Tag: Career

Sticky Situations: How do Business Analysts Influence Ethics?

Written by Angela Wick on August 11, 2014. Posted in Articles.

We’ve all found ourselves in sticky situations at work—those grey areas between right and wrong that really test our ethical boundaries. The nature of BA work, facilitating change and protecting stakeholder value, launches BAs into the middle of many sticky situations. We often know things before the masses, we are present when new ideas float for the first time, and we work projects before risks, assumptions and regulations are fully flushed out.

In many cases, decision paths are murky—right and wrong are not obvious. In other cases, greed or tight timelines tempt people to take questionable shortcuts.

BA ethics encompass more than just your own behavior and choices. They force you to stand up for the rights of others including your stakeholders, your team and your industry.

Risk is often rewarded in business, but how do you know when the ethical line has been crossed? How can BAs, with their limited authority, influence others to stay to the right? Let’s answer these questions by taking a look at 5 ethical dilemmas commonly faced by BAs.

Scenario #1: Office Space

The Ethical Dilemma: You remember “The Bobs” from the movie Office Space? Well, many BAs are “Bobs”—they identify and promote organizational efficiencies. When organizations get more efficient, people tend to disappear. So, if your project scope includes “position reductions/eliminations” due to technology or process efficiencies, what should you do?

What not to do: Don’t spill the beans before knowing the sponsors plans and intentions. Also, don’t assume too much—these are very complex situations with legal, compliance, and people/performance implications. The sponsor may not be able to be share details with you.

Suggestions: It’s quite common that BAs learn about organizational strategies and priorities well-before the affected employees. BAs often interact directly with the affected teams to gather information for the projects that will eliminate team jobs. Here are a few tips for managing this awkward scenario:

Ask the sponsor how she is planning to handle the position reductions. Does she have other plans/jobs lined up for the affected employees? Does she have a compliance plan she needs to follow?
Understand the communication plan. Find out when/how affected people will be notified.
Run through a few scenarios with your sponsor to understand the key messages that should be communicated if questions arise while you interact with affected teams. You need to be equipped with the right information to treat people respectfully and ethically.

Scenario #2: Martha Stewart

The Ethical Dilemma: Technology, process changes, and/or new products accompany strategic moves in many organizations. BAs tend to be on the front line of these changes, helping companies understand business needs, building requirements, analyzing impacts, etc. This means BAs have insider knowledge—knowledge that could be used for financial gain or for minimizing financial loss.

So, what would you do if a close family member owned a significant amount of stock in your company and you were in a position to see great success or huge failure coming around the corner?

What not to do: Do not end up in jail like Martha Stewart. She received insider information about the negative results of an FDA drug trail and sold the drug company’s shares right before the news went public. Stewart was convicted in 2004 and served a 5-month sentence. (Allegedly, Stewart lost the prison’s holiday decorating contest.)

Suggestions: So, do not share insider information with family members, friends, acquaintances or even strangers. Make sure you understand the rules and regulations before you buy or sell any investments associated with your current company, client, or their vendors/partners.

Scenario #3: Competitive Advantages

The Ethical Dilemma: Competition is fierce! Companies use extreme measures to maintain even small bits of competitive advantage. Companies guard their secret recipes, their pricing strategies, their new product ideas and marketing tactics. So, what would you do if you discover knowledge of a competitor from a family member (or vendor) impacting the direction and assumptions on your project?

What not to do: Don’t act on your competitor knowledge without understanding the potential risks.

Suggestions: Your first step should be research. If the knowledge is public information, then you may be free to use it to benefit your project. If the information does NOT appear to be public, then proceed cautiously. Understand the potential impact to the project and consider seeking legal advice to protect your interests and the interests of your company.

Also be cautious of the reverse dilemma—As BAs we often have information stored in our heads, laptops, tablets, smartphones that our competitors would love to gather. Whether they are thriving or failing, don’t discuss sensitive projects in public forums. You never know who is sitting at the next table or who is friends with your friends on Facebook. Don’t hurt your company’s reputation or give your competitors an advantage.

Scenario #4: Global Solidarity

The Ethical Dilemma: Many BAs work for large global corporations. Offshore labor helps large companies reduce expenses and remain competitive. In the best situations, these offshore arrangements boost developing economies and offer training and opportunities where options were limited. But what if you were on a project where a solution on the table involved offshore labor in a country with a poor reputation for worker’s rights?

Suggestions: Just like the last scenario, avoid assumptions. Your fist step should be understanding how the solution originated and why the specific country was chosen. You should also understand the discussion stage—is this one idea out of 100 in the initial brainstorming session or is the solution in the final stages of approval?

