Author: Richard Larson

With over a decade of experience in working for GoPromotional UK, Richard Larson has been an integral part of marketing GoPromo’s award-winning brand. Richard’s skillset varies from a deep understanding of product strategy to his consistent ability to design, analyze, and execute team-based marketing projects. Richard’s team leadership at GoPromo is complemented by a love for data-driven results and his ability to connect with audiences."

BABOK Version 3 vs. Version 2 – Taming the New – Guide Part 1: Knowledge Areas and Tasks

Written by Richard Larson on June 4, 2015. Posted in Articles.

Most people in the BA field know that the IIBA® has produced an important update to its definitive Business Analysis Body of Knowledge, the BABOK® Guide. Released in April 2015, the BABOK® Guide includes major upgrades, ranging from the BA Core Concept Model™ (BACCM), to changes to most Knowledge Areas, the addition of 16 new techniques, and the addition of an all-new section containing five perspectives on Business Analysis.

By IIBA’s estimation, the BABOK has grown 50% from version 2 to version 3 and now has more than 500 pages. It has a richer and more complete set of information about the practice of Business Analysis. It also means the CCBA will have a greater amount of knowledge on which to test aspiring CBAP and CCBA candidates. Both points are good for the profession in our opinion.

Most comparisons of the two versions cover the major changes and ours is no different. However, we begin with the familiar aspects of version 2 and how they change in version 3. Part 1 features changes to Knowledge Areas and Tasks. Part 2 covers the expansion of Techniques, and Part 3 presents the two major BABOK additions: the BACCM and the Perspectives.

BABOK VERSION 3 KNOWLEDGE AREAS AND TASKS

We are starting the BABOK differences with the Knowledge Areas (KAs) and tasks instead of the Core Concept Model for two main reasons. First, most people are familiar with the KAs and their tasks, so it makes the jump to v3 a little less of a leap. Second, the BACCM surrounds the KAs and for each KA the BABOK Guide version 3 shows how the BACCM applies to it. Our view is that v3 is not as big a change as one might think when doing a KA to KA comparison.

Below is a table we compiled to show the differences in tasks. After finishing a draft we then consulted with the BABOK Guide’s table of differences and the result is shown in Table 1.

Some tasks have not changed much or at all, such as “Plan Business Analysis Approach” or “Verify Requirements. “ The task names of some 10-11 tasks have remained the same, which means roughly 21 tasks have been changed, added or deleted. There are now only 30 tasks compared with 32 in v2.

