitioning career from a QA to Business Analyst

QA/Quality Assurance as we most professionals know is that profession where one is responsible for the product/project quality.

They are the ones who are supposed to test the system/application, make all the best attempts to capture as many defects as possible so that the system behaves in the desired/expected way in the intended environment.

As part of this, QA needs to first understand the functionalities of the system; this requires an understanding of the requirements well.

While performing this QA gets better with requirements/domain knowledge day by day, which they can use to their advantage. This acquired knowledge eventually gives them a mileage in being a part of their plan for a career transition to Business Analysis profession.

While trying to test the application in all possible ways to take out the most of defects, they go through the requirements minutely, examine it carefully and over time get better with how best requirements can be written or documented.

What is a good practice in writing requirements, how to present information, what kind of words to use and what not to use in the requirements, what’s the best way to present a flow in an unambiguous way these are certain aspects they come across and ace over time.

While testing the application from various roles/permissions they know what user expects from the application, be it how the UI should be designed or how should a report look like.

Knowing the requirements, functional aspects and the user expectation well they naturally develop and acquire qualities needed to be a good Business Analyst.

Some amount of career development planning makes the transition smooth to a Business Analyst role:

1. Get involved in the requirements gathering process proactively
2. Show interest, gather knowledge and be proactive to be part of the requirements gathering and documentation process
3. Try to learn the business terms, business process, look for any business (domain) terms repository available in your project or with client/on the web
4. Get involved in the user /implementation training
5. Take the lead in any defect resolution/analysis with users during the deployment process.
6. Take the lead/active part in any process/requirement changes in the project/account.
7. Learn the modeling tools (diagramming tools) and Requirement management tools
8. Make an effort to know the domain and industry better.
9. Follow some great leaders in the industry that you are in.
10.  After all, make learning your objective for everyday