Most of us have little time to read books. However, there are some that we must read to stay relevant. If you are a Business Analyst or someone who wants to get into the field of Business Analysis, here are my top 3 recommendations as of February 2017.

One: BABOK 3.0

It might not be categorized as a book, but still, you can’t call yourself a Business Analyst if you haven’t read it.

(In case if you have been living under a rock) Business Analysis Body of Knowledge or BABOK guide is the “collective wisdom and experience of experts” in Business Analysis, it is prepared by the International Institute of Business Analysis — IIBA (I’m surprised why they are not on Medium).

Personally I feel BABOK 3 has many inaccuracies and some outdated content, but still, it is the only comprehensive knowledge-base on Business Analysis. Reading BABOK is very painful — of course, it is not designed to be read as a normal book. You could try reading while comparing its content to a small initiative —like “re-design your office coffee making station”, this way, you can make the reading less boring.

When you are done reading BABOK 3.0, move to this book

Two: Delft Design Guide

I picked this over modern design books for a reason. Delft Design Guide is a comprehensive product design techniques catalog written by 4 scholars from TU Delft (couldn’t find any of them on Medium either).

This book explains what the other half of the world has been doing while you were trying to solve everything using Business Analysis. It will open you to the exciting world of Product Design: more scientific, and backed by academic research approach.

Reading Delft Design Guide is not boring as BABOK 3.0, but you could use the same “coffee making station” case to compare and contrast between techniques. When you reach the end, you would have a very good understanding of good old industrial product design techniques and why BABOK 3.0 is outdated.

Now it is time for you be introduced to the real modern techniques, pick up

Three: Sprint

Sprint: How to solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days. A best seller written loosely based on Stanford d.school Design Thinking by 3 geniuses from GV — Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz.

Sprint is considered to be one of the best books ever written. and it is a great example of how Product Designers (our evil twin brother, who would make Business Analysts obsolete) use academic research and experience to invent new techniques.

Reading the sprint book is just like reading harry potter, however, just for the sake of comparison use the “coffee making station” example.