BABOK® Guide Version 2 Knowledge Area and Task Names	BABOK® Guide Version 3 Knowledge Area and Task Names (additions/changes in v3)
2.0 BA Planning and Monitoring – v2.0 tasks	3.0 BA Planning and Monitoring – v3.0 tasks
2.1 Plan Business Analysis Approach (content for prioritization and change management moved to Plan BA Governance) 2.3 Plan Business Analysis Activities	3.1 Plan Business Analysis Approach 3.3 Plan Business Analysis Governance
2.2 Conduct Stakeholder Analysis 2.4 Plan Business Analysis Communication	3.2 Plan Stakeholder Engagement
2.5 Plan Requirements Management Process (see note for Plan BA Approach)	3.4 Plan Business Analysis Information Management
New Task:	3.4 Plan Business Analysis Information Management
2.6 Manage Business Analysis Performance	3.5 Identify Business Analysis Performance Improvements
3.0 Elicitation – v2.0 tasks	4.0 Elicitation and Collaboration – v3.0 tasks
3.1 Prepare for Elicitation	4.1 Prepare for Elicitation
3.2 Conduct Elicitation Activity	4.2 Conduct Elicitation
3.3 Document Elicitation Results 4.4 Prepare Requirements Package 3.5 Communicate Requirements (Note: ours is more complete than the BABOK comparison)	4.4 Communicate Business Analysis Information
3.4 Confirm Elicitation Results	4.3 Confirm Elicitation Results
New Task:	4.5 Manage Stakeholder Collaboration
4.0 Requirements Management and Communication – v2.0 tasks	5.0 Requirements Life Cycle Management – v.3.0 tasks
4.1 Manage Solution Scope and Requirements	5.1 Trace Requirements (Especially relationships) 5.5 Approve Requirements (Conflict and Issue Management; Approval was formerly an element)
4.2 Manage Requirements Traceability	5.1 Trace Requirements (“Configuration Management System” becomes “Traceability Repository”) 5.4 Assess Requirements Changes (Impact Analysis moved here)
4.3 Maintain Requirements for Re-Use	5.2 Maintain Requirements
6.1 Prioritize Requirements (from Requirements Analysis)	5.3 Prioritize Requirements (Moved from Requirements Analysis in v2)
4.4 Prepare Requirements Package 4.5 Communicate Requirements (both become part of “Communicate BA Information” in Elicitation and Collaboration)	4.4 Communicate Business Analysis Information
New Task:	5.5 Approve Requirements
5.0 Enterprise Analysis – v2.0 tasks	6.0 Strategy Analysis – v3.0 tasks
5.1 Define Business Need	6.1 Analyze Current State 6.2 Define Future State
5.2 Assess Capability Gaps	6.1 Analyze Current State 6.2 Define Future State 6.4 Define Change Strategy
5.3 Determine Solution Approach	6.2 Define Future State 6.4 Define Change Strategy 7.5 Define Design Options 7.6 Analyze Potential Value and Recommend Solution (Note: ours is more complete than the BABOK comparison)
5.4 Define Solution Scope 7.4 Define Transition Requirements	6.4 Define Change Strategy
5.5 Define Business Case	6.3 Assess Risks (was an Element in v2 Business Case task) 7.6 Analyze Potential Value and Recommend Solution (Business Case is also now a General Technique)
6.0 Requirements Analysis – v2.0 tasks	7.0 Requirements Analysis and Design Definition – v3.0 tasks
6.1 Prioritize Requirements (Moved to Requirements Life Cycle Management)	5.3 Prioritize Requirements
6.2 Organize Requirements	7.4 Define Requirements Architecture
6.3 Specify and Model Requirements	7.1 Specify and Model Requirements
6.4 Define Assumptions and Constraints	6.2 Define Future State 7.6 Analyze Potential Value and Recommend Solution
6.5 Verify Requirements	7.2 Verify Requirements
6.6 Validate Requirements	7.3 Validate Requirements
New Task:	7.5 Define Design Options (pulls together v2 Determine Solution Approach, Assess Proposed Solution, and Allocate Requirements)
New Task:	7.6 Analyze Potential Value and Recommend Solution (pulls together v2 Define Business Case and Assess Proposed Solution)
7.0 Solution Assessment & Validation – v2.0 tasks	8.0 Solution Evaluation – v3.0 tasks
7.1 Assess Proposed Solution	7.5 Define Design Options 7.6 Analyze Potential Value and Recommend Solution
7.2 Allocate Requirements	7.5 Define Design Options
7.3 Assess Organizational Readiness	6.4 Define Change Strategy
7.4 Define Transition Requirements	6.4 Define Change Strategy (Also see Requirements Classification Schema)
7.5 Validate Solution	8.3 Assess Solution Limitations
7.6 Evaluate Solution Performance	8.5 Recommend Actions to Increase Solution Value
New Task:	8.1 Measure Solution Performance
New Task:	8.2 Analyze Performance Measures
New Task:	8.4 Assess Enterprise Limitations

Table 1: BABOK v2 vs. v3 KA and Task Differences (table modified from BABOK Guide® version 3)

BABOK VERSION 3 KA AND TASK SUMMARY

The changes to BABOK Knowledge Areas and their associated tasks on the surface may seem to be significant. Only one KA name (BA Planning and Monitoring) survives intact from v2 to v3. Only nine task names are the same or roughly the same. This article does not cover details like inputs and outputs, and many of those names have changed from one release to the next.

Upon closer examination, though, the changes are actually not so dramatic. We can summarize a few observations.

