In my experience, not many people distinguish between “Requirements Analyst” and “Business Architect”. I consider them very different roles and here are some of my thoughts on the subject.
| A Requirements Analyst | A Business Architect |
| Asks what the user wants. | Asks what the business needs. |
| Asks how the user benefits from performing a task. | Asks how the business benefits from the user’s performing a task. |
| Traces everything back to the requirements. | Traces everything back to the strategic goals of the business. |
| Asks: “What are the data attributes for this screen?” | Asks: “What defines X? Why is it important to the business? What are its characteristics? What other things is it related to? Why do different areas of the business have different definitions of X? Why are there several data stores for X? |
| Is focused on the success of one software development. | Is focused on the success of a business change (including that one, of many, software developments). |
| Takes into account the constraints of the chosen technology. | Is technology-agnostic. |
| Seeks to enumerate. | Seeks to understand, describe, categorise, model and test. |
Incidentally, this is why I think a Pega Certified Business Architect is not actually a Business Architect.
Kind regards.
Declan Chellar
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