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Five Ways BAs and Inventory Managers Can Make Jobsites More Profitable, Together

Business analysis is a critical skillset and operational imperative companies need to prioritize as they look to be profitable and understand how they can make measurable improvements as they scale. This fact is not lost on corporations, either—for example, 72% of manufacturing executives said that they considered advanced analytics to be important, according to a report by BCG.

The construction sector, meanwhile, consistently finds itself in a precarious state in terms of profitability no thanks to employment challenges, influx materials pricing, and the disjointed nature of the construction ecosystem. For example, experts estimate job growth in the construction industry is projected to be at a stagnant 1.1% for ten years (Data USA via Finances Online). Underperformance, Autodesk concludes, is an industry-wide norm with 72% of firms saying projects have taken longer than anticipated—and 44% of firms putting longer completion times into their bids, according to data from Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). In fact, merely 25% of projects came within 10% of their original deadlines, a KPMG report found.

 

The World Economic Forum (via Autodesk) estimated that a 1% reduction in construction costs could save society $100 billion globally. As the construction sector ecosystem looks to execute projects in a quickly changing environment, these existential challenges warrant organizational changes to better negotiate the trials and tribulations at hand.

We also have to consider the average construction company’s costs to better contextualize these challenges and opportunities. If we assume that the average cost of a construction project is comprised of overhead, materials, tools and equipment, and labor, then focusing on what you can control will help move the needle toward greater profitability. For example, while you might not be able to affect the cost of materials, you can negotiate work to accommodate the resourcing you currently have, and you can make plans for improving internal processes to drive greater efficiency.

 

I’ve previously written about how project managers in the construction industry should embrace change management, as well as how the industry might adopt big tech’s displaced software engineers to address industry digitization problems, and how the construction industry looking to adopt lean management principles may borrow some of the similar practices from agile software project management.

Studies show that business analysts are more prone to support collaboration in agile projects.

With this in mind, in this article, I look to unpack two roles—the Business Analyst and the Inventory Manager—and discuss how a collaboration matrix between these roles can help construction companies work leaner, more efficiently, and drive greater profitability over time.

 

The Role of the Business Analyst & Why BAs May Be a Critical Construction Industry Hire

Considering construction’s profitability concerns, the role of a business analyst (BA) from the corporate environment is one that construction companies may look to fast-track.

Responsible for “bridging the gap between IT and the business using data analytics to assess processes, determine requirements, and deliver data-driven recommendations and reports to executives and stakeholders,” a BA in a construction company setting can “offer valuable insights to enhance financial planning and resource allocation,” reads the job description for a Senior Construction Business Intelligence Data Analyst role at CBRE Group, a global commercial real estate company, which was available at the time of writing this article.

Consider CBRE’s job posting for some of the job-specific functions a Business Analyst in the construction industry may entail:

  • Applying advanced analytical techniques to conduct prescriptive, diagnostic, descriptive, and predictive data analysis on diverse construction-related data, incorporating data from Quickbase, eBuilder, SAP, and Google Sheets.
  • Developing dashboards, meticulously maintained [… that] provide real-time insights into construction project data while ensuring these dashboards are user-friendly, intuitive, and deliver vital information to project collaborators (e.g., stakeholders).
  • Generating regular and ad-hoc reports for the leadership team, highlighting essential performance indicators, project status, and emerging trends, while translating sophisticated data into practical, actionable insights, incorporating earned value measurement concepts to evaluate project performance.
  • Providing meaningful support for annual capital planning by conducting comprehensive analysis of historical data, project costs, and resource allocation, offering valuable insights to enhance financial planning and resource allocation.
  • Developing and maintaining strategic forecasts for construction projects, demonstrating data analytics to identify trends and make informed predictions about future outcomes, incorporating earned value measurement techniques to assess project performance and forecast project completion accurately.
  • Providing data-driven insights that support critical business decisions, helping to improve operational efficiency and profitability.

 

Construction forecasting is one critical business process a business analyst may help owners more accurately predict through advanced analytics, historical trends, and advanced technology management (e.g., artificial intelligence).

When they collaborate with other critical business functions (e.g., inventory management, discussed next), greater outcomes may become more easily within reach.

