Business Analyst Review

My work placement was great. I learnt so much about not only my designated role but also the company as a whole along with the way it functions to meet daily needs. It has been an invaluable year that has definitely set me up nicely for my future endeavours whether that be at university or in my future careers.

I was lucky to have been put into a fairly small team with quite a large responsibility! My team were very helpful in getting me on my feet to understand the basics as well as what is best practice for certain situations. They are a super bunch of individuals that I hope to keep in contact with when I leave.

I had weekly meetings with my manager as well as my plus one manager; these were used to monitor my progress and make sure I was happy with my workload as well as the work I was doing. If I felt I wanted to do more, for example 'technical' work - these were the times to be mentioning such a thing. My team were very supportive in ensuring I was learning more as well as improving my skills.

Can't really say as my role was more project based and so it depended on how many projects I was on at any one time. Further to this, how important my role was on these projects! Naturally running a project is quite a lot to handle in the sense that you have to be on top of everything, keeping up to date with all the actions and ensuring you are on target for the set go live date. I feel it was a lot of work however enough to maintain a balance.

In the beginning there was a lot of shadowing my team on their work which brought me up to speed with key skills such as stakeholder management and managing expectations - when I started to run projects of my own, I was responsible to make sure that the business got what they needed, when they needed it. Taking on the role of a project manager and understanding the businesses requirements is a lot of work as before anything, you need to understand all the processes of what is going on and why.

I think I was lucky to get a placement where I was exposed to a variety of different areas of the business which allowed me to learn more about the company as well as how it works. Through this, I had the opportunity to expand on my current skills as well as develop skills that would only be available through being in a working environment. I am sure 99% of what I learnt will come in handy for my final year as well as my careers after!