Even though most KA and task names have changed, in many cases they are merely refinements rather than significant changes. For example:
- The Elicitation KA in v2 is now Elicitation and Collaboration. Most tasks in that KA are the same with the addition of the “Manage Stakeholder Collaboration” task.
- The v2 “Conduct Stakeholder Analysis” task in Planning and Monitoring has been changed in v3 to “Plan Stakeholder Engagement.”
The Requirements Management and Communication KA and Requirements Life Cycle Management (RLCM) are essentially similar. An important addition is that prioritize Requirements is placed in RLCM.
Enterprise Analysis has become Strategy Analysis, essentially broadening its scope. It now includes devising change strategies, transitions, and organization readiness.
Requirements Analysis is similar in v2 and v3, despite the addition of the concept of “Design.”. An important distinction has been made by IIBA between requirements and design, which boils down to the distinction between business needs and solutions to those needs.
- Requirements – the usable representation of a need (see our forthcoming article on the BA Core Concept Mode).
- Designs – usable representation of a Solution. A new task “Define Design Options” has been added to focus on the BA work in designing solutions. Another new task “Analyze Potential Value and Recommend Solution” actually pulls together facets of two tasks from v2.
Solution Assessment and Validation has been renamed as Solution Evaluation. There are three new tasks as the table shows. They were added to clarify the work of evaluating solution performance over its lifetime including organizational constraints.
Out of the 32 tasks in v2, only eight have been added, a 25% change. That means 10 have been removed since there are now 30 tasks in all.

In short, BABOK version 3 is better organized than its predecessor, and with refined KA and task names contains a structure that better reflects the practice of business analysis.

In the next part of this article, we explore changes to BA techniques in BABOK version 3.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

The Entrepreneurial BA Practitioner Part 4: How Business Analysts Can Help Innovate

Written by Richard Larson on April 20, 2015. Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on The Entrepreneurial BA Practitioner Part 4: How Business Analysts Can Help Innovate

So, you don’t think you are an entrepreneur? You are not going to start a company or build a business from the ground up. You are not going to risk your livelihood or work crazy hours or wear multiple hats like an entrepreneur does. We suggest you think again.

Today’s business world is quickly changing. With all the emphasis on innovation, your organization needs you to be entrepreneurial. Maybe not be an actual entrepreneur, but your organization’s success and your career will increasingly depend on how you can help your organization adapt and grow and compete. Competition has always been part of business, but it seems to be getting more intense and dynamic. To illustrate this point, the average lifespan of a company on the Standard & Poor’s 500 list was 67 years back in the 1920s. Today the average length is only 15 years.

Perhaps the best way for most BAs to become entrepreneurial is by being an intrapreneur. We cited a definition of that term in an earlier article as someone who is:

“An inside entrepreneur, or an entrepreneur within a large firm, who uses entrepreneurial skills without incurring the risks associated with those activities. Intrapreneurs are usually employees within a company who are assigned a special idea or project, and are instructed to develop the project like an entrepreneur would.”

There is one part of this definition we don’t like: it is hard to be entrepreneurial if you don’t incur risks. So we would add to this definition that intrapreneurs indirectly assume risks on behalf of the organization. There might be financial risk if the new products and services we create lose money. There are product risks if the changes we instigate have defects. Additionally, intrapreneurs take personal risks within the organization, which could materialize if the products or services we work on don’t succeed. We will come back to that challenge later in the article.

Intrapreneurial Example. Our first stints as intrapreneurs came at the bank that we both worked at early in our careers. Much of our work was similar to a business analyst, but that term had not been invented back in the 1970s yet.

No matter what we were called, we were definitely change agents for the bank, reviewing department processes, procedures, “EDP” requirements, and organization structures. We recommended improvements and new services, both manual and automated. It was creative and a lot of fun.

We were both happy there as employees, and yet looking back we were expected to be intrapreneurs in the sense that we helped the bank move to new possibilities. We “disrupted” the status quo (to use the popular term in lean startup circles), and that disruption sometimes came at some organization risk when we recommended streamlining procedures that were overly controlling. We also took on personal risk when we made recommendations, although we did not view it that way at the time.