 

The Role of the Inventory Manager in Construction Projects

An inventory manager in the construction industry (aka: tool crib manager, tool room manager, asset manager, equipment manager, etc.) is responsible for the strategic direction, allocation, storage, and flow of all the physical assets needed to perform construction work—e.g., building materials, tools, vehicles, and equipment.

An inventory manager assures jobsite materials, tools, and equipment arrive on jobsites as they’re needed, are in working order (e.g., tools are properly serviced, materials are not damaged, etc.), and are returned or rerouted across projects as needed to prevent slippage and excess asset turnover.

With an inventory manager at the helm of the construction supply chain, companies might realistically see a 10-12% reduction in labor cost originating from avoiding non-productive idle time or downtime—that is to say, when materials are where they’re needed, manpower doesn’t need to search for them or idly wait for their arrival.

 

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How BAs and IMs Can Work Collaboratively to Drive Better Profitability Outcomes

Now that we’ve discussed what a Business Analyst role may look like in the construction sector, as well as the role of an inventory manager in the same sector, how might these cross-functional teammates work together to drive better profitability outcomes?

Here are five ways:

 

1. Procurement Strategies

A business analyst, tied into company forecasting, can work closely with inventory managers to establish objectives for procurement strategies and capital investment as well as determine needs based on ongoing inflight projects and company annual goals.

Together, they might reasonably achieve strategic themes when approaching inventory-related financial commitments and implement cost-saving measures, including:

  • Appropriate Safety Stock Purchasing – Together, a business analyst and inventory manager can cross-pollinate company-specific analytics related to equipment purchasing, historical trends of project needs, and existing commitments in order to reasonably define policies for shelving inventory and planning for needs (i.e., how much to buy, when). Such a collaboration can help prevent excessive inventory procurement that would otherwise lead to unnecessarily rising overhead, while it can also help facilitate proper procurement to prevent inventory stockouts. What’s more, using advanced analytics via artificial intelligence can help predict future needs.
  • Proactive Inventory Audits to prevent needless spending over project lifecycles as well as to provide better long-term inventory management outcomes.
  • Deploying cost-centric, advanced inventory management strategies like just-in-time inventory. This method prioritizes strategic, lean operations in order to deploy only what’s needed when it’s needed, preventing excessive inventory procurement (and like above, preventing unnecessarily rising overhead). The method also requires inventory managers to proactively intervene to prevent jobsite hording, hence why inventory tracking (e.g., Bluetooth tags, GPS trackers, etc.) is critical.
  • Performing XYZ analysis to calculate: fixed demand (X), fluctuating demand (Y), uncertain demand (Z). Determining these inputs can help inventory managers more effectively achieve more positive outcomes by ranking the frequency and predictability of demand for items over time.

 

2. Job Costing

In addition to financial forecasts and reporting, business analysts can work with inventory managers to adopt a job costing solution. Job costing in construction refers to the proactive process and steps taken to track the associated costs and revenue of a given project throughout its lifecycle.

The process can be used in inventory management, where inventory managers can apply rental rates (daily, weekly) to equipment that is deployed to the field (either individual or bulk inventory that’s been kitted/bundled and sent at once). Job costing software then calculates the cost accrued for each day (or week) those items are in the field.

 

This process can help:

  • Inventory managers better account and monetize on the equipment they send to their network of jobsites.
  • Financially incentivize borrowers to return equipment in a timely manner, reducing the “time on site” of a particular piece of inventory as well as the need for additional safety stock, unnecessary rerouting of equipment from other jobsites, etc.
  • Provide additional revenue streams to construction businesses.

 

3. Reporting

In addition to the business analytics dashboards that a construction business analyst might build for a business owner as discussed in the above-mentioned job description, inventory managers can work hand-in-hand with business analysts to provide additional reporting opportunities, including:

  • Tool Management Reports – reports about ongoing usage of inventory (e.g., average “days on site,” as we discussed above, to help make improvements on how inventory is used in the future; service-related alerts, to help proactively take charge of equipment maintenance, improve longevity, and decrease overhead; inventory assigned by jobsite or person, to increase accountability; etc.)
  • Asset-specific reports, such as utilization on some smart power tools, which can help diagnose problems before a jobsite-halting breakdown occurs as well as provide quality assurance to customers and inspectors that installations were performed to specification.