After you understand the solution history/path, then, you should focus questions around promoting and protecting stakeholder value:

What is the risk/reward to the stakeholders?
What are the risks to the greater organization?
Can you minimize risks? Can your organization establish ethical offshore practices in this country despite the country’s reputation?

What not to do: Avoid making it personal. Your personal opinion is important, but it should not be the focus of your discussion and actions. Provide a context for evaluating the solution that is framed, preferably with good research and data, in the best interest of the sponsor/stakeholders.

Scenario #5: Copycat

The Ethical Dilemma: In this age of information, it’s hard to track the original source of many ideas, images, articles, and studies. People forward, share, retweet and repost. We know copyright laws exist, but they seem ambiguous and very hard to enforce. So what would you do if a colleague asked you to copy something from a book or presentation, written by someone outside the company, and use it internally?

What not to do: Don’t make a practice of ignoring copyright laws. It opens your organization to legal and financial risk; it also compromises your professional integrity when others see work that is not yours not referenced or protected. This is an easy way to unknowingly build mistrust as many will know the work is copied but not call you out on it. If you see work copied, you need to call the person out on it and remind them of copyright protection obligations.

Suggestions: Copyright laws might seem like a petty, minor concern. No one gets harmed physically, and consequences seem unlikely. However, illegally using copyright protected materials creates financial loss for their creator. For example, sharing bootlegged movies limits the total number of movie purchases and essentially steals money from the creators. On our project as BAs we come across vendor and consultant materials, training materials, educational institution materials, industry and conference materials; all of these even when paid for are likely subject to copyright protection. So, please respect copyright laws as follows:

Get permission. Contact the owner and ask for the rights to reproduce the materials.
Site your sources when you reference copyrighted materials.
Negotiate/Verify use agreements with vendors. Partnerships with third parties usually include contract language about use of copyrighted materials. If you want to reproduce vendor materials, make sure this language is included in the contract. If you are already under contract, verify the copyright language before you reproduce vendor materials.
Review basic copyright laws with your legal team or by visiting http://www.copyright.gov/laws/.

Maintaining strong personal and organization ethics are a critical part of the BA Role. As protectors of stakeholder value, BAs must consider a broad range of project risks including those associated with business ethics, regulations and laws.

Have you found yourself in any sticky ethical situations?

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

Business Analysts: Born or Made?

Written by Marcos Ferrer on July 28, 2014. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Business Analysts: Born or Made?

The short answer is both – shortest blog ever or ??? IF you know BOB F., please let him know he can claim his prize from me for his excellent answers presented in my last blog.

Back to our topic. I for one have often blamed :)* my mother, Kathleen Ferrer (nee Morgan, September 26, 1923 – June 26 2014), the only person who both bore me and made me. I often thanked her for my life and her influence, and will miss her very, very much.

I thought I would try to investigate the common experiences or characteristics that lead one to an ongoing BA career.

So, here are some data from my life, left blank for the moment. Fill it in on paper or in your head if you wish, AND EVEN BETTER – Click here to link to the survey:

Then contribute YOUR experiences and characteristics (anonymously) to help all of us BAs and BA wannabes know – Born or Made?

All participants will receive a summary of the survey results if wished 🙂

Date of Birth: ______________

Gender: ______________

Age learned to read: ______________

Who first taught you to read? ______________

Age first fell behind in math: ______________

Who taught you most of your math? ______________

Number of houses growing up: ______________

Maximum distance between any two of these houses in kilometers: ______________

Minimum distance between any two of these houses in kilometers: ______________

Most advanced Business Analysis certification or degree achieved:

CCBA
CBAP
Other Business Analysis certification [give the acronym]: ______________

If your own experience suggests a new question relevant to your path to BA, please add it in the blog comments below. Nice to hear from you, readers are so rare in today’s world, and writers more precious yet 🙂

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:)* Blame, in my blogs, is always a joke. My true belief is that blame is a stone-age behavior in an information age culture, and is just as useful in that evolving culture as the sheet music to the song “In the year 2525” would have been during the Cambrian explosion. I could, of course, be completely wrong.

Don`t forget to leave your comments below.

Raising the Profile of the Business Analyst

Written by Andrew Cravenho on July 21, 2014. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Raising the Profile of the Business Analyst

The role of the business analyst (BA) is defined in a variety of ways. The BA, in the broadest sense, analyzes the processes of a business, how those processes might be enhanced by technology and/or systems, and makes recommendations for the integration of those processes with technology. The BA, in the course of his duties, serves as an intermediate among those with a horse in the race, ensuring that all relevant parties understand how all the elements of the analysis come together to achieve the ultimate goal, which is to resolve the problem.

