The roles of Systems analysts

The system analyst is a key member of any systems development project. In a boarder sense, the systems analyst plays several roles:

• Archaeologist and scribe : As a systems analyst, one of the main jobs is to uncover detailand to document business policy that may exist only as “tribal folklore”, passed downfrom generation to generation of users.

•Innovator : The systems analyst must separate the symptoms of the user’s problem fromthe true causes. With his or her knowledge of computer technology, the analyst musthelp the user explore useful, new applications of computers.
•Mediator: The systems analyst who often finds himself in the middle of users,managers, programmers, auditors, and various other players, all of whom frequently disagree with one another.

•Project leader: Because the systems analyst is usually more experienced than the programmers on the project and since he is assigned to the project before the programmers begin working, there is a natural tendency to assign projectmanagement responsibilities to analyst.

This means that, as a systems analyst, you need:

1. More than just the ability to draw flowchart and other technical diagrams;
2. Skills to interview users, mediate disagreements;
3. Application knowledge to understand and appreciate the user’s business;
4. Computer skills to understand the potential uses of computer hardware and software inthe user’s business;
5. Able to view a system from many different perspectives;
6. Able to partition it into levels of subsystems;
7. Able to think of a system in abstract terms as well as physical term