What Does a Process Analyst do?

The Process Analyst is responsible for managing process change.

A process analyst manages process transformation projects, lead process discovery and design workshops, coach process owners, and measure and report on process performance. Process analysts typically have a great deal of skill in documenting and understanding process design and performance patterns. Therefore, they provide great analysis and assessment of current processes, evaluate alternate process design options, and make recommendations for change based on various frameworks. Their findings provide insight into process integration, design, and structure. This role is often combined with the role of the process designer.

Process Analyst Skillset

A process analyst gets involved with a variety of disciplines within an organisation. This includes IT, quality, business and process management. Therefore, when hiring it is best to look for those with a background that covers these areas either through previous job experience or formal education.

Also, the process analyst role requires excellent communication and interviewing skills. As a major part of the job will be gathering information from other staff and customers through various methods. Another critical skill for this role to be successful is data analysis. Data is necessary to ensure that your solution is foolproof at scale. Writing and presentation skills are also a great bonus to produce reports which get people on board and encourage people to invest in a new process/method.

What exactly does a business process analyst aim to do?

There are numerous ways to go about improving businesses processes. But, here are a summary of some of the core principles:

Firstly, always simplify. The most effective processes are user-friendly and coherent.
Search for and eliminate duplications.
Minimise decision making, so that workers can put their focus where it matters.
Quality over speed/automation. A poorly designed process will always yield mediocre results.

For organizations looking for tools to support process analysis and optimization, check out our BPM Software Selection Guide to find the right platform.