Techno-Functional Business Analyst Playbook

I interviewed 40+ candidates for BA and PO roles. Most failed on the same 4 things:

They couldn't explain SDLC from experience. They froze when asked to write a user story live. They had no idea what happens behind a CTA and their assignments were ChatGPT copies with zero original thinking.

This playbook fixes all of it.

What's inside (35 pages):

1. The Role — what a techno-functional BA actually does (real day-in-the-life of a BA, not the JD version)
2. SDLC — what is it and BA deliverables at every stage + the interview trap most candidates fall into
3. Requirements Gathering — What is it, Elicitation techniques, Domain Knowlege, Real life Scenarios.
4. User Stories & ACs — the live-writing drill + the exact interview scenario with a model answer
5. Process Mapping — flowcharts with failure branches, swimlanes, the handoff rule
6. API Analysis — no code needed: the 4 questions, the API Mapping Sheet, reading API docs.
7. Data Skills — data mapping + SQL queries that cover BA needs
8. UAT — why "UAT passed" ≠ "production safe" and the failure-path checklist with a story
9. Your 30-Day Plan — Finish with a portfolio you can open in any interview

Every chapter has practice drills, check-yourself quizzes, and real scenarios from building insurance, lending and mortgage products at one of the India's leading financial organization scale — including the failures.

Who this is for: aspiring BAs, MBA students targeting BA/PO roles, QA/support/ops professionals switching careers and working BAs who want to become techno-functional.

Who this is NOT for: anyone looking for definitions to memorise. This is a doing playbook, not a reading playbook.