 

4. Interoperability

Construction interoperability is the practice whereby construction systems (e.g., software platforms, apps, processes) interact with each other and the extent to which they possess the ability to operate seamlessly and share information between each other.

A KPMG report revealed that only 16% of executives surveyed say their organizations have fully integrated systems and tools—a serious problem when we consider how fragmented the construction ecosystem is. Consider, too, that only 36% of firms have implemented a process for identifying bad data and repairing it (Autodesk/FMI report).

 

Together, inventory managers and business analysts can start to build system interoperability that can both provide a single source of truth and prevent cost driving incidents like rework (e.g., from the same Autodesk/FMI report, 14% of all construction rework may have been caused by bad data, creating $88.69 billion in avoidable rework globally).

Possible interoperable systems include:

  • Connecting data flow between a project management system (e.g., Procore, Autodesk Construction Cloud, Contractor Foreman, Houzz Pro) and architecture, design, and civil engineering (e.g., Revit, AutoCAD, SketchUp, Bluebeam, Autodesk BIM 360, Civil 3D, ArcGIS, Bentley STAAD, etc.)
  • Connecting data flow between inventory management systems and mission-critical systems (e.g., project management, design, etc.)
  • Building digital twins (e.g., asset twins, component twins, system twins, process twins) to provide holistic views of cross-network activities, predictive analytics, and real-time data and simulations to aid in decision-making.

 

5. Planning for Addressing Technical Debt

Technical debt is a phenomenon whereby dependencies one introduces when deploying new software and hardware solutions lead to operational slowdown.

A colleague and I have outlined five ways construction companies can prevent technical debt. A business analyst and/or construction technologist may work hand in hand with an inventory manager to prevent technical debt relative to construction operations from piling up – e.g.,

  • They may work with IT to deploy cloud-based systems (i.e., real-time collaboration).
  • They’ll deploy inventory tracking hardware to ensure real-time inventory activity is recorded.
  • They’ll ensure mobile apps integrate with construction ERPs.
  • They may work with the cybersecurity team to ensure proper MDM deployment and data security best practices relative to inventory.

 

Bottom Line

The construction industry faces some dire operational challenges.

While construction companies might not be able to affect the cost of materials, they can focus on factors they can control—e.g., improving internal processes, empowering the team to work more seamlessly together.

When working collaboratively, business analysts and inventory managers can help companies operate more agilely, more strategically focused, and they can help achieve greater profitability over time.

How Product Discovery Deals with Requirements

If you are working in products, you certainly have realized product management handle requirements differently. There is a shift from eliciting stakeholders’ wishes to discovering better and faster ways to solve stakeholders’ problems. This article presents how discovery techniques popular within product management fit in the three types of requirements: business, stakeholder and solution. Understanding where the techniques fit in this spectrum will allow a better understanding of how and when to use them.

Keywords: Requirements; Elicitation; Product discovery

 

What is Product Discovery and this “Modern” Elicitation

There may have been times in the past where business analysis was (incorrectly) seen as a passive discipline.  Some might have viewed that a business analyst’s job when “gathering” requirements, most of the time, was attending meetings where they interviewed a group of people. Typically, these people had significant roles in the product (although most of the time they wouldn’t be the future users of the solution) and the business analyst would simply be a clerk and register all their dictated “wish list” items.

This approach is based on the premise that your sources know what they need and dictate the solution, yet how often is this actually realistic?  More often there will be experimentation, change and the need for flexibility. The emergence of agile development methods and frameworks like Dual Track Agile, influenced organisations to split their efforts into product discovery and delivery.

 

The main shift on the premise of product delivery, compared to bespoke or market-driven requirements engineering, is that teams have to discover what the user’s problems are based on a set of assumptions and validate if a delivered solution contributes to the desired outcome. For business analysts, this means being involved in both the discovery and delivery processes, and it requires a shift in how requirements are elicited and managed. BAs need to challenge stakeholders’ perceptions on any assumed solutions and get to the underlying need using modern requirements techniques. They have to discover the requirements rather than gather them.

