Why the best BAs are burning out

Let's start with a quote that'll make every BA reading this nod in recognition:

"I don't know anyone who likes writing user stories or requirements or having to solution 700 tickets… We'd much rather be talking to the customer and making sure that what we have is right."

That's from a senior consultant describing what BAs actually want to spend their time doing. Not writing documentation. Not creating tickets. Not managing spreadsheets.

Talking to customers and making sure what we have is right.

So why are your best BAs spending 80% of their time doing everything else?

BA Bait-and-Switch

Here's how we sell people on becoming business analysts:

"You'll be the bridge between business and technology! You'll solve complex problems! You'll design solutions that transform how organizations work!"

Here's what they actually spend their time doing:

• Writing user stories in the "correct" format

• Converting requirements from one template to another

• Updating JIRA tickets with status changes

• Reconciling spreadsheets with project management tools

• Attending meetings about meetings about requirements

• Creating documentation that no one will read

One consultant described the reality perfectly: "Our resources are tied up with the nuts and bolts of: solutioning tickets, and updating the story points on tickets, and creating user stories, and going through the approval process for user stories. So when we have change management issues or want to talk about roadmapping or want to get them excited about the future state or answer questions, nobody has time for that."

Your BAs became analysts to analyze. Instead, they're spending their days as glorified administrative assistants.

Enter the Documentation Death Spiral

Want to know what's really burning out your best BAs? It's not the complexity of the work—it's the meaninglessness of most of the work.

Consider the typical BA workflow:

1. Have insightful conversation with customer about their process

2. Write user story based on that conversation

3. Get feedback that the user story isn't formatted correctly

4. Rewrite user story in proper format

5. Upload user story to project management tool

6. Create acceptance criteria for user story

7. Get feedback that acceptance criteria aren't detailed enough

8. Expand acceptance criteria

9. Attend meeting to review user story with team

10. Discover during build that the user story missed the actual requirement

Steps 2-9 are pure administrative overhead. They add zero analytical value. They don't improve customer outcomes. They don't solve business problems. They're just bureaucracy disguised as process.

And your best BAs know it.

The Talent Retention Paradox

Here's the cruel irony: the better your BAs get, the more they hate their job.

Junior BAs don't mind the documentation busywork because they're still learning. They think writing perfect user stories is the job.

But experienced BAs know better. They've seen how customer conversations translate into real business value. They understand the gap between what customers need and what gets built. They know which requirements will cause problems downstream.

And they're frustrated that they spend most of their time on writing and formatting instead of problem-solving.

As one BA manager told us: "If I could be like, you don't have to really worry about writing user stories anymore, or reconciling back to the SOW, and here's this amazing tool… I would be the hero of the generation."

Your best BAs aren't looking for easier work. They're looking for meaningful work.

Stuck in Spreadsheet Prison

Let's talk about the soul-crushing reality of BA tools:

"It all happens in Google sheets... we have kind of like a spreadsheet template, and at each stage, we're kind of like adding notes and adding, you know, tagging meetings. Okay, at the 20 minute mark we talked about this. So 25 minutes in we talked about this."

This is how one consultant described their requirements management process. Google Sheets. Manual timestamping. Copy-and-paste between tools.

In 2025.

Your BAs are using the same tools for complex requirements analysis that accountants used in 1995. And then you wonder why they're not engaged with their work.

Misery of Context Switching

But the documentation overhead is just part of the problem. The real killer is context switching.

A typical BA day looks like this:

• 9:00 AM: Customer call about reporting requirements

• 10:30 AM: Update JIRA tickets for Project A

• 11:00 AM: Requirements review meeting for Project B

• 12:00 PM: Write user stories for Project C

• 1:30 PM: Customer call about data migration for Project A

• 2:30 PM: Update spreadsheet tracker for Project B

• 3:00 PM: Scope discussion for Project D

• 4:00 PM: Try to remember what happened in the 9 AM call

Each switch between projects, tools, and contexts burns mental energy. By the end of the day, your BAs are exhausted—not from solving hard problems, but from juggling administrative overhead across multiple workstreams.

One consultant described it perfectly: "Switching from task to task, project to project. You need deep focus time and constant switching around is really tough."

False Productivity

Management sees BAs producing lots of documentation and thinks they're being productive. User stories are getting written! Tickets are getting updated! Requirements are being tracked!

But productivity isn't about generating artifacts. It's about preventing problems.

The most productive BA isn't the one who writes the most user stories. It's the one who identifies the contradictory requirements before they become change orders. It's the one who spots the scope gap before it becomes a budget overrun. It's the one who understands what the customer actually needs, not just what they said they wanted.

But those kinds of insights don't fit neatly into JIRA tickets or project status reports.

AI Changes Everything

What if your BAs could focus on the analysis part of business analysis?

What if requirements generation, documentation, and project tracking were automated, leaving BAs free to do what they're actually good at:

• Understanding customer needs in context

• Identifying solution gaps and opportunities

• Designing processes that actually work

• Solving complex business problems

AI makes this possible. Not by replacing BAs, but by eliminating the administrative overhead that's drowning them.

Instead of spending hours writing user stories, BAs can spend that time understanding customer workflows. Instead of formatting requirements documents, they can focus on resolving requirement contradictions. Instead of updating project trackers, they can concentrate on ensuring solutions actually solve business problems.

Retain Your BAs

Want to retain your best BA talent? Stop making them do work that software can do better.

The BAs who stay will be the ones who get to focus on genuinely analytical work:

• Strategic problem-solving instead of documentation formatting

• Customer insight development instead of ticket management

• Solution design instead of spreadsheet maintenance

• Change management instead of status reporting

The BAs who leave will be the ones stuck in organizations that think productivity means generating more documentation.

The Future of Business Analysis

The role of business analyst is evolving rapidly. The administrative, documentation-heavy parts of the job are becoming automated. What remains is the uniquely human work of understanding, analyzing, and problem-solving.

Organizations that recognize this shift early will have a massive advantage in attracting and retaining top BA talent. They'll be able to offer something their competitors can't: work that's actually worth doing.

Organizations that cling to the old model—where BAs spend most of their time on administrative overhead—will find their best people leaving for places that let them do real analysis.

The choice is yours: continue burning out your best talent with busywork, or liberate them to do the strategic thinking that actually creates value.

Your BAs know what they'd prefer. The question is: are you listening?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ready to free your BAs from documentation drudgery? See how Glossa automates the administrative overhead so your analysts can focus on the work that actually requires human insight.