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Tuesday, 29 March 2011 10:26

The Decline of a Business Analyst’s SMEness

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Kupe_March29Over the past few weeks I have been hearing a similar theme from managers of people performing business analysis. The questions come in many forms relating to business analysis and the need for subject matter expertise. The root issue comes down to this: 'Should a BA be a subject matter expert (SME) or should a BA have the necessary skills to learn about the business?'

There are so many factors at play to answer the questions. Instead of starting with "it depends", I start my response with this; if the BA is new to an area they have to have some deep subject matter expertise in the area they will be working in. If they are a more senior BA, (see this post for my definition of a senior BA, The Six key Characteristics of a Senior Business Analyst), subject matter expertise may not be as necessary.

The first thing everyone needs to understand is that a business analyst's SMEness declines the day they leave the business area they were experts in. Organizations have to realize the BA in the IT group is not the one that should be defining the requirements for the business. Paul Mulvey wrote a good blog, Stay Out of the BA 'death zone" , about the downfalls of SMEs becoming BAs and the things to watch out for. I won't repeat those here.

So what is a manager to do knowing there is a natural decline in SMEness and that senior BAs aren't required to be SMEs to be effective. This opens up possibilities to be more effective as a team, more effective as a profession. If SMEness goes away, then BAs can be assigned to projects outside the business area where they have experience. This opens up the door for a shift in how BA teams are structured. There needs to be multiple levels of BAs collaborating together to be efficient and provide opportunity and growth. As I mentioned earlier, a new or junior BA who has fewer skills should start working in the business area they are most familiar. When I started my BA career I worked on accounting application projects. Since I was an accounting major in college and worked as an accountant it was a good fit. From there I was able to build my BA skills through working with mentors and formal training. As my BA skills improved I began to work on projects in other areas of the business. As individual BA skills and experience increase there is no longer a need to know the business area in great detail. A senior BA learns enough about the business area to address the needs of the project. Most of all they know to find the right people in the business to define the requirements.

By building organizations where there are multiple levels of BAs, companies can reduce salary cost and provide increased opportunity for growth. The senior BAs can be used in two main ways. They should mentor junior BAs or be put on critical projects regardless of the business area. The junior BAs should work on projects in their sweet spot and use the senior BAs as mentors. In most cases a junior and senior BA should pair up on projects. The senior BA should help scope and plan the BA work and assign the appropriate tasks to the junior BA. If working with junior BAs does not seem appropriate for the senior BA, they can be used on critical projects regardless of the business area.

By structuring teams in this manner you will keep the senior BAs excited and motivated and give additional growth opportunities to both senior and junior BAs. For junior BAs they have the upward movement to senior BA. For the senior BAs they gain relevant experience to move into management positions and/or a strategic BA role.

The decline in SMEness is not a bad thing. Recognize it, embrace it, and structure your BA resources to address it.

All the best,

Kupe

Don't forget to leave your comments below.

 

Read 6012 times Last modified on Tuesday, 27 March 2012 13:46
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Kupe Kupersmith

Kupe Kupersmith, President, B2T Training, possesses over 14 years of experience in the business analysis profession. He has served as the lead Business Analyst and Project Manager on projects in the utility, television and sports management and marketing industries. Kupe is a Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) through the IIBA. Kupe is a trained improvisational actor and performed for years in clubs around Atlanta.  He is a big believer that we can work and learn while having fun. Kupe is a connector and has a goal in life to meet everyone!