 

The Requirements Engineering Cycle

The cycle that typically involves elicitation, documentation, validation, and management of requirements is often associated with the broader field of Requirements Engineering or Requirements Management within the context of software development or project management. This cycle is iterative and continuous throughout the project lifecycle. Here’s how it works:

  1. Elicitation: Requirements are gathered from stakeholders, users, and other relevant sources. This step involves understanding their needs and expectations for the software or project.
  2. Documentation: The collected requirements are documented in a clear and comprehensive manner. This documentation can take various forms, such as a Software Requirements Specification (SRS), user stories, use cases, or other requirement documents.
  3. Validation: The documented requirements are then validated to ensure that they accurately represent the stakeholders’ needs and are feasible to implement. This involves checking for consistency, completeness, and correctness of the requirements.
  4. Management: Throughout the project, requirements are actively managed. This includes change management to handle updates or modifications to requirements, traceability to link requirements to design and testing, and prioritization to determine which requirements are most important.

The requirements process doesn’t end after the initial elicitation, documentation, and validation. It’s a continuous and iterative cycle because requirements may change over time due to evolving project goals, stakeholder feedback, or other factors. Therefore, effective management of requirements is essential to ensure that the project remains aligned with its objectives and stakeholder expectations. It often involves feedback loops, revisions, and ongoing communication with stakeholders to refine and adjust requirements as needed throughout the project’s lifecycle.

 

1.    Discovery Techniques for Elicitation

“How might We…” Technique

The “How Might We” technique is a crucial aspect of the design thinking process and is often used in design sprints to frame problem statements and generate creative solutions. The “How Might We” technique involves rephrasing challenges or problem areas into open-ended questions that invite elicitation through brainstorming and creativity. The challenge is to rephrase it as an open-ended question that begins with “How might we…?” The “How Might We” statements invites participants to generate creative ideas without feeling restricted by existing limitations. It shifts the focus from problems to possibilities, and it helps teams explore solutions from different angles, often leading to innovative and unexpected outcomes.

 

Jobs-To-Be-Done

“Jobs-To-Be-Done” (JTBD) encourages us to appreciate why a product or service was “hired”, not only in a functional dimension, but also in circumstances and emotional dimensions.  The book “Jobs to be Done – Theory to Practice” by Anthony Ulwick describes a framework that you can use to define your jobs, from setting your different customers, the different kinds of jobs (core, related, emotional, consumption chain and purchase decision jobs), and setting the desired outcomes.

The behaviours of the customers that afterwards lead to definition of the “hired” job are identified by observation. Observation is a common elicitation technique. In this case, rather than observing (or shadowing) in order to replicate a given process, an observation within JTBD aims to relate a behaviour to customer’s outcomes.

 

Continuous Interviews

Teresa Torres described a set of “continuous discovery habits” to engage customers in a continuous cadence. The main shift in doing interviews is that questions don’t focus on what customers want. Rather, questions should focus on their past experiences to discover an opportunity.

As the name states, it uses interviews techniques. Once more, a very popular way to perform elicitation. As mentioned, the main shift is that questions that are asked focus on their past experiences to discover an opportunity.

 

The Mom Test

the Mom Test is another interesting approach for conducting stakeholder interviews. It has similarities with “Continuous Discovery Habits”, as the questions should focus on their past experiences to discover an opportunity. The premise of the Mom test is: your mom will always like your idea, but doing the right questions can make her tell what you really need to hear. Elicitation by performing these kinds of interviews allows us to depict the problem in question, rather than waiting for the interviewees to tell us the solution they want.

 

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2.    Discovery Techniques for Analysis

Value Proposition Canvas

The Value Proposition Canvas is a strategic tool used in business and product development to understand and communicate how a product or service creates value for customers. It’s typically used in conjunction with the Business Model Canvas to create a holistic view of a business. The canvas helps businesses design their offerings by gaining a deep understanding of customer needs and how their products or services fulfil those needs.

It demonstrates a clear understanding of customer pains, gains, and jobs to be done, and introduces alignment of the pain relievers, gain creators, and product(s) benefits.

 

User Journeys

User journeys, also known as customer journeys or user experience (UX) journeys, are a product discovery technique that originated from the field of User Experience Design (UXD) and User-Centered Design (UCD). User journeys provide a visual representation of the user’s interactions and experiences while using a product or service. They aim to capture the user’s perspective, emotions, actions, and touchpoints across different stages of their interaction with the product.

 

 Opportunity Solution Trees

Opportunity solution trees are a visualisation of potential solutions to a customer problem. They involve breaking down the problem into smaller opportunities, generating multiple solutions for each opportunity, and then evaluating and selecting the most promising solution.

