Tag: Strategic

What a Business Analyst is not?

Written by Tim Coventry on June 15, 2017. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on What a Business Analyst is not?

Many articles have been written about what a business analyst is—articles that define a business analyst as…

someone who helps stakeholders make decisions, facilitates, communicates, acts as a bridge between business and IT, etc.But any person in an organization can do this! Many other professions help stakeholders with decision-making, such as management consultants and business coaches. Very little has been written about what makes a business analyst different from any other person in an organization, role, or profession.

To me, a business analyst is someone who performs business analysis through eliciting, analyzing, specifying, and managing needs, value & requirements at a level of competency. If you can’t perform all four of these areas competently to deliver the business need, you are not a business analyst.

Statistics show that many people call themselves a Business Analyst—a simple search in LinkedIn displays over 80,000 people in Australia with the phrase in their title, and over 1.7 million in the rest of the world using the title “business analyst.”

The BABOK® Guide also states that “a business analyst is any person who performs business analysis tasks described in the BABOK® Guide, no matter their job title or organizational role.” The BABOK® Guide does not make the distinction of business analyst quality, competency, and experience breadth of tasks and techniques; however, the IIBA® certification and competency model does require breadth across the six knowledge areas (KA).

Evidence in the field strongly suggests good business analysis is more likely to be achieved by a business analyst who is well trained, industry aligned, certified, practice-supported, and experienced in multiple approaches and end-to-end business analysis across the BABOK® Guide.

Unfortunately, many individuals in our profession don’t understand how to connect eliciting, analyzing, specifying, and managing needs, value & requirements. I often observe individuals with the title “business analyst” or another specialist role (process analyst, business architect, project manager, business rules analyst, data analyst, etc.) performing some of these activities but not tightly coupling them to perform a high standard of business analysis.

There are also good business analysts not promoting themselves and giving a voice to the power of performing excellent business analysis. The connection of eliciting, analyzing, specifying, and managing requirements is hard work, but when performed well provides great value to organizations, saves wastage, and reduces failure.

You can perform excellent business analysis if your title is not “business analyst,” but you must have the underlying competencies of eliciting, analyzing, specifying, and managing requirements. Remember that being able to apply a Band-Aid does not make you a nurse.

Many professions perform elicitation—for example, teachers, doctors, and lawyers. Engineers, physicists, and process analysts perform analysis, while technical writers and solution architects specify. However, Business Analysts manage needs, value & requirements, tracing to join things to make sense of them. To manage requirements well, you need to plan, elicit, and analyze continuously—often under pressure.

Business Analysis In A Disruptive World: A New Frontier For Business Analysis Professionals, a discussion paper from IIBA & BCS, states, “As an example, the Agile Principle: ‘Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project’ was interpreted as only developers and business stakeholders. Additionally, popular adaptive approaches don’t identify all key roles that are needed to successfully execute work in this way. As an example, SCRUM identifies two critical roles and everyone else is part of the development team. Misconceptions and misunderstanding led to organizations ignoring the need for business analysis expertise and assuming that developers and business stakeholders would jointly understand how to elicit requirements.”

Some Agile approaches assume team members will manage needs, value & requirements, even though many of those team members do not have the necessary skills, experiences, and competencies with requirements.

An expert business analyst requires a unique skillset that many senior executives have never experienced. Excellent business analysis is more likely to be achieved by a well-trained, certified, and practice supported business analyst. You need to know that you are engaging high-quality business analysts if you want a greater chance of project success.

Managing requirements occurs throughout any organization from strategy, operations, portfolios, programs, and projects, and a competent business analyst will improve requirement clarity, efficiency, and outcomes.

What is a business analyst?

Tracing is key to business analysis. If you can’t trace both forwards and backwards, then you can’t see moving parts and determine possible solutions for business issues or opportunities. In my opinion, this is the top skill that anyone performing business analysis needs.

A business analyst should be independent from managing or being accountable for the customer journey that the business analysis is being performed on. Giving well-analysed and synthesized options to stakeholders is better than making recommendations, as options give the ownership to the stakeholder.

Adrian Reed says “We need to focus on the benefits of business analysis rather than the tools or techniques. To draw a (deliberately) left-field analogy, if an airline said we maintain, fuel and fly aircraft, issue and validate tickets, specializing in transatlantic flights” that may well be accurate. But a far more compelling message is “We can fly you from Heathrow to JFK in 7 hours”.

I agree with Adrian we must explain the benefits of business analysis, but we must also add our point of different (POD) that sets us apart from any other profession. An excellent business analyst elicits, analyses specifies and manages needs, value & requirements effortlessly, somehow sorting the wood from the trees so that stakeholders can make informed business decisions.

In 2017, hopefully, all great business analysts stand up and perform excellent business analysis using the unique skill of managing needs, value & requirements to help organizations improve business performance!