Bank management thought the organization risk was worth it because it helped the bank achieve better customer service, efficiency, and control. We took on the personal risk because we earnestly believed our recommendations were helping the company.

Why are intrapreneurs important? When organizations introduce new products or enhance existing ones, our guess is today they would all say they want to “innovate.” We feel that the intrapreneurial function is the most practical and repeatable way to implement many innovations. However, to think about “innovation” as being a uniform process is overly simplistic. In the article “The Innovation Strategy Big Companies Should Pursue,” Tony Davila lists four types of innovations, depending on whether they are top-down or bottom-up and the extent to which they are “breakthroughs” or incremental:

Incremental: Continuous Progress and Emergent Improvements
Breakthroughs: Strategic Bets and Strategic discoveries.

We have summarized these four types in Table 1. It is common to associate innovation with breakthroughs, given how often Apple and 3M are used as examples. At Apple, some of Steve Jobs’ major successes like the iPad and iPhone were strategic bets. The Post-It Note product from 3M is an example of a strategic discovery type of innovation.

We think it is important to also include incremental change as innovation since there are many more opportunities to accomplish this type in today’s workplace. Given there are more opportunities, most potential intrapreneurs would likely work on incremental innovations in their career. The particular type of innovation possible is also highly dependent on your organization’s culture. Armed with this knowledge, potential intrapreneurs can work within the organization culture and have better success by employing innovation processes that are compatible with the culture.

Table 1: Types of Innovation

Davila also notes that organizations today are least likely to have processes in place for “Strategic Discoveries.”3 To address this point, we assembled the following table with thoughts about how business analysis practitioners can best contribute to the various innovation types.

Innovation Type	Prime Question	Key Techniques/Skills
Continuous Progress	What problem are you trying to solve?	Root Cause Analysis, Consulting Skills
Emergent Improvements	What problem(s) have we not addressed yet?	Root Cause Analysis, Lean Six Sigma/Business Process Improvement
Strategic Bets	What opportunity do you see with the strategic bet?	Benchmarking, Business Cases (especially Feasibility and Cost-Benefit Analysis)
Strategic Discoveries	What frustrates people today with the status quo?	Brainstorming, Benchmarking, Observation

Table 2: Working with Innovation Types

Final Thoughts – Will my Company Support This? A writer on intrapreneurship, Dan Schawbel, has written an insightful article on intrapreneurship. He maintains that “Smart companies want you to become an intrapreneur because it fuels business growth and allows them to gain a competitive advantage in their industry.” We couldn’t agree more and at the same time realize this may seem a daunting proposition. . Many companies are not structured today to foster intrapreneurship, yet there are indications that organizations are moving in the right direction.

In the same article, Schawbel describes a recent study in conjunction with American Express that found that “58% of managers are either very willing or extremely willing to support employees…on a new business opportunity within their company.”4 That sounds like fertile ground for intrapreneurship if you ask us. Chances are your company would agree with this notion and support you if you want to move into that kind of role.

We will explore in future articles how people practicing business analysis can contribute as intrapreneurs.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

About the Authors:

Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, President and Founder of Watermark Learning, is a successful entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in business analysis, project management, training, and consulting. He has presented workshops and seminars on business analysis and project management topics to over 10,000 participants on five different continents.
Rich is a frequent speaker at Business Analysis and Project Management national conferences and IIBA® and PMI® chapters around the world. He has contributed to the BA Body of Knowledge version 2.0 and 3.0, the PMI BA Practice Guide, and the PM Body of Knowledge, 4th edition. He and his wife Elizabeth Larson have co-authored three books, The Influencing Formula, CBAP Certification Study Guide, and Practitioners’ Guide to Requirements Management.

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, CSM, PMI-PBA is Co-Principal and CEO of Watermark Learning and has over 30 years of experience in project management and business analysis. Elizabeth’s speaking history includes repeat presentations for national and international conferences on five continents.
Elizabeth has co-authored three books: The Practitioner’s Guide to Requirements Management, CBAP Certification Study Guide, and The Influencing Formula. She has also co-authored chapters published in four separate books.
Elizabeth was a lead author on the PMBOK® Guide – Fourth and Fifth Editions, PMI’s Business Analysis for Practitioners – A Practice Guide, and the BABOK® Guide 2.0, as well as an expert reviewer on BABBOK® Guide 3.0.