It is our analysis work in getting insights from conducting the Continuous Interviews, allowing us to identify opportunities for our product.

 

 

3.    Discovery Techniques for Documentation

Epic Alignment

Epic alignment” is from Nils Janse’s book with the same name, proposes a single source of truth about the requirements, in form of a “lightweight” documentation that is based around epics. The structure that is proposed for this documentation includes information that is incrementally added to what we know about a given epic throughout the product development stages (namely, Ideation, Discovery, Prioritization, Refinement, Development and Testing). The structure of these documents allow to follow the information about an epic, which user stories are included, and the details that are needed for their implementation.

 

4.    Discovery Techniques for Validation

User story mapping

The last technique I want to discuss in the article is user story mapping. This is a technique where team members collaboratively discover how a set of user stories solve a customer problem. The method consists of sequencing the user’s activities, and allows further elicitation to take place so that detailed stories and tasks can be captured. This in turn ensures that the solution will  support the user’s activities that were presented.

Classifying this technique in a single stage can be tricky. I rather believe it encompasses elicitation, analysis and validation of requirements.

It’s a technique where team members collaboratively discover how a set of user stories solve a customer problem. End users may be involved in the collaborative process as well, most probably giving inputs in the user journey and the sequence of activities – which makes it an elicitation technique. Sequencing activities may be an output of previously performed elicitation, resulting from analysis of that information. Lastly, acceptance criteria may be included in the details of the story mapping, which forces the team to start stepping up into the requirements validation. In the case of users not have been part of collaborative process, the model may be used to validate together with users that the user journey is indeed correct.

Building a Business Analysis Center of Excellence: A Blueprint for Success

A Business Analysis Center of Excellence (BACoE) is a dynamic and strategic organizational asset that can significantly enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of business analysis processes. Often referred to as a Competency Development Center, a BACoE serves as a hub for collaboration, best practice management, and competency development in a specific functional area. This article explores the key elements of establishing a BACoE and its pivotal role in increasing business success.

Defining a Business Analysis Center of Excellence

A BACoE is more than just a department; it’s an organization that promotes collaboration, manages best practices, and elevates the competency level within a specific domain. Whether established as a virtual entity integrated into the broader organizational structure or a distinct group with a dedicated budget and authority, a BACoE can be staffed with either full-time or part-time members.

Creating a BACoE signifies an organization’s move toward higher organizational maturity, and as maturity increases, the risk of project failures tends to decrease.

 

Responsibilities of the BACoE

One of the primary responsibilities of a BACoE is to ensure consistent quality in business analysis artifacts throughout the organization. Variations in the quality and format of these artifacts can lead to project risks. The BACoE takes the lead in standardizing the expected quality, format, and presentation of artifacts, initially through training and artifact templates. Additionally, it promotes the use of standardized tools among business analysts and provides support for projects to maintain consistent professionalism.

 

Functions of a Business Analysis Center of Excellence

A well-established BACoE should provide support and oversight in several critical areas:

 

  • Tactical Project Assistance: The BACoE offers assistance to projects through project coaches, mentors, and staff. This includes planning business analysis activities at the project’s initiation phase, ensuring appropriate resources and approaches are in place, and providing resources as needed.

 

  • Methodology: The BACoE defines standard approaches for business analysis planning, monitoring, and execution. A methodology aligned with industry best practices, such as the IIBA®’s Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® (BABOK®), serves as a foundation for training and practice within the organization.

 

  • Best Practices: The BACoE curates a collection of company and industry-best practices for business analysis and artifact creation. This includes standards for use cases, data models, process models, and other documentation types.

 

  • Learning and Professional Development: It manages a competency model, training curricula, certifications, assessments, and practices for knowledge sharing. This includes the maintenance of knowledge repositories, discussion forums, and collaborative tools like “wikis.”

 

  • Tool Standards: The BACoE provides guidance on tools essential for preparing high-quality, standardized business analysis artifacts, including requirements management and visual modeling tools. It also maintains a repository of templates and guides for artifact preparation.

 

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Forming a Business Analysis Center of Excellence

The establishment of a BACoE involves a series of steps:

 

  • Assessment of Current State: Evaluate the organization’s current business analysis maturity by assessing the skills of business analysts and gathering feedback from project managers.