All too frequently, the business analyst is defined by the company he works for, rather than the other way around. Many organizations perceive the business analyst as having very little business knowledge, but a wealth of technical expertise in IT systems or architecture. Other companies share the opposite view, seeing the analyst as business savvy but IT illiterate.

The successful business analyst is the analyst that defines himself rather than allowing the company to define him and limit his role. For the business analyst to achieve his maximum potential, he must become a generalist, competent in a variety of roles.

Defining Your Value

This is best accomplished by honing a variety of skills and broadening your educational background, then augmenting your skills and education with a wide range of work experience in various jobs and diverse industries.

This triple threat … proven skills, a broad educational background and a diverse work history, will enable you to see what is commonly referred to as the “big picture”. In other words, define your value via a demonstrable ability to understand the company you work for from various angles.

Management’s Perception

All your efforts to add value—your enhanced skills, your broad education, and your diverse job history, will be for naught if you allow management to perceive you as nothing more than a bridge! Yes, you know it’s true! Management often views the BA as little more than an intermediary, an information highway or worse yet, a referee. It is your job to alter this paradigm or be consigned forever to the tired old management view of your role.

What Can I Do?

Here are 3 commandments you need to follow. These will add value and alter management’s image of the business analyst’s role.

You shall not covet your territory — instead … enlist others in the pursuit of information needed relative to the task at hand. Assume a role that more closely approximates that of a mentor or coach by offering guidance on what questions need to be asked. Share your knowledge of how to elicit the information necessary by including your team in any elicitation sessions you are conducting.
You shall make analysis your first priority — by allowing the information to flow from a variety of sources; you will have more time to focus your analytical skills on determining your project’s genuine needs. You will place yourself in a better position to see what additional information is required to close any gaps. From your new vantage point, you will have a clearer vision of how your project may overlap or impact other projects. Spend more time considering the possible barriers to a successful rollout and find the appropriate solutions to overcome those barriers.
You shall assume a vanguard position — in any discussions regarding potential solutions, be prepared to offer yours. Abandon the notion that your role is a simple focus on requirements. It is paramount that you make your involvement in determining solutions an integral part of your role. Never lose sight of the fact that in the final analysis (no pun intended), management is looking for solutions. Logically, if you are not participating in developing solutions, you are not adding value to your role and, more to the point; you are not raising your profile. Think about this in the context of a doctor visit. Do you want a doctor that just tells you that you have pneumonia, or do you want a doctor that tells you that you have pneumonia and provides you with a prescription for the cure? Naturally, you want the latter and management will appreciate a similar approach in your BA role.

Concluding Thoughts

The role of the business analyst continues to evolve. It is in your best interests and, the best interests of the firm you serve, to aid and abet the evolution. As long as you continue to view your role as a “bridge” or liaison, so will management. Of course, there will still be times that you will need to act as a bridge, but never allow this to become your dominant role.

It is important to understand that none of the “commandments” offered earlier are intended to displace or minimize the BA’s responsibility for elicitation, as well as analyzing, specifying and validating requirements.

Enhance your value by demonstrating your competencies as an analyst and an advisor.

For example: Leverage any lull in activity by

Exploring ways to save your company money
Reevaluating vendor contracts to be better prepared for negotiations when they are up for renewal
Ensuring that your existing business processes are documented
Creating a company-wide project list to serve as an inventory of all initiatives in progress
Exploring the possibility of assisting in other company initiatives (sales, for example)
Putting a system in place to prioritize new projects based on return on investment or other relevant criteria
Evaluating and comparing your competitor’s product or service to your company’s product or service can yield a cornucopia of new project ideas
Evaluating and defining your business architecture
Updating or creating your requirements template
Conducting a comprehensive evaluation of current capabilities can reveal new opportunities for cost savings or for revenue generation … or both

Management is almost certain to appreciate your proactive approach which will further serve to raise the business analyst’s profile.

Finally, you must never lose sight of the core objective for any BA: solving problems for your company.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

The Nebulous Nature of Leadership

Written by Mindy Duvernet on July 21, 2014. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on The Nebulous Nature of Leadership

Leadership has many faces, from teachers, to organizational executives, to the President of the United States, and we look up to our leaders for various reasons. One big reason we look up to them is to be a part of something larger than ourselves, to find meaning and purpose; whatever the purpose might be. In fact, based on some recent research by the statistical scientists at Gallup Poll, it was discovered that the likelihood of everyone getting more than one opportunity to lead during their lifetime has a 97% chance; an enormous stochastic percentage. So, why is it that it seems that fewer get a chance to lead?

