Career changer, beginner, or experienced analyst – what does one learn in an analyst training?

I have now been conducting both public and custom trainings in business and systems analysis for 3 years. Over time, I have gained an overview of what kinds of participants are in each group and what benefits they get from it.

The main difference lies in analysis experience: those who are just aiming to become analysts; those who have already gained their first experiences; and those who, in theory, could already teach trainings themselves. Interestingly, each of them finds something new in the training – although that “something” is always a little different.

Career changer – moving into the IT field without coding

In every group, there is at least one person who joins the training with the goal of starting work as an analyst or product owner. Usually, they have previously worked as either a project manager or a tester – they have already collaborated with IT teams, but inside there is a doubt: “am I suited to be an analyst?”

On the other hand, there are also those who want to move from a specialist position in some business domain into the IT field, but actual programming seems too intimidating. Becoming an analyst or project manager appears to them as a more reasonable alternative.

For career changers, it is usually very interesting when, at the beginning of the training, we talk about the different roles that perform analysis in various types of organizations and what their responsibilities are. Discussions about how to interpret job postings to identify the right role sometimes even continue at the lunch table and during breaks.

During the training, they usually discover that the role of an analyst is not some kind of mysterious secret art. When discussing what an analyst actually does and what lies behind those different job titles, a career changer often realizes that they have already done many of those activities. It has simply been called by a different name.

When those puzzle pieces fall into place and some gaps in knowledge are filled, it becomes easier to highlight relevant experience in a CV using terms that a future employer will understand. For me, the most moving moments have been when a career changer later sends me a message saying they have actually been hired as an analyst!

Beginner analyst – I do know, but I don’t really know how

The challenges of a beginner analyst are different. They usually have a university diploma in hand or a couple of years of experience, but still dozens of questions circle in their head: “How do I make time estimates for analysis? How do I find the time to create all the documents we learned about at university? I did everything the way I was supposed to – why did this project run over schedule?” They do have knowledge, but lack experience – they don’t know how to make the right choices among all those dozens of possibilities.

In the training, they do know how to create documents correctly, but the aha! moment is understanding in what order and in which situations to use a particular tool at all. They begin to better understand other roles and processes around them; they learn to make choices and to ask the right questions. Already during the training, I have often received feedback such as: “At work we just found out that the project scope needs to be reduced. I pulled out our slides and we found a solution! “

In summary, a beginner analyst gains clarity from the training: all those pieces – processes, people, documents, tools – form a single system. They start using the right tools at the right time, which makes projects run more smoothly and clients happier.

Experienced analyst – different techniques and experiences

And then there are the veterans. They have been working as analysts for years, have developed their own routines, and drawing a process diagram or a data model is like a second native language to them. They are in the minority in my trainings, and they mainly attend because there is training money available in some budget and there are few trainings specifically for experienced IT analysts.

At first, analysts with long experience may even doubt whether they can get anything out of the training at all, but soon I receive intriguing questions from them such as: “Does anyone actually use this method?” or “Why should it be done this way, we’ve always done it differently?” They often discover that they have been stuck with one type of project and that there are many more useful techniques in the world – new ones are being created all the time! For me as a trainer, the detailed questions about specific situations are also fascinating, as they provide engaging context for the other participants as well.

In their feedback, experienced analysts usually say that they especially enjoyed learning how work is done in different types of projects, and they are satisfied that they had the chance to try out different techniques. Some even admit that they discovered a gap in their knowledge or picked up a useful tip on how to do their daily work better. Not a bad outcome, considering they came with “just” training money and still found something practical!

What can be taken away from these stories?

When looking at these three typical participants, a pattern emerges quite clearly:

• The career changer gains the confidence that “analyst” is not such a complicated job, but rather the application of common skills in a new way.
• The beginner analyst finds structure – how different tools help and when to use them.
• The experienced analyst gains fresh perspectives and a few new tools for their toolbox.

In summary, this means that regardless of their background, everyone goes home with some important realization: “Aha, now I understand why this all really matters!”

And maybe that is the most important lesson – the work of an analyst does not only mean producing documents or drawing processes. It means understanding how people, technology, and business fit together. And when that understanding emerges, daily work also becomes much smoother.

Come and try yourself!

If you are reading this and recognize yourself in one of these types, then you are exactly the person this course was created for.

The next public training will take place from September 29 to October 3 in Tartu (with an online option available).
See detailed information and register here (training is in Estonian):