The Tasks of an IT Analyst When Developing an IT System

When creating an IT system, an analyst collects product requirements, describes business processes, designs prototypes, and compiles Technical Specifications. This article will explore case studies from SimbirSoft that show how IT analysts help our clients minimize risks and reduce time frames for the development or optimization of software products.

Process Analysis and the IT System

While ordering product development from an IT company, there may be several interaction scenarios for the development team and the analyst.

There are own analyst groups at the large-scale projects most often, which study business processes such as banking, manufacturing, and logistics from within. That said, the client's analyst may be in contact with the system analyst – the IT company’s specialist, responsible for the product design assistance. 

Sometimes, though, the client doesn't have expertise and/or human resources to carry out the analysis. In that case, the IT company's specialist makes all the necessary inquiries with the in-house team and studies business processes.

Lyudmila, SimbirSoft Analyst:   

 "Process analysis is vital. This is how we make sure that the product will fulfill its     purpose. Here's an example: a team is tasked with developing an IT product for process   automation within a healthcare organization. The client has certain requirements for   this future product. Importantly, a case like that is packed with nuances and legal     aspects, such as the role of the healthcare organization's employee and the conditions   under which they work within the system. Over the course of software development,   the analyst makes sure that the requirements for the product are complete and   nonconflicting. To that end, the analyst studies all of the client's business processes and their system users; the analyst evaluates the current state, scalability, and short-term plans for developing the IT product. It's the analyst's job to define which features must be implemented in the minimum viable product (MVP) and which ones can wait until later. The result of their work are the clearly defined boundaries of the system and an insight into how it can be automated."

What Is the Analyst's Job Within an IT Project?

Analysts are the essential assistants with a profound insight into all aspects of the project: they should know the demands both the users and the business have; the technical capabilities possessed by the developer; the contextual boundaries of the system; and how to make the context clear to the team. The more complex the system, the more likely it is that an analyst will be needed. If you are optimizing a specific module without researching how it connects to other modules first, you run the risk of throwing a wrench in the system. In IT, you are likely to encounter both system analysts and business analysts. In this industry, however, the difference between the two is largely debatable.

Polina, SimbirSoft Analyst:   

"Business analysts research and describe the business process itself. They also note the client's requirements. System analysts transform the description of the business process into a clear formalized document that contains the system requirements and describes the functional modules. On small projects, these duties are typically performed by the same person. On large-scale projects, business analytics and system analytics are two distinct departments. In that case, however, business analysts should still have a clear understanding of business requirements so they can ask the right questions during the review."

What Does an Analyst Do in IT?

Suppose that the client wants to use an information system to automate a specific sequence of actions. Let's say a document approval procedure. 

The IT analysts research the specific features of the client's business processes and find out what data is involved in those processes and how to best store that data, as well as how to protect it. Then, analysts prototype an interface of the future system, noting and analyzing all the feedback they get from the client: what's easy and what's difficult to use, and which operations they would like to perform faster. Once analysts become intricately familiar with the inner workings of the client's company, they can offer advanced solutions for optimizing client’s business processes. Their suggestions are backed up with statistics, analytical reviews, the experience of other companies, and that of the development teams. All this ensures that the final product is a working solution that follows the current development trends and carries out the main objective of a planned software.

The IT Analyst's Expertise

Any subject area can be regarded as a sum total of certain business processes. Among these, the analyst has to choose which ones are to be automated. The result of this work is a sequence of steps that should be implemented in an information system. The more experience an analyst has in the relevant field, the faster they can immerse themselves in the specifics of the client's business.

Here are some cases from our practice:

Polina, SimbirSoft Analyst:   

"Creating IT solutions for HR requires the analyst to carry out thorough research of the client's HR practices. We had one case when a business invited us to update their corporate portal because the website they had was becoming outdated and their employees didn't want to use it as a result. Our client communicated its key request to us: to make the portal interesting for their team. Our analyst, who had a wealth of experience in HR process design, researched their current situation and offered the client several ways to solve this problem: employee evaluation and development tools, gamification of the personal accounts, or adding relevant content to the portal that could be useful to the employees. The client was interested in these suggestions and decided that they wanted them implemented in the new version of the corporate portal." 

In banking apps, there is typically a huge list of features and improvements planned for future releases. We work with 39 different fintech companies to help them analyze and implement these improvements based on our vast experience in this area — up to 40% of our projects are in fintech. 

"We were working on a project for a major online bank and we received from them a long list of planned features. Some of them were already thoroughly described and passed on into development, while others were still in the backlog. Our analyst managed to define the sequence of the development, basing on the data received, facts, and starting from the optimal workflow. He described all the necessary improvements on a tight deadline and planned the tasks for the development team for several months — about 3 sprints in total. After seeing how quickly our specialist immersed himself in the project, our client invited him to become a mentor for staff analysts — those specialists have already completed their training and now continue their work on making further improvements to the app."

• When creating IT systems with microservice infrastructure, it is of utmost importance for the IT analyst to have in-depth expertise. 

• In one of our projects, the company needed a new microservice on very short notice. Each module was created by a separate team and all communications had to go through one manager responsible for that task. We could not receive all the information required due to this fact — one manager was not able to accumulate all the data in time. As a result, we had very limited information to work with and a tight deadline. Despite this, our team had one big advantage: we have worked with microservices before. This allowed us to finish this work ahead of schedule and do it well. 

• Knowing the specifics of the subject matter is extremely important for integrating IT systems with other services. For one project we worked on, we had to describe the requirements for a logistics IT system and how it should've interacted with a number of external services. Our analysts were able to make sense of the terminology used by the client and the specifics of their business objectives, offering a solution based on their own relevant experience in business analytics in the field of logistics. 

• When an analyst gets assigned to a project, they often have to confirm their expertise in the relevant area. We had an interesting case recently, where we were developing a module of normative and reference information. In order to offer an optimal solution, we assigned to it an experienced analyst who had a comprehensive understanding of the business and all of its processes — not just the features that had to be automated. Due to the project's complexity, our client offered our analyst to join the project as a tester first, so for three months, our analyst had the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in the product. Only then was our analyst trusted with setting analytical goals.

Conclusion

For almost 20 years, our team has amassed expertise in IT analysis in most industries, including banking, finance, retail, healthcare, education, and telecommunications.

Learn more about the development processes in IT from our latest article: In-house Development and Outsourcing in IT: How to Strike a Balance.