The Entrepreneurial BA Practitioner Part 3: Life Stages of Entrepreneurs

Written by Richard Larson on March 20, 2015. Posted in Articles.

In previous blog posts, we compared how people who work in business analysis have many parallels with entrepreneurs. Much of the similarity rests with the products that BA practitioners help create and the solutions they bring to organizations. There are also many, many personal traits and skills that the two have in common.

Now we’d like to explore different life stages of entrepreneurs to dispel the notion that only a few, those who are risk-taking or young people, could become entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneur vs. Intrapreneur. First there are external and internal entrepreneurs as mentioned in part 1. The internal type of entrepreneur is commonly called an intrapreneur. The two share many similarities in terms of launching ventures and products and in being innovators. The main difference is that entrepreneurs take on financial as well as personal risks. Intrapreneurs mainly shoulder personal risks. Their organizations may face financial risks, but the intrapreneurs don’t typically take those on.

Life stages of entrepreneurs. A common misconception is that only young people are meant to be entrepreneurs. One might assume that youth is a prerequisite, given venture capitalists seem to have an unwritten rule that says funding is available only to those who wear a hoodie! This notion is hogwash and the following table of life stages of entrepreneurs explains why. (By the way, the first and 3rd terms are ones we thought of, whereas “reluctant” entrepreneur is part of the title of a good book on entrepreneurialism.1)

Type	Typical Beginning Stage	Risk Tolerance	Tends to Start Based on	Also Known As
“Lifelong” Entrepreneurs	Youth	Risk tolerant	A good idea	Serial entrepreneurs
“Reluctant” Entrepreneurs	Middle age	Calculated risk takers	Experience with a profession or product	Expertise entrepreneurs
“Elder-preneurs”	Late middle age or older	Anywhere from tolerant to adverse	A lifetime dream of owning own company	Encore entrepreneurs

Table 1 – Life Stages of Entrepreneurs

Lifelong Entrepreneurs. When we hear the term entrepreneur many of us think of tech entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. Their type of entrepreneur tends to be young, risk-tolerant, and may be more focused on either the challenge or the independence that entrepreneurship offers (and perhaps both). Because they start young, they often stay entrepreneurs their whole lives, and often start new ventures after selling off their previous one. The term “serial entrepreneur” was coined to describe this type. Chances are if you are a business analyst, you are probably not a lifelong entrepreneur.

Reluctant Entrepreneurs. These types of entrepreneur are typically middle-aged, take calculated risks, and are likely to create a product or business idea based on their experience. Often they start a company while still working at their jobs. As an example, Brian Quittner is a reluctant entrepreneur who worked for 15-years at the Santa Barbara California Harbor Patrol. After breaking or losing numerous flashlights on the job, he developed a special hands-free light for law enforcement. He developed and started manufacturing the product while still working at the Harbor Patrol. Brian and his wife then filled orders from all over the world out of their living room before the business took off and he could quit his day job.

What we find interesting about the reluctant entrepreneur stage is that most business analysts would probably fall into it. After all, as BAs we’ve usually accumulated a wide range of in-depth experience. I (Rich) was a reluctant entrepreneur when I started Watermark Learning back in 1992. And, Elizabeth was certainly a reluctant entrepreneur when she joined the company and gave up a good job and steady paycheck.

After working for 17+ years in business as a BA, PM, consultant, and trainer, I had built up experience both in software development and training. My family also had two children about to enter college. It would have been too risky for us for me to launch a restaurant or book store (not that I wanted to, mind you!). A failed business venture would have been a financial hardship.

But, it was much less risky for me to start training and consulting for my own clients. I was able to leverage my expertise with training and software, plus general business knowledge to be successful. Oh, did I mention I was 40 that first year in business? Sounds young to me now, but you’d have to call that early middle age which put me squarely in the prime age bracket for reluctant entrepreneurs.