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Comments  

 
0 # Marcos Ferrer 2011-03-29 05:26
As an independent consultant I rarely have the luxury of expertise in the Domain. When Andrew Carnegie was praised for his knowledge of steel, it is said that he responded that many knew more about steel than he, and that his talent was attracting such persons to work with him. When we BAs are successful in such attraction, we get the chance to articulate (not define) the Domain expertise. "Not-knowing" can be more powerful than knowing. It allows (forces) simplification, allows the questioning of long held assumptions, and puts a premium on real communication - the kind that you see in people's eyes and hear in their voices. Every project is a master's thesis, or even a PhD. If we (or the experts) knew how to do it, it would already be done, since that is when learning really starts taking hold. The student might seem to be the BA, but if the BA captures and communicates the learning well, it is the organization that gets the degree.
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0 # Cathy Brunsting 2011-03-29 05:26
Hi Kupe. Interesting point about the decline of SMEness. It is important for the BA themself to understant that their SMEness declines as soon as they leave the business area in which they became expert in. I actually think that sometimes too deep a level of SME knowledge can get in the way of a good BA. The BA too often can try to take responsibliity for owning the requirements, rather than holding the business stakeholder accountable for this. I believe that the role of the BA is to enable the business stakeholder(s) to articulate and understand the requirements that they need for their project. But, ultimately the business "owns" the requirements - the BA simply (okay - it's not usually that simple!) insures that 1) the business stakeholders are aligned on what they want/need and 2) the project team understands what the business stakeholders are asking for. Having a certain level of subject matter expertise helps the BA understand the business context faster and more deeply. It enables them to ask the right questions, to quickly identify where there is missing information or missing process steps and to offer suggestions or options to the businesss stakeholders. It can be a help - esp. as you mentioned to newer BAs. However, the BA with SME knowledge needs to be careful that they don't start making decisions for the business stakeholders. When they do that, it becomes the BA's project, instead of the stakeholders project. That is when you have the stakeholders check out of the process and then blame the BA and project team if they don't get what they needed.
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0 # Alan Mayfield 2011-03-29 05:33
I agree with what you say, I think the challenge is for employers/clien ts to understand this perspective. Far too often one sees job descriptions that ask for three areas of expertize: 1. Subject matter knowledge 2. Business analysis skillset and experience 3. Program language proficiency such as Java or C++ They just don't get it.
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0 # Ron Segal 2011-03-29 06:00
Thanks for the article Kupe, I think this is generally good advice. On-the-job training / mentoring, junior paired with senior, used to be known as 'Sitting by Nellie'. Somet hing else to be emphasised though I think is the importance of subjects (plural) matter expertise. That is the value of cross pollination of ideas that a BA with broad experience can often bring. In other words knowledge of patterns that are applicable across subject matter domains, which when applied can be used to save an awful lot of time (and mistakes) spent rediscovering. The 'senior analyst' not only should have accumulated a heap of such patterns, but also the ability to recognise where they apply, or not (which is sometimes even more useful). So in that regard leaving one business area for another another can actually increase SMEness, or perhaps SsMEness!
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0 # Kupe 2011-03-29 06:52
Thanks for the comments everyone. Ron, I agree with you 100%. Knowing many domains is what what makes a BA a senior BA.
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0 # Cecilie Hoffman 2011-03-29 08:48
I'll join the chorus here and sing out the refrain: experience in multiple domains is what makes a Business Analyst a Senior Business Analyst, and enables a BA to make the jump to Business Architect. Some people may be more comfortable going deeper into a domain, and that's great. If you have a desire to apply what you know to a new domain, then you are expanding your breadth. The more you expand your domain breadth, the more patterns you will see across industries. Soon you are an SME again, but not in an application or a single domain, but you are a business patterns SME!
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0 # Howard Clindinin 2011-03-29 11:51
I believe we should be experts is the dicipline of becoming SME's. These are skills that are applied at each level as we detemine the need to go deeper (while maintaining perspective). I go into a project essentially knowing nothing (after having done my homework). This gives me the advantage of asking the "obvious" questions, which often have unanticipated answers. I would add that in the process of developing SME, I have seen the side benefit of bringing participants an understanding of the roles, intefaces and awareness of other stakeholds in areas outside of their own; fostering a better understand of the whole and how they fit into it.
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0 # Ben B Graham 2011-03-29 12:58
Marcos, well said. Pre-conceived ideas can easily thwart a promising effort. The value of "not knowing" is often overlooked.
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0 # David Wright 2011-03-29 14:10
I always come out for the BA as anti-SME. Being exposed to many domains over time does mean you may learn some things and build up your general knowledge;learn ing is always better than not learning...but it is not the same as Subject Matter Expertise...and if you start thinking it is, you will hinder a project with your own bias rather than capture the requirements from the real SMEs... a slippery slope to arrogance and just being plain annoying, so keep well back from the edge...
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0 # Kristofer Lundin 2011-03-29 18:45
I totally agree. BA should not define the requirements for the business. When SMEness goes away, BAs can be assigned to tasks making use of their true skills and experience. The process of developing the business becomes more effective.
