5 must-have tools for business analysts & how Jira can help

What are the duties of a business analyst? Managing projects, developing project plans, monitoring performance, budgeting and forecasting, planning and monitoring. Sounds like a lot on a plate. A multitasking environment brings new challenges every day. That’s why it’s so important to have little helpers. Let’s look at tools for business analysts to simplify their work.

What tools do business analysts use?

A business analyst is a link between different departments and the company and its clients. They collect data, record processes, develop project plans, outline problems, and verify the final papers with users. So they use a wide range of tools in their job, which can be broken down into several categories:

• Project management and collaboration tools
• Brainstorming and focus group meetings
• Tools for process modeling and diagrams
• Wireframing and prototyping

Jira

Jira is a compelling project management and collaboration tool. Here you can create Roadmaps for your projects, manage tasks on Kanban or Scrum board, log working time and communicate via comments and @ mentions. All business stakeholders may see the status of projects, and they can communicate with various teams.

Issue History for Jira

Jira environment is very flexible, you can adjust it to your business needs. Also, there are a bunch of all-purpose Jira apps on the Atlassian Marketplace so that you can customize it as you wish. If you want to make Jira more useful for business analysis, check out Issue History for Jira. It collects all information about changes in one report. 

MindMeister

MindMeister is an online collaborative mind-mapping application. Business analysts can use it to comprehend and connect concepts, ideas, and data. Mind maps will help to gather thoughts and information about a particular subject. Beyond mind mapping, Mindmeister can also be used for brainstorming, project planning, designing timelines, and to-do lists.

Balsamiq

Balsamiq is a top cloud-based tool for creating UI wireframes. Business analysts can use this as a great tool when coming up with fresh product designs, brainstorming, and business plan sketches. With the aid of this instrument, the business analyst may explain to the necessary parties what he envisions for the product. The program is accessible in two formats: as an independent installation or as a plugin for Google Drive, Jira, and Confluence in the cloud.

Draw.io

Draw.io is a drawing and process modeling solution. You may use it for UML (Unified Modeling Language), BPMN, and workflow diagrams. This tool is pretty straightforward. A drawing board with a fair amount of options is immediately accessible when you open the website. With just a few clicks, you may share your work on GitHub / GitLab or save it locally, to the cloud (such as Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.), or both.

How Jira can help with business analysis

Business analysts in Jira assist the team in developing the product backlog by comprehending the goal, organizing the stories, and making sure a complete description of the solution is provided.

In Jira, there are three major things you can accomplish.

1) Planning: Jira enables task distribution, user story and issue generation, and sprint planning.

• Built-in options: Jira Control Chart, Jira Roadmap.
• Marketplace products: Tempo Planner, BigPicture.

2) Tracking: Jira gives a comprehensive picture of the team’s activity. You can prioritize daily tasks and track workflow progress.

• Issue tracking (with simple issue navigator or advanced with JQL; tracking past activities with Issue History).
• Time tracking (with plugins like Tempo Timesheets, Clockwork, Time in Status for Jira Cloud).

3) Reports: Jira provides a ton of reports, including the ones on the dashboard. Managers need to have a firm understanding of the budget and status at every step of a project

• Sprint Report, Burndown Chart, Velocity Chart.
• eazyBI Reports and Charts for Jira, Dashboard Hub for Jira.

How to create a history report in Jira

To tell the story of what’s happening in business today or what can happen in the future, the business analyst needs to investigate past activities.

The ability to generate a report or export historical data is not available with built-in options. Issue History for Jira is the solution you may use to arrange data your way. It’s a customizable logbook for the activities of each previous organization. It is now quite challenging for a human to remember all the requirements, activities and their changes. That’s what Issue History makes for you.

You can export an issue history report for in-depth analysis via analytical systems.

It’s a good database to evaluate teamwork generally or to quickly review each member’s daily activity.

Read the use case about How to track Jira tickets moved between projects.

30-days free trial of Issue History for Jira

Takeaway

According to Gwen Britton, “Business analysts will tell the story of what’s happening in the business today.” However, analysts first need to gather and analyze a sizable amount of data before coming up with certain insights. Looking into previous actions helps to describe what is happening in business right now or what might occur in the future. Hope this article will inspire you to enhance your everyday activities with proper tools for business analysts.

Note: As we delve into the indispensable tools that can elevate your role as a business analyst, we have some exciting news for those who aim to optimize their Atlassian Marketplace experience. If you’re tired of the manual grind of sorting through apps, get ready for a transformative shift. We’re on the brink of launching Marketplace Reporter, a tool engineered to streamline your decision-making process and offer many advanced features. Secure your early access today and be among the first to leverage this innovation.