 

  • Determination of Desired Future State: Define the level of maturity needed to support projects effectively.

 

  • Analysis of Gaps: Identify gaps between the current and desired states.

 

  • Specification of Desired Level of Maturity: Clearly outline the competency model and practices required to bridge the gaps.

 

  • Development of Competency Model: Create a competency model that aligns with the organization’s needs and industry best practices.

 

  • Dissemination of Improvements: Implement strategies to disseminate competency improvements through training, mentoring, and internal resources.

 

  • Maintenance and Continuous Enhancement: Regularly assess and enhance competencies through retrospectives, surveys, and ongoing training.

Best of BATimes: 10 Steps to Transition from Your Current Job to an Amazing BA Career

Over the years, professionals wanting to pursue a career in business analysis have been seeking my advice.

 

A few of the questions posed to me:

  • “How do I launch my career as a business analyst?”
  • “How do I switch over to BA role? “
  • “Is it possible to move to a business analyst position for someone working as a sales engineer?”
  • “Is it possible to become a business analyst without having BA experience?”
  • “How can I take up a career as a business analyst? I am currently working in freight forwarding and operations.”
  • “I’m working as a software developer since last 3 years and planning to change my career to be a business analyst. Where should I start from?”
  • “Can I become a business analyst after BBA?”

My response to them is that in the field of business analysis, business experience, no matter how inconsequential it may seem, counts. This is because Business Analysis is not restricted to a particular field but in most cases, cuts across diverse fields.

If you are a self-motivated professional with strong analytical skill, have excellent written and verbal communication skills plus the ability to work well with employees at all levels of an organization, a business analyst position is a great fit for you.

Business Analysis is one of the fastest-growing professions with an all-time high growth rate of 14%, while the average growth of any profession is 5%, as per the US Bureau of labor statistics.

Here’s a data insight from SEEK on the job opportunities for BAs and how the job market is trending:

BA Nov4 20 1.jpg

 

Business Analysis is a career which is filled with a good balance and proportion of leadership skills along with technology exposure. It makes one step out of their comfort zone and realize their full potential while performing the role. It’s challenging as well as rewarding at the same time. This is one of the careers that puts one to a High Growth Path Leading to a C Suite Role.

Business Analyst is a role where one can contribute to the organization’s strategy, its offerings, its revenue, and its margin. A ‘Business Analyst’ helps the business to grow and become more efficient, organized, and more successful.

Business analysts, understand the problems and goals of an enterprise, analyze needs and solutions, devise change strategies, drive change, collaborate with stakeholders and also advise organizations on improving efficiency, finances, and various other aspects of business.

BA Nov4 20 2

 

A business analyst works in a multifaceted world. In order to meet all the business needs a business analyst has to act as a mediator, moderator, facilitator, connector, and ambassador. They are the bridge that fills in the gap between each department throughout every step of development. Business analysts must be great verbal and written communicators, tactful diplomats, problem solvers, thinkers, and analyzers – with the ability to engage with stakeholders to understand and respond to their needs in rapidly changing business environments.

In short, a BA is the backbone of the growth and advancement of the organization.

BA Nov4 20 3

 

The image below talks about a few professions from where it is easier to foray into the business analyst profession.

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Having said this, crossing over to the land of business analysis demands you to learn and hone new skills and tools.

So, here are some steps, that will help a professional to carve the path to a successful and rewarding business analysis career

 

1. Learn the basics of business

The very first step to understand is how businesses run and what they do. One also needs to have a good background of the various functions of the organization and how directly/indirectly serve the internal as well as external customers. A good starting point would be to go through the generic process classification framework provided by APQC. You can download the free personal version of the APQC process classification framework from the APQC. It also would be a good idea to read up basic books on business strategy, marketing, finance, HR, and operations.

 

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2. Learn the business analysis process

Like any other activity, Business Analysis also follows a process. The best resource, which is available free, is the Business Analysis Core Standard from IIBA. It is a fairly short document of about 50 pages but is very informative. It will give you a good idea about how business analysis is actually performed.

BA Nov4 20 5.jpg

3. Develop behavioral skills

As a business analyst, one must learn how to interact with a sponsor, Domain SME, End users, and all other business-side stakeholders including suppliers. This requires honing one’s skills in behavioral aspects. Key skills for business analysis are communication, stakeholder interaction, active listening skills, facilitation, conflict resolution, creative thinking, etc.
Behavioral skills are very essential for a BA and the best way to hone these skills is to practice it extensively.

