Author: Business Analysis (BAPL)

BAPL is a consultancy practice that specialises in delivering exceptional business analysis outcomes. We save organisations money and improve the product/services they deliver to their customers, through exceptional business analysis. Everything we do and strive for is to challenge traditional ways of thinking. We think differently We challenge traditional thinking by offering exceptional business analysis through our Practice IP, leveraging our experience and collaborating to help our customers achieve their business outcomes. We just happen to deliver exceptional business analysis often using existing or new technology. Our consultants use proven methods to improve business performance. Clear, lean and correct analysis provides the foundation for business leaders to drive innovation, business agility, cost reduction, cyber security and risk control. Want to try some?

Business Analysis as A Service

Written by Business Analysis (BAPL) on October 6, 2021. Posted in Articles.

One billion dollars wasted, 100 million over budget, a 40-million-dollar initiative costing $250 million dollars! Recent announcements in the press regarding significant initiatives, projects & product overspend and minimal value, are testament to this. Successful initiatives are key to organisational success, and an effective requirements process is the key to successful initiatives. This is costing organisations millions of dollars in wasted expenditure, and many more millions in lost opportunity. If your Customer Journeys, Epics & User Stories are not correct and aligned, then your initiative is certain to fail.

A service is a means of delivering value to customers, by facilitating the outcomes customers need. Effective services start with the understanding of that need, and work towards providing the best possible outcome(s) within the customer environment. Business Analysis is a service like all others and considering it as such is important for that services success.

However, business analysis is a broad service offering that can cover anything to do with innovation, people, process, and technology. In addition, the customers of Business Analysis also vary including Product Managers & Owners, Developers, Testers, Solution Architects, all the way through to CIOs, CEO, and Company Directors.

What is Business Analysis as a Service?

Why not have your business analysis serviced like you do your car?

When your car needs a service, you book it in, arrive, hand over the keys, return later that day, pay and drive home. You trusted the dealership to do what you paid them to do, service the car.

You never asked for a specific mechanic, you never asked for a subject matter expert, all you wanted was for the service to be completed, the logbook to be signed and to have a checklist of the agreed work that was performed. No hassle, all done.

The way you and your internal customers (Product Owners, Project Managers, Development Leads etc) receive business analysis should be no different. You should have the confidence and expectation that you will receive the right outcomes to drive the initiative in the right direction.

When your business needs analysis, you book it in with us, you return later, pay, and receive the agreed outcomes. You can trust BAPL to do what you paid us to do.

You never need to ask for a specific consultant, we engage with your SME’s, you never need to ask for special requests as we scope and identify the requirements to the appropriate levels, highlight any risks or assumptions and deliver the agreed outcomes, bringing value for money, in shorter timeframes resulting in improved initiatives. No hassle, all done. It’s called Business Analysis as a Service, and our service is second to none.

In a Business Analysis as a Service model, we work in collaboration with you and your internal customers to establish the required services needed to deliver the analysis for the organisation’s improvements to their products and services. We would understand the need, define an appropriate approach, set timelines etc.

This provides an opportunity to identify the competencies and capabilities required to fulfill this need. The assigned BAs would work develop an approach and delivery plan, provide consistent reporting to ensure the agreed upon outcomes are being delivered, and to manage any issues that may be putting these outcomes at risk.

This model puts the accountability of business analysis outcomes back to the BA Team and BA Manager, rather than on the shoulders of the individual or the team they are working in. In doing so, it provides the BA Team Manager the ability to forward plan resourcing, forward plan capability uplifts, and assign the right person to the deliver the right service. This results in the right service, delivered in the right time, with the right analysis, resulting in better outcomes for your organisation.

This model works in both small and large team environments, agile and waterfall.

What is Business Agility

Written by Business Analysis (BAPL) on September 15, 2021. Posted in Articles.

Success today requires the agility and drive to constantly rethink, reinvigorate, react, and reinvent. – Bill Gates

Business agility is not about rolling out New Ways of Working (NWOW) or Agile methods via a ceremony, but it is about business analysis capability to continually assess the market needs & being able to reshape & remodel an organisation to meet these needs.

A generation ago, a “Kodak moment” meant something that was worth saving and savouring. Today, the term increasingly serves as a corporate bogeyman that warns executives of the need to stand up and respond when disruptive developments encroach on their market. – Scott D. Anthony

As we are entering the 5^th Industrial revolution, the age of software, we can see that business agility and software engineering excellence are paramount for organisational success.

Today six of the top organisations in the world are technology companies and four were founded by software engineers. It is not surprising to predict that those organisations that master software engineering in the next decade will survive & thrive, while those that don’t will flounder or dwindle.

Even traditional manufacturing companies such as car manufactures are being disrupted. The electric car now utilise over 1 million lines of code & it is predicted that the autonomous car will require over 1 billion lines of code. Car manufactures will employ more software engineers, business analysts, testers than production line workers in five years time.

How do you improve software initiatives? Are you taking control of your software engineering or are you only using cookie cutter New Ways of Working (NWOW) for Agile transformations?

Connecting software initiatives to business outcomes through value streams is the key. Success can only be driven by the market that drives the reshaping of the business. If you have no connection between your delivery squads and business success, you will inevitably fail.

We trace from market analysis, value streams and delivery backlogs to make sure that business agility is realised fully. Feature driving, compliance driving, user ability, or low defect driven are measured to enable real business agility for a competitive advantage.