Elder-preneurs. Those who are not ready to launch a business in your 40’s or 50’s may be ready to do so later in life as so many people are doing today. Elder entrepreneurs, sometimes called “encore” entrepreneurs, are actually starting more businesses than 20-29 year olds. Over 23 percent of startups in 2012 were from people between 55 and 64 years, which is up from 14.3 percent of all new ventures started in 1996 (Source: Kauffman Foundation2).

Elder- preneurs can also use their expertise to start a business. But the beauty of starting later in life is the ability to pursue a lifelong dream without the same financial or career pressures typically felt earlier.

Take, for example, Judy and Steve Soldinger, a former nurse and TV broadcaster in their 60s, who bought CrispyCakes, a business that makes yummy marshmallow treats. Their friends and kids thought they were crazy to start such a venture at their age. The two had a dream, though, of running their own business. Now, even though they typically work 12-hour days, they absolutely love it. Their success has recently led to a contract to sell their treats to Disney World among others.
Where do you fit in the entrepreneurial life-stage and what is your entrepreneurial dream? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

References
1 The Reluctant Entrepreneur by Michael Masterson, 2012, John Wiley and Sons
2 Why middle-aged entrepreneurs will be critical to the next trillion-dollar business Downloaded Nov. 9, 2014.

About the Authors:

Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, President and Founder of Watermark Learning, is a successful entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in business analysis, project management, training, and consulting. He has presented workshops and seminars on business analysis and project management topics to over 10,000 participants on five different continents.
Rich is a frequent speaker at Business Analysis and Project Management national conferences and IIBA® and PMI® chapters around the world. He has contributed to the BA Body of Knowledge version 2.0 and 3.0, the PMI BA Practice Guide, and the PM Body of Knowledge, 4th edition. He and his wife Elizabeth Larson have co-authored three books, The Influencing Formula, CBAP Certification Study Guide, and Practitioners’ Guide to Requirements Management.

The Entrepreneurial BA Practitioner Part 2: Entrepreneurial Traits of Business Analysis Practitioners

Written by Richard Larson on February 23, 2015. Posted in Articles.

In our previous article, What do Business Analysis and Entrepreneurship Have in Common?, we outlined some high-level similarities between business analysis and entrepreneurship. Now let’s explore some detailed parallels between the two.

Assuming that business analysis has much in common with entrepreneurship, what specific traits do entrepreneurs have that are similar to people who do business analysis? While assembling a list we found the common skills and traits were growing and growing. Since there are so many traits in common between business analysis and entrepreneurship a table was the best way to properly summarize them. See Table 1.

What has always fascinated us about business analysis is the ability to change organizations for the better by contributing to new and effective solutions. You might say we love change. Doing BA work fuels both our need to be part of positive change and the same skills are also useful for an entrepreneur. Given that we co-own a training company, it is a good thing!

