No one is going to hand you the experiences; you're going to have to look for them.
Many times, I speak with business analysts who are new to the profession, and they say to me, "Oh, I don't have the experience, I don't have the experience." And it's slightly frustrating because the reality is no one is going to hand you the experience—you have to find it. You need to look at your current experiences or your past experiences and then frame them with the knowledge that you have.
Let me give you an example. I worked in education for a really long time, and I never imagined that optimising processes involved just looking at admissions process and refining it. The challenge was the admissions process—it was clunky, manual, and left both parents and staff feeling frustrated. Applications were delayed, follow-ups were missed, and the workload was overwhelming. Something had to change.
We started by mapping out every step of the process. That exercise alone was eye-opening; it revealed bottlenecks we hadn’t even considered, like repetitive data entry and unclear communication paths. To address this, we introduced an online application system. It wasn’t just about technology, though—it was about making things easier for people. Automated reminders meant fewer missed deadlines, and streamlined communication gave parents the clarity they needed. What we ended up with was (1) a reduction in manual workload and (2) a massive improvement in enrolment efficiency.
The best part was hearing from staff who said they finally had the time to focus on helping families instead of chasing paperwork. At the end of the day, it was shorter, it was better, it was faster—but it's just much better than what it was before. That is a process optimisation experience. Now, I may not have known at the time how to map out that process on Visio, but did I optimise it? Did I make it better? The answer is yes. And I can speak authoritatively on process optimisation because I did it.
So don't sit there imagining that the experience is just going to fall into your lap. Work with what you already know and what you're already doing. Expand on that. Because chances are, you have more experience than you think—you just need to reframe it.
I hope this puts things in perspective!
#businessanalyst #careercoaching #processoptimisation #workflowmanagement
Senior Product Owner II at Everi Holdings
4moSure