Innovation and Business Analysis

    It's a known fact that a Business Analyst can be involved in at least four types of activities (see Wikipedia). In this article I will express a few ideas about the Business Analysis involved in the IT Project Development.

    Firstly, I think that we should define Innovation & Creativity, to be sure that we are on the same page with understanding terms and ideas. In my understanding, innovation is a relative concept, defined for a group/team/organization, at a very specific moment in time. Why this? Because it is beyond science and the current resources.

    So, at a very specific moment in time we can know what/how to do, but we do not have the necessary resources (time, people, money); in this case, we need to innovate. Other times, we do have these resources, but we do not know what/how to do, so we do not have the necessary knowledge.

    In my opinion, Innovation and Creativity are very similar concepts, except they may refer in different sectors (eg. technology vs art).

    If we try to understand how Innovation and Creativity can influence a Business Analyst activity, involved in IT Projects, we can easily see that this is a space where something new can win. It is about the "I've got an idea!" king. This is especially useful when working with the stakeholders, when:

• gathering and defining requirements for the product features;
• finding technical solutions together with the development teams.

​    If you want to see more details on Innovation and Business Analysis, please read this article.