It is the nebulous nature of leadership and the narrow perspectives about leadership. When it comes to the definition of leadership, one could call Dorothy a leader as she headed down the yellow brick road. Meeting more characters as she went and inviting them on her journey to the Land of Oz. She led them on a mission of discovery that was deeply rooted in their sense of self. Along the way each character was put into a situation that challenged them to grow. How did Dorothy gather these followers? It was mostly due to the needs of each character; Dorothy inspired them with hope that they might find a solution to their needs at the end of the yellow brick road in the Land of Oz.

This same story has been told in many different ways since the beginning of time. What people look for in a leader depends upon their own needs. Communities of practice can focus on many different domains; religion, industry, products, services, professions, and more. According to a variety of references, academic publications and Forbes articles concerning this topic, there are three basic qualities that are inherent to good leadership.

The three basic qualities inherent to leadership are:

Continual commitment to becoming more competent
Comprehensive understanding of team building, and ways to maximize teams
Clear understanding around the needs of the followers

These qualities cover a very board range of leaders. All of whom have one thing in common, that is the pursuit of something; happiness, success, freedom, and more. Everyone wants something, largely to feel fulfilled in some way. Part of this puzzle is acknowledging our own abilities and utilizing them to face both the personal and professional challenges presented to us.

Do you recognize your strengths and use them every day?
Do you recognized your weaknesses and try to improve?

Upon getting to Oz, what did all the characters learn? Dorothy and her friends learned that they had the ability within themselves from the very start; they just needed a situation to challenge them and someone else to recognize the strengths they already possessed. The Wizard of Oz recognized the strengths of the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Woodsman and the Empty-headed Scarecrow and presented them with awards to commemorate their accomplishments – which increased their confidence and inspired them to change their perspective of themselves.

One thing is certain, that leadership at any level is a challenge that requires different kinds of preparation. To that point, here are seven simple insights that are fundamental to leadership.

To be able to inspire, one must know how to motivate
To be able to communicate, one must know the message and the audience
To be able to connect on various levels, one must practice civility
To be perceived as fair, one must be open minded
To be able to delegate, one must know how to enable and empower others
To be appreciated, one must find ways to be grateful
To understand the needs of others, one must listen, listen, listen

Many of these insights are appropriate to maintaining any sort of relationship, whether it concerns friends, family, co-workers, management, or even the general public. Leadership can sometimes even be inconspicuous to its host, as Dorothy never called herself a leader, her only wish was to find her way back home. Yet, she would never have gotten caught up in that tornado if she wasn’t running away from home to save her little dog Toto. Conflict is key to every great story; in this story Dorothy was compelled to make a choice about what was most important to her.

Likewise, in the rest of the story entitled “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” (published in 1900), the author; L. Frank Baum, masterfully chose three areas where the other three characters had opportunities to grow. The lion was all about the courage to believe in something and the ability to promote and honor the cause, the woodsman was tired of being cold as metal and only wanted to have a heart and be able to empathize, and the scarecrow was all about becoming knowledgeable; where he thought he had nothing but a head full of straw, he came to realize that he actually knew something. These are the same sort of desires felt by many, as it is a shared desire to make some impact on the world, to contribute in some way and feel some measure of achievement. This desire is also what drives us to lead in whatever capacity possible depending on the opportunity presented.

These possibilities are endless, and the opportunities are everywhere. It is all about the pursuit of something worthwhile; whether it is happiness, excellence, truth, courage, knowledge, or compassion, whatever it is… it is all about attaining it.

So, if leadership is all about the pursuit of happiness, then the other side of the coin must be apathy; or in the words of Shakespeare “to be, or not to be”…because that is the question. Of course, happiness means different things to different people. Different perspectives foster different values. Yet, where it may seem that good leaders are hard to find, in reality they are hiding among us. While some want to work their magic by flying under the radar…as anonymity has its benefits, just like James Bond might convey – sometimes to be recognized for your abilities can work against you – others are raised up by the people who follow them. How did Dorothy gather these followers? They came together naturally as they all had a common goal. So, when it comes to realizing the significance of that whooping 97% percentile, look around and know that you are surrounded by all kinds of natural born leaders.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

The Emerging BA Role

Written by Jas Phul on July 14, 2014. Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on The Emerging BA Role

The BABOK® Guide version 2 was published in 2009 by the IIBA® (International Institute of Business Analysis) and defined our discipline. It brought much needed structure to our work and helped communicate what we do. Fast-forward to 2014; our discipline is 5 years older and 5 years wiser. What are leading BAs doing and where do we see the business analysis profession heading?