BA Nov4 20 6

 

4. Learn requirements modeling tools and management tools

Business analysts use many tools as part of their work. Some of the popular tools are business process modeling, state modeling, and use case modeling. Download the trial version of Microsoft Visio. This tool is very popular with most organizations. You can also learn other free tools such as Lucid chart, BizAgi Business process modeler.

Here’s an opportunity to access BA books and tools to practice- https://www.adaptiveus.com/adaptive-inner-circle/.

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Image curtsey: MCAL Global

 

5. Learn the domain of the organization/domain of your interest

There are good resources available on the internet almost on all domains and maybe within your own organization. Another good advice we suggest is to look for a handbook on your domain. For example, if you are in the retail domain, look for a book by the name Handbook of retail. Go through the handbook, you will get a fairly good idea about how retail domain functions. When you understand your domain and you understand your organization, your stakeholders’ acceptance for you as a business analyst will increase manifold.

 

6. Participate in professional groups, conferences on business analysis

There are many professional groups, virtual and physical conferences on business analysis. Participate in these events to understand how business analysis is changing, what are the trends in business analysis and how you can bring new business analysis concepts to your organization.
Become an IIBA member, join their events, volunteer for the local events and chapters. This not only opens new doors for you but also expands your professional network and experience.

 

7. Use stepping stones: Explore roles which are gateways to business analysis

Find mid-position careers between your current job and the job of a business analyst. Roles such as business process analyst, reporting analyst, customer support analyst – such roles teach you certain aspects of business and make you ready to be BA. Keep taking small jumps – in a few years, you will find yourself in your dream role.

 

8. Get yourself certified

Along with a degree and experience, getting a Business Analyst certification carries a lot of weight with organizations and also helps the candidate to acquire the requisite knowledge and meet their professional goal. Certification can improve overall performance, remove uncertainty, and widen market opportunities. A certified business analyst has a broader perspective of the BA techniques and approaches. It also shows commitment, as preparing for these certifications and clearing the exam is not an easy task. Organizations also recognize individuals for the hard work and commitment which the candidate has put into it.

For those who are making a foray into the business analysis domain, ECBA certification from IIBA is a good choice. ECBA not only gives a rock-solid foundation for getting into the BA profession but also helps with global certification. The ECBA certification does not call for any eligibility criteria in terms of education and covers aspects related to requirements elicitation, requirements analysis, and management, stakeholder management, techniques used by BAs, etc.

It is strongly recommended that you undergo proper training from a seasoned BA coach. This will help increase your chances of passing in the very first attempt and in the shortest possible time. My organization Adaptive US (adaptiveus.com) is an EEP with IIBA and has helped scores of professionals get ECBA certified and step into a successful BA career.

For more details- ECBA Training

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9. Start from within your organization

Upon completing the training and certification, you can utilize your newfound learning and experience in your industry/domain to start looking for opportunities within your current organization.

The first thing to do will be to look for possibilities for an internal transfer. Discuss your career goals with your manager and seek opportunities to practice BA skills/techniques. Show interest, gather knowledge, and be proactively involved in the requirements gathering and documentation process. Shadowing the business analyst for a particular project in your organization would allow you to practice the concepts that you have learned.

If finding an opportunity with the current organization is not possible, you could update your resume accordingly to highlight your ‘functional knowledge’ in your industry/domain, along with your certification details. Showcase how your past experience qualifies you for business analysis roles and how your profile is enhanced with the ECBA training and certification you have completed.

 

10. Learn to network and leverage it

If you wish to climb higher in your career, you need the right push. Sometimes, this push comes from those you are surrounded with. Surround yourself with like-minded people who are experts or passionate about their BA jobs, learn from their experiences, share your thoughts and ideas, identify opportunities and devise strategies on how you can advance in your career.

Many times, we are limited by our mindset and comfort zone to switch careers, which prevents us from utilizing our full potential. Our minds get overwhelmed with “What-ifs” and we stay stuck in situations, which we want to overcome. However, there have been professionals who have shown the grit to change, took action in the right direction, and worked their way to reach where they wanted to. What is inspiring is that they have been very successful too.

