Your Mission as an Analyst

As an analyst you wear many hats, and you need a wide variety of skills. Your overall objective is to define and communicate to all stakeholders what the system should do. This can be broken down into the following high-level tasks :

• Understand the needs of the users

• Understand the needs of other stakeholders

• Document, prioritize, and communicate the requirements

• Negotiate requirements and facilitate customer acceptance of the application

Carrying out these tasks typically requires the following:

• Proficiency in managing relationships with a variety of stakeholders

• A good understanding of the problem domain, or the ability to acquire this knowledge rapidly

• Thorough, clear, and concise written and oral communication

• The ability to write clear and concise requirements

• An overall understanding of the software development lifecycle and how the analyst's work fits into it

An analyst is primarily involved in the Business Modeling, Requirements, and Analysis & Design disciplines of the RUP. Figure 15.1 shows how the emphasis of these disciplines varies over the four phases.

• The analyst contributes most during the Inception and Elaboration phases, when requirements are identified and stabilized. The analyst's responsibility here is to ensure that the right application is built.

• During the Construction and Transition phases, the analyst is less involved, but there will still be some work with detailing requirements and analyzing the impact of any changing requirements or business models.

Figure 15.1. An Analyst's Involvement in the RUP Lifecycle. An analyst is primarily involved in the RUP disciplines of Business Modeling, Requirements, and Analysis & Design ”this means that they do most of their work in the Inception and Elaboration phases. Analysts also play an important role during Construction and Transition.