Exceptional business analysis is the key to successful business transformation for the future uncertainty. The best way to predict and lead the future is to create it.

“Increased ROI: Business analysis keeps the focus on the value delivery to the customer. Enabling organizations to better define products with business analysis to deliver the right outcome that meets customers needs and eliminate requirements with minimal value.
Increased success rate: 71% of failed software projects can be traced to poor requirements – CIO Magazine, 2006. Mitigate the risk of failed initiatives with business analysis throughout all planning levels and prioritize implementation of requirements with the most potential benefit to the customer.
Reduced costs: Better defining the product and focus on the right requirements eliminates unnecessary changes or rework with logical and orderly decision-making, tailoring and aligning solutions to the business or customer needs.
Gain competitive advantage: Accelerate product delivery and be the first to market to gain market share by creating a clear roadmap from the current to future states and building a consensus among stakeholders”. IIBA

Here’s the thing about exceptional business analysis

Business Analysts help your company to think about the “why” before going ahead with a strategy, which will helps prevent technology initiatives from providing little or no value to your organisation.

Here’s an example of exceptional business analysis. A client sought a solution to manage their approval process and documents. These were associated with their major energy capital projects, having a value of up to $100 million.

We analysed the business process automation, mapped the future state processes, and explored the business and functional requirements through a series of stakeholder workshops. This was achieved by using aspects of our methodology and customising templates from our Business Analysis Centre of Excellence (BACOE)

Based on these documented processes and requirements, we developed an automated workflow solution.

The outcomes of the process automation solution were:

Increased consistency of the approval process
An automated audit trail for the approvals
An increase in document tracking, resulting in a greater efficiency with approvals
Reduced time spent on approvals by eliminating manual approvals
Reduced resource wastage on printing

In the final analysis, we found that by minimising the delays for approvals, this reduced the external contract resources required for approval processes. Within six months, the cost of developing the solution was paid for by the benefits of the automated workflow.

An exceptional Business Analyst requires a unique skillset that many senior executives have never experienced. However, you need to engage in proper business analysis to provide a greater chance of transformation success.

As increasingly competitive organisations look to become more innovative to survive and prosper with technology, business analysis is critical.

If you want to deliver better products & services to customers, and not to become a “Kodak moment” then let us help you to improve your software initiatives!

Why Business Analysis as a Service is a CIO’s Best Friend

Written by Business Analysis (BAPL) on August 12, 2021. Posted in Articles.

A CIO needs a trusted partner to facilitate joint ownership between business and IT to deliver business value, reduce risk, and remove project blockages, and deliver on the organization’s strategy.

Business analysis is about improving business performance. It is the foundation for innovation, business agility, cost reduction, cybersecurity, and risk control. The exceptional business analysis allows you to deliver better initiatives, projects, and ultimately products and/or services to your customers, often through leveraging digital technology.

To deliver a successful strategy using technology, exceptional business analysis is a must. By establishing Business Analysis as a Service (BAaaS) within your organization, your projects or initiatives will be created for you to the highest of standards, and you’ll also have a far lower risk of failure, overspend, or unsatisfactory products or services.

You’ll achieve peace of mind knowing your business will have:

greater engagement with IT
excellent results in alignment with your IT strategy
a better chance of making new changes stick
decisive project decision making at a portfolio level
improvement of projects or initiatives and lower chance of failure
effective change in support of improved technology
improved results
and a significantly higher return on investment.

Exceptional business analysis engages and empowers stakeholders, allowing them to find better ways to deliver value to customers.

BAaaS often costs the same as interacting with disparate individual BAs. But the return on investment both for your initiatives, as well as the ability to leverage this to drive more capability in business analysis within your organization, is where the value lies. So why would you settle for less?

Here’s the thing about Business Analysis as a Service

BAaaS is all about helping your company to think about the “why” before going ahead with a strategy, which will prevent technology initiatives from providing little or no value to your organization.

Here’s an example of BAaaS at work. A client sought a solution to manage their approval process and documents. These were associated with their major energy capital projects, having a value of up to $100 million.

Within our BA Practice, we analyzed the business process automation, mapped the future state processes, and explored the business and functional requirements through a series of stakeholder workshops using aspects of our method and Business Analysis Centre of Excellence IP (Frameworks, templates, techniques, etc).

Based on these documented processes and requirements, we developed an automated workflow solution.

The outcomes of the process automation solution were:

increased consistency of the approval process
an automated audit trail for the approvals
an increase in document tracking, resulting in greater efficiency with approvals
a reliable mechanism for staff to determine the status of payment requests and payments
reduced time spent on approvals by eliminating manual approvals
reduced resource wastage on printing
reduced physical file storage.

In the final analysis, we found that minimized delays for approvals reduced the external contract resources required for approval processes. Within six months, the cost of developing the solution was paid for by the benefits of the automated workflow.

An expert business analysis requires a unique skill set that many senior executives have never experienced. However, you need to engage in Business Analysis as a Service to provide a greater chance of project success, across your entire portfolio.

To be successful with technology, businesses must have exceptional business analysis and you achieve this consistently, through business analysis as a service.

We can help your business to stand out from the crowd. We provide expertise and world-leading business analysis, through our Business Analysis as a Service. Take your business to a new level.

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