A good business analyst is one of the best assets that an organization can have. Having a good and competent BA in the organization is like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

So, plan ahead, learn & hone the skills needed and forge your way ahead with one of the fastest-growing and exciting professions.

 

Published on: 2020/11/04

Use Case or User Story

An interesting question!  Do we stick with use cases or switch to agile user stories as the best way to model, understand and deliver requirements?

The answer is to apply both techniques and together they work well to complement each other. In this approach, I view the use case as a business use case focused on business actions and processes; the user story is focused on the system requirements elaborating what is required of the system to support the business use case and supporting the agile sprint development process.

 

Use Cases

 

The objective of the use case in this context is to communicate the understanding of the requirement to the SMEs and stakeholders to ensure that the correct solution will be developed. It won’t be fool proof, but it should help steer the development in the right direction; until the first show and tell session, you can never be absolutely sure the requirement has been fully understood.

I would restrict the use case content to be only that essential to explain how the requirement will be delivered; alternate flows etc should be pushed into the use stories as far as possible. It may well be useful to expose some draft business rules for discussion as part of the use case but keep in mind the rules will need to be included and implemented via the user stories.

The Tool

We had already setup a wiki using the Atlassian Confluence tool, the logical step was to extend the existing wiki and introduce a fairly simple template for our use case pages; different tools could be adopted, even PowerPoint would work. Using Confluence allowed existing content to be linked directly into our use case pages as needed; it also includes a presentation mode allowing page content to be used directly in a presentation and exported to PDF or Word format documents.

The use cases can then be used to present back to the SMEs and stakeholders to confirm the understanding of requirements and the validity of the proposed process.

 

Tip – Catalogue Use Cases

It is useful to have index of all the use cases that includes a status to show work in progress, which ones have been published and those reviewed with SMEs. We managed our use case catalogue within Confluence using custom decision pages to provide an index view of all the cases.

 

User Stories

 

The key differentiator with the story is that it targets a specific system requirement and product feature, explaining a feature to an SME is a valid activity but without the context of the overall process, it might be a hard sell. Typically, you will need to introduce some supporting product features which may not be immediately obvious to SMEs; hence combining the stories together into a coherent business process will help SMEs to understand the overall solution context.

User stories can be identified but not elaborated depending on the level of confidence in understanding for a given requirement and business process. It may be appropriate to propose a change based on the understanding prior to a workshop or it might be better to get feedback from the workshop and then work on the stories with the knowledge gained.

The objective is to gain confidence in the understanding of a requirement so that everything can proceed down the right track with a joined-up set of product features.

Tip – Catalogue User Stories

A template for developing user stories can be adopted, this is useful as a prompt for details which may be appropriate e.g., what’s the existing feature doing currently and what needs to be changed. We managed our use story catalogue within Confluence using custom decision pages to provide and index view.

 

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Joined Up Thinking

Use cases and user stories come together in the steps of a use case i.e., supporting the flow, whether it is worth elaborating main flows and alternate flows within a single business use case is debatable. The key objective is to keep the use case as simple as possible whilst demonstrating how the requirement will be met, so adding exception flows may cause confusion at this stage.

It is also possible that an existing feature will support a requirement without the need for a change story to be introduced; it is valid to include this feature in the use case as a step to demonstrate how this will work. For an existing feature, screen shots can be included and marked up with candidate changes; for a new feature then a wireframe mock-up may be included where a user interface is needed to support a step in the process.

 

Tip – Catalogue Use Cases

It will be useful to have index of all the use cases that includes a status to show which ones have been published and review with SMEs. We managed our use case catalogue within Confluence using custom decision pages to provide and index view.

Requirements and Use Cases

Now we are starting to build up a comprehensive set of product features that will meet the requirements and these will have been validated with SMEs; so, we are in a good position to elaborate the details of the user stories that will be needed to change existing features and add new features to the product.

Tip – Link Requirements

Linking requirements to use cases is a useful way to file the information, not all requirements will need separate use cases only those where confirmation is needed to better understand the underlying business need which can sometimes be obscured by a badly written requirement.

 

Conclusion

The use case is the glue that binds the product features and stories together into a comprehensive system that will meet the stated requirements; the user stories allow this requirement to be broken down into manageable features for delivery by agile sprint development teams.