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0 # Barbara Allen 2011-03-29 21:50
Ok - I am a bit mystified - why is this a even a issue. That is always a goal of management - to get two positions covered with one person (and pay). Come on, people this has been going on since the dawn of capitalism. How is this different from the BA-PM role that has emerged en masse?
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0 # Kupe 2011-03-29 23:59
I sense a bit of sarcasm Barbara. You are right management does try to get every bit they can out of every employee. I don't blame them. But we can't just sit back and watch the madness can we?
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0 # Søren Hjelholt 2011-03-30 02:30
As a business analyst, the most important thing for me is to be able to acquire new knowledge, and having the network to find that knowledge. Whe n working on a project, being a SME will only get you so far. I'm currently working on improving an online solution for remortgaging of home loans. In this project no BA is "the ultimate" SME. We have one who is very skilled in the world of mortgage finance and the systems we use for that, but a large part of the solution is also the online part, so we have to rely on usability experts (another form of SME) from another part of the organization. O thers of are skilled in Organisational implementation etc. so we combine our knowledge to make the best solution possible. Anot her observation from my part is that when working on a project, I will very quickly become the expert on my part of the project, but that does not make me an SME on the solution of the whole project, and even less on the business area as a whole.
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0 # David Wright 2011-03-30 11:53
Søren, Who is your SME for remortgaging home loans, online or batch or whatever? dww
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0 # David Wright 2011-03-30 12:04
Barbara, not sure if you mean this, but what you are taking about is different roles on a project: BA, PM, Designer, Developer, Tester. It is possible for a person to fill more than one role, with BA/PM and BA/Tester the most common ones. BA/Developer is not something I see, and people who consider themselves to be only a PM rarely take on roles delivering things because, well, they are managing, not doing. It illustrates the poor understanding of the BA Role and job that companies keep saying "they must have to do more than just analysis, right?" It reminds me of what I think was a Dilbert where PHB had this big long plan, but gave Dilbert only 2 days to build the whole thing. The reasoning was that "something I don't know how to do must be easy...." Now, all of this is completely different than one person fulfilling a role on a project like a BA or PM, and also being expected to have the needed subject matter expertise to provide the knowledge the project needs to define objectives, elicit requirements and deliver the appropriate solution. If you see a project where this is happening, you are seeing a project destined to fail for lack of input, and the fact the business doesn't really care about the project. dww
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0 # Barbara Allen 2011-03-30 13:25
David, I get what you are saying - and yes, there is real risk in the scenario of your second paragraph. However it can succeed and when it does - well that's how corporate legends are born. I once worked in a company where a project was done by one person and it was a huge success thereby subjecting every succeeding analyst and project manager to the same tiresome chorus. I happen to think the success was shear dumb luck, but I do not know for sure.
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0 # Kupe 2011-03-31 00:45
Barbara, you hit on another one of the big issues. When teams have a superstar, the star is wanted on every project. Or in your example, there is no need for a team, just one hero. I wrote about Junior BAs being set-up to fail for this reason. A senior BA will deliver and every BA is expected to perform at that level. It is not possible. In your example, everyone is at a huge risk of failing and there seems to be a lack of teamwork. If companies are going to make changes they have to focus on the discipline of business analysis and not try to clone the stars.
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0 # David Wright 2011-03-31 11:59
Yeah, I can't say a legend is a good basis for creating a repeatable process designed to improve chances for success every time. dww
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0 # Andre ElKhoury 2011-04-01 21:21
Hi Kupe and all. I've been a BA for the past 10 years or so. I've worked in many business areas, but mainly the banking sector. I feel when the BA matures and moves towards being a senior BA then this would be the time for him to become a business architect, TOGAF's definition of a business architect. How many of us have the business processes for any unit in the sector he/she is in baselined thus allowing the business user to only request for changes or enhancements? I am leading the rebel in my current employment into defining our business processes that we are offering to our customers and internal units, document them, baseline them, and then manage them from a business analysis perspective. In this way, you will lay down the foundation for any new junior BA who wishes to learn the business and pen down the SMEness into a document that anyone can benefit from instead of keeping the knowledge in your head, which will move along with you. Cheers, Andre
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0 # Kupe 2011-04-04 01:33
Andre, Great point about laying the foundation. This not only helps the junior BAs as you state. It also helps the business better see the impacts of projects. It should help you and your company better lay out a project portfolio.
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0 # Hashim Rasheed 2011-04-04 18:28
A year ago, I got the position of BA since I was the SME having worked on the project for 5 years. But I didnt have any Senior BA with me, to guide me through the process. However, I have been able to deliver my tasks and learn things myself, leading to different roles that have been given to me. I agree with Barbara that the management relies too heavily on one person coz he or she delivers in one particular area. I would also like to delve into the fact that I do not get the opportunity to learn about other domains. And if that cannot happen, my transition into a Senior BA would not be taking place. There is also a fear that I may not be able to deliver when it comes to another subject matter, since I would not have any guidance of any Senior BA.
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