4. The BA as management consultant. We predict that in 2012 BAs will actually function as described in the BABOK® Guide, version 2.0. That is, more BAs will “recommend solutions that help the organization achieve its goals.” They will do that in a variety of ways:
   1. Business cases. More organizations will recognize that the BA is in the best position to develop business cases. Although often performed by PMs, this function happens prior to the initiation of a project and is input to project initiation (PMBOK® Guide – Fourth Edition). The PMBOK recognizes that the performing organization (business owner) is accountable for the business case, but it is the BA who is in the best position of developing it.
   2. Ability to Influence without Authority. We are seeing more organizations tell us that they want their BAs to move away from taking customer orders and start using their expertise to recommend solutions. This need correlates to the enthusiasm we have seen around the need to influence without authority.
   3. In her keynote at the BBC conference in Ft. Lauderdale last year, Kathleen Barrett, CEO of IIBA mentioned that one of the key competencies of the enterprise BA is management consulting.

5. BAs as change agents.We think that BAs will be more involved in change management. At the BBC conference in Ft. Lauderdale last year Kathleen Barret announced a new tag line for IIBA—that business analysis was about changing how organizations change. In other words, BAs will be more involved in change management. Changes might include changes in business processes, job descriptions, reporting structures, software, and more. Here are some of the ways we see this happening:
   1. Enterprise analysis. Before projects are initiated, BAs determine the business need across the enterprise and recommend solutions, which need to include the ways in which organizations will need to change when these solutions are implemented.
   2. Project work. While the identified at the enterprise level are by necessity high-level, the changes resulting from each project will be specific in nature. We predict that BAs will develop better tools for assessing whether or not the organization is ready for the change. We think that they will act as management consultants once the project has been defined to ease the pain associated with implementing the changes associated as with implementing the solution.
   3. Post-project follow-up. We believe that BAs will be called on to monitor the post-implementation changes and continue to consult with the organization on the best way to make the solution work, even when there is some organizational resistance to it.

6. The virtual environment.Now that it is here, the virtual environment will continue to flourish, even if the economy improves. There are a variety of reasons why organizations will continue to rely on the virtual environment for completing projects, for training, and for webinars to replace live conferences.
   1. Travel budgets. Spurred by a sluggish world economy, many organizations have reduced travel budgets for team meetings, training, and international conferences, relying instead on the virtual environment. Although colocation of teams is ideal and preferred, it is not always possible. More teams communicate and collaborate virtually, more virtual training will occur, and more webinars will take the place of live conferences.
   2. Globalization has made travel impractical. Although face-to-face time, particularly during project initiation, is helpful in building trust, respect, and relationships, it is not possible to be together for all project meetings and/or requirements elicitation interviews and workshops when the team is located across the county or world.
   3. Collaboration tools have made the virtual environment not only possible, but practical. Net meetings, as well as more robust training and webinar tools have supported virtual teams, so that real work can be accomplished. In addition, teams have learned how to build relationships and trust in the virtual environment. Building relationships and trust in a virtual environment is easier and quicker once people accept and feel comfortable with the virtual tools available.

7.  “The economy, stupid,” a past political slogan said. During a slumping economy, organizations look of ways to maximize efficiencies. Focus turns to business processes and how to improve and manage them. During more prosperous times, interest in business process management tends to wane. We predict that business process management, with an emphasis on eliminating waste in organizations, will continue throughout 2012, even as the economy (hopefully) shows signs of improvement. We also predict that there will be no dominant tools for managing processes and recommend that project professionals doing business process work focus on core concepts and skills and be flexible when it comes to using BPM tools.

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Elizabeth Larson and Richard Larson are Co-Principals of Watermark Learning, a project management and business analysis training company. They have over 30 years of industry experience each, and have helped thousands of PM and BA practitioners develop new skills.

They have published numerous articles and papers and have co-written two books together on Requirements Management and CBAP Preparation. Both Rich and Elizabeth are CBAP and PMP certified through IIBA and PMI, and are contributors to the BABOK® Guide, Version 2.0 and the PMBOK® Guide – 4^th edition.