Entrepreneur Skill/Trait	Business Analysis Skill/Trait
*Ability to analyze and conceptualize*
Innovation	Analyzing, proposing, and detailing new solutions to meet business needs
Operate under uncertainty	Creating order out of chaos (as we’ve said often)
Benchmarking and Reverse Engineering	Same techniques
Problem-solving “One thing I find myself doing a lot is problem solving. And I think entrepreneurs show their mettle with creative solutions to problems.” Warren Brown, owner of Cake Love and host of TV’s “Sugar Rush”, from Creating a Business You’ll Love	Defining business problems, , analyzing the root causes of those problems, and recommending solutions to solve those problems
Observation and experience. “The most salient advice I’ve ever given an entrepreneur totals five words: ‘Get out of the building,’ to go where the customers are.” Steve Blank, serial entrepreneur, from Creating a Business You’ll Love	Taking the time to observe subject matter experts and end-users in their work areas, following their processes and using the software. This requires the ability to ask questions, but remain neutral, as well as the desire to genuinely build trust.
Prototyping of New Products	Creating both low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes
*Business Skills*
Planning	Same
Research and Learning	Same
Marketing	Conducting market research, understanding product features (requirements) and benefits, and communicating those to stakeholders
Product testing “…the hard work of discovering what customers really wanted and adjusting our product and strategy to meet those desires.” Eric Ries, The Lean Startup	Ensuring that all requirements and product features are tested.
*Interpersonal Skills*
Negotiation	Ability to facilitate, negotiate, and work to achieve consensus.
Team building (larger enterprises/start-ups)	Skills needed by senior BAs, PMs, or IT managers
Communication skills (especially listening) “…another critical entrepreneurial trait is required for success: enthusiastic, persistent listening skills.” Steve Blank, serial entrepreneur, from Creating a Business You’ll Love	Asking great questions and listening carefully to answers, both the content and affect of them
Influencing skills	Especially needed to be treated as a trusted advisor
Intuition – “Do your homework, but trust your gut” “Somehow I just knew – it was a gut feeling – that today’s modern woman was not being well served when it came to her pregnancy.” Liz Lange from Creating a Business You’ll Love (She went on to say she read all the industry magazines she could in order to find out who or what could help her.)	Based on experience, learning to trust your “gut feelings” and supporting them through research
Audacity “I believe audacity is the most important trait for an entrepreneur.” Rob McGovern, founder of Career Builder from Creating a Business You’ll Love	Having the courage, whether it be for influencing stakeholders or to be entrepreneurs.

Table 1. Portions adapted from The Reluctant Entrepreneur by Michael Masterson

But whether you are a current BA and happy in what you do, an internal entrepreneur within an organization, or are thinking of striking out on your own, the skills and qualities in the right-hand column will serve you well.

Example. Both of us worked at a bank early in our careers and functioned as internal management consultants. Much of our work was similar to a business analyst, but the latter term had not been invented yet. We were change agents for the bank, reviewing department processes, procedures, and organization structures. We recommended improvements, both manual and automated. We learned the power of process modeling and how it contributed to process improvement.

We were both happy as employees, and yet looking back we were expected to be true intrapreneurs in the sense that we helped the bank move to new possibilities. We “disrupted” the status quo (to use the popular term in lean startup circles), and that disruption sometimes came at some organization risk and (to us at least) personal risk. Management thought the organization risk was worth it because it helped the bank achieve better customer service, efficiency, and control. We took on the personal risk because we earnestly believed our recommendations were helping the organization.

Conclusion. If you are a business analysis practitioner, you are in good shape to effect positive and innovative change in your organization. You are also a potential intrapreneur or entrepreneur. Look for more articles on types of entrepreneurs and the three important things entrepreneurs need to be successful.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

References
The Reluctant Entrepreneur by Michael Masterson, 2012, John Wiley and Sons
Creating a Business You’ll Love – Top Entrepreneurs Share their Secrets, 2011, edited by Ronnie Sellers, Sellers Publishing, Inc.
The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries, 2011, Random House Inc.

About the Authors

Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, President and Founder of Watermark Learning, is a successful entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in business analysis, project management, training, and consulting. He has presented workshops and seminars on business analysis and project management topics to over 10,000 participants on five different continents.

Rich loves to combine industry best practices with a practical approach and has contributed to those practices through numerous speaking sessions around the world. He has also worked on the BA Body of Knowledge versions 1.6-3.0, the PMI BA Practice Guide, and the PM Body of Knowledge, 4th edition. He and his wife Elizabeth Larson have co-authored five books on business analysis and certification preparation.

Elizabeth has co-authored five books on business analysis and certification preparation. She has also co-authored chapters published in four separate books. Elizabeth was a lead author on several standards including the PMBOK® Guide, BABOK® Guide, and PMI’s Business Analysis for Practitioners – A Practice Guide.

The Entrepreneurial Business Analysis Practitioner

Written by Richard Larson on January 19, 2015. Posted in Articles.

Part 1: What do Business Analysis and Entrepreneurship Have in Common?

Welcome to the first installment of the Entrepreneurial BA series. Given we are both entrepreneurs and BAs it seems logical for to write about this topic. But, why bother? What possibly could be relevant about entrepreneurialism for a business analyst? Well, for starters, it’s a great career option and more and more viable with each passing year. Even if you are not interested in forming a start-up, the principles of entrepreneurship are becoming increasingly important for organizations to innovate and stay competitive.