The PMI® (Project Management Institute) is introducing a new certification for business analysts – the Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA®). It is too new to determine the impact of this certification on our profession but it is safe to say that its primary goal appears to be to address better requirements management practices within the scope of a project or at a program level. This continues to be a challenging area for organizations with as many as 1/3 of all project failures being attributed to poor requirements management practices.

Additionally, BABOK version 3 is on its way. It’s currently going through the public review process which will conclude in July. I think we’re looking at official publication later in 2014. When you review it, the thing you’ll notice right away is the expanded and higher valued definition of Business Analysis. The focus is considerably different than version 2. Now Business Analysis is the practice of enabling change. In other words it’s about helping your organization achieve strategic goals, taking it from where it is today to where it wants to be in the future.

It’s about helping your organization articulate business needs and it’s about recommending solutions. Now there’s an equal focus on not just understanding requirements but also helping develop solutions. And importantly, it’s about delivering value. Along with the more strategic definition of our discipline there is a new model describing what we do.

BABOK v3 introduces the Business Analysis Core Concept ModelTM. This describes 6 key concepts that we must understand: Needs, Changes, Solutions, Contexts, Value, and Stakeholders. Plus it describes the relationships between those 6 concepts.

This introduces a very dynamic model with highly interconnected elements and I think the model is much more representative of what we BAs should be doing. Which is a great segue to what I see amongst my clients; here’s where they are headed.

Most importantly leading organizations want their BAs to deliver measurable business value. It’s not just about helping define needs although that’s part of it. It’s not just about requirements although that’s part of it. It really is about understanding how your organization makes money or achieves its mandate and it’s about helping your organization successfully transition to a brighter future.

Leading organizations are not executing projects just for the sake of implementing new technology. They want each and every project to deliver business value and they want to measure that value. For them, BAs are involved at project initiation, throughout the project, during implementation, and beyond. They want BAs to measure the actual value being delivered once the solution is implemented and being used.

With that in mind, here’s what leading organizations need from their BAs:

You absolutely must understand your organization’s business model. It describes how your organization creates and delivers value. You must understand your customer segments, the channels through which you reach those customers, and the relationships that are established along the way. You must understand your organization’s value proposition delivered to your marketplace, your cost structure for delivering that value and the revenue streams that flow back. You must understand the key people in your organization responsible for delivering results, partnerships forged to help, and the important activities for success.
You must intimately understand the 2 Cs – Your Competitors and your Customers. Customer knowledge helps you deliver highly valued, relevant products and services and competitor knowledge allows you to stay one step ahead. Who are your primary competitors? Who are the emerging competitors or potential future competitors? How does their business model differ from yours? What makes them an attractive choice in your marketplace? Why would potential customers gravitate towards them?
And as far as your customers are concerned – Why do they buy from you? What keeps them up at night? What problems are they trying to solve that your organization can help with? How are their needs changing?
You must understand how your organization makes money. Both how it generates revenue and what it takes to turn a profit. What products are offered? What services are offered? What is your pricing strategy? What’s your cost structure? How do these compare to your competitors? How well does your pricing strategy align with customer expectations?
You must possess highly-developed communication and collaborative skills. Leading organizations are looking for BAs that can bring people together to deliver value. That means BAs must possess highly developed collaboration and communication skills. They engage stakeholders, develop support for a recommended solution, and focus teams on the desired results. They also bring key facilitation skills to promote innovation, encourage creativity, and develop shared understanding.
You must be able to help your organization fundamentally rethink how it executes business. Leading organizations see their business processes and practices as a source of competitive advantage. They want every project that they initiate to challenge current business practices and redesign processes to deliver measurable improvements in key performance metrics. So they need BAs who are able to quickly understand current business practices and are strong enough to challenge fundamental assumptions about how business is done. BAs need to look past “we’ve always done it that way” and focus people on a better way of doing things
You must be able to help drive out the benefits as described in the original business case. BAs need to be able to help implement their recommended solutions and go beyond this. Leading organizations realize that a potential solution has no value until its implemented and being used. They want savvy business experts to help ensure solutions are successfully implemented and are delivering measurable business value. Where an implemented solution fails to live up to expectations, they want their BAs to tweak that solution to drive out the benefits envisioned in the original business case.

There you have it; the bar has been raised! Leading organizations are looking for a new kind of BA – a much more strategic BA that can help deliver measurable business value. Are you willing to step up to this role?

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

Notes
1. BABOK® Guide & IIBA are registered trademarks owned by International Institute of Business Analysis.
2. “PMI” is a registered mark of Project Management Institute, Inc.