In this ongoing series, we’ll explore several aspects of entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs and what it means for business analysis. My firm belief is that by adopting a more entrepreneurial way of working, BAs will be more effective and organizations will benefit. Let’s get started!

Career choices. If you are a BA, you may be wondering about your career options. To be honest, we all do that, but we tend to hear about career concerns from business analysts more than anyone. Should we aspire to be project managers when we grow up? That used to be the most common next step, and more BAs are saying “no way” to that. What about becoming business architects? That would be a logical move for “logical” people since architects tend to be abstract thinkers and focused on the “big picture.”

In March, 2014, Cathy Brunsting wrote an insightful article called “Beyond the Business Analyst Role: What’s Next?” Besides the above options she mentioned Product Owner, Product Manager, and other managerial roles. To me, the product-oriented roles are the most conducive for a BA to use his or her skills to help their organization grow. Both roles take advantage of business knowledge and/or BA-type skills to define, refine, and steer development of new products.

Wait a second. Designing and developing new products is what entrepreneurs do, isn’t it? There is more to being an entrepreneur, which I’ll cover in another article. But, a critical part of starting a business or line of business is creating a new product or service or one that is better than the market currently has. That is often what business analysts do, and to some extent, project managers too.

Entrepreneur. First, let me define entrepreneur; there are many definitions floating around. Translating from the French, entrepreneurs “undertakes a venture” which involves some risk. A longer and more precise definition from Investopedia (a favorite web site of mine) is the following:

“An individual who, rather than working as an employee, runs a small business and assumes all the risk and reward of a given business venture, idea, or good or service offered for sale. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as a business leader and innovator of new ideas and business processes.”1

Entrepreneurs have been around for quite a while, with the first usage of the term in the early 1700s. Classic examples of tech entrepreneurs are Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerburg. Coco Chanel was a fashion and perfume innovator and entrepreneur in the 20th century. Levi Strauss created the Levi’s jeans company in the 1800s. James Watt was an 18th century entrepreneur. He didn’t invent the steam engine but he innovated several improvements on it.

Intrapreneur. If you do entrepreneurial work inside an organization, the common term for you is “intrapreneur.” We don’t like the term because if one doesn’t assume risks then how can they be called a “preneur,” or someone who accepts risks? On the other hand, I very much like the concept of people in organizations starting up ventures to launch new products and services. Here is the Investopedia definition of intrapreneur:

Now that we have some definitions in place, let’s move on to comparing business analysis and entrepreneurship.

Product vs. Project vs. Process. Years ago our company put together something we called the “productivity triangle.” Any organization is productive when they create or provide products or services that customers want and need. Creating them is done through projects, and project management is at the core of that, naturally. Re-creating the new product on an ongoing basis is done through processes, which need to be improved or optimized periodically. Process management is central to that and projects may need launching to do the improvement.

Underlying both of these disciplines is product management. The closest parallels to business analysis are the initial requirements and design. Another huge part of product management is developing business cases, which BAs often do at companies. Over time, additional requirements surface and new features are added and can be anywhere from small pieces to large releases. Product management both drives and supports projects and processes, completing the productivity triangle. See Figure 1.

Figure 1

Business Analysis and Entrepreneurship. So, what does all this have to do with BAs being entrepreneurs you may ask? If we view business analysis work as largely product management, BAs can port those skills to creating new products for a startup. Similarly, new product development within an organization can be done in an entrepreneurial way, and business analysis skills are critical. Speaking from experience, formal project management is helpful but not as crucial for a startup. (Scrum methods are more helpful, but that is a separate topic.) Managing processes is the least important for a startup, since it won’t have processes to manage until it starts to “re-create” the products it has built. The other two legs of the triangle are essential for growing a company. Product management skills – which BAs have developed – are essential for starting a company or product.

What do you think? Are there parallels between business analysis and entrepreneurship? Leave your comments below.

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References:
1. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/entrepreneur.asp
2. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/intrapreneur.asp