Big Picture Thinking: Where Does the Business Analyst Fit In?

Written by Lenesh Naidoo on June 13, 2017. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Big Picture Thinking: Where Does the Business Analyst Fit In?

Recently my manager and I were having an in-depth discussion about the different levels of a Business Analyst (BA).

How do you figure out a BA to be junior, intermediate, senior and in some cases, principal/lead? Surely an analyst’s thought process and ability to understand plays a critical role when defining what level that BA is at.

During the discussion, we went to a boardroom, where my manager drew to circles on either end of a white board with a dotted line in between. On one side he wrote ‘shareholders’ and on the other, he wrote ’data captures.’ He then asked me to fill in the dotted lines with how the data captures affect the shareholders and show him where the BA fit between the two sides. The ability for you as a Business Analyst to build an end-to-end picture in your mind of the business you service will directly show in the detail and quality of the output you provide as a Business Analyst.

In this article, I fill in the blanks and show you what else fills in the ‘moonshot’ as I call it.

Data captures in business are, generally, at the very end of the organization’s value chain, while shareholders, on the other hand, are those who have their money (value) in the game. How does a business give the shareholders more value? Generally through innovation, process improvements and doing things better.

Thus a board of directors (BOD) or executive committee (EXCO) will decide on the best strategy to increase value for their shareholders. In this article, we can assume that the executive committee has decided to offer a product via a mechanism that has given them an excellent reputation in the market, which would differentiate themselves from their competitors; make it easier for customers and reduce operational costs.

EXCO or the BOD have communicated this strategy to the senior management team in the organization and have made it a high priority as they believe this will allow them to attract a big percentage of the target market.

With the senior management team, EXCO has determined that to achieve their strategic objective, a mechanism in the business has to be rebuilt. EXCO and the senior management team then pull in the projects/IT team to help achieve this objective.

EXCO, senior management and the Projects/IT team defines the objective; the business owner of the project; the stakeholders; the scope, and the deliverables required by the project/IT team.

Furthermore, SME’s and specific employees are identified to ensure the rebuilding process delivers the relevant functionality.

You might ask, why is the projects/IT team out of line and where is the BA? The BA falls between the strategy and the users. I say it in this manner because the BA has to know why a project is being initiated and ensure the deliverables of the project/IT team align to the users/employees who will be directly affected.

The BA should understand the strategy; the purpose; the moonshot or the reason as to why a project has been initiated. Yes, some stakeholders will push their agenda, but it lies upon the BA to filter/manage requirements/instructions and ensure the project/IT team deliver according to the strategy/purpose of the project. The BA has to align the requirements of the end users to the strategy of the business and communicate this back to the project/IT team for them to deliver.

The better you understand requirements about the strategy/moonshot, the more value you can provide. You can challenge certain requirements/changes, or you can propose requirements/changes that better align to the users need and strategy of the project. You can better determine solutions or realize requirements missed by the end user, thus ensuring a more accurate deliverable by the project/ IT team.

Producing a deliverable that does not align with the strategy or provide value to an end user can directly result in zero value for business and zero value for shareholders. Thus move away from being a note taker and move towards becoming a Business Analyst!

Best Practices for Business Analysts Working on BI Projects

Written by Jason Kelly on May 12, 2017. Posted in Articles.

Business Intelligence (BI) can be defined as the access and insight (analysis) into information that provides organizations the ability to improve their existing performance.

The BI ecosystem includes a vast array of applications, tools, and techniques. Working as a Business Analyst on a BI project can be a daunting task as the objectives are clear but the route to success less known. One reason for the uncertainty for the route to success is the variety of stakeholders who feel they are accountable for the activities to be undertaken. Additional issues range from technology advancement and legacy system capabilities. The following sections within this article outline the steps to be followed that will elevate the Business Analyst towards a successful project.

Understand the Drivers for Change

Why is the organization embarking upon a Business Intelligence (BI) project, what are the key elements that are pushing the organization? There are some traditional tools that a Business Analyst can apply to identify this driver for change:

SWOT analysis (internal and external scan of the organizational position)
Vision analysis (What is the organizational vision? What is the impact of Business Intelligence (BI) on that vision?)
CMM (Capability Maturity Model analysis allows the organization to identify maturity across a wide range of processes)

Regardless of the tool uses you will need to understand the overall desire for change and the support for this project.

Stakeholder Analysis

Once the drivers are known the next step for the Business Analyst is to analyze the stakeholders involved and impacted by this project. Stakeholder analysis at is simplest form is the ability to list each stakeholder group and identify their interest and influence.

A Business Analyst who correctly identifies each stakeholder group will be able to quickly understand where they may be issues and concerns as the project progresses.

Business Analyst Work Plan

A critical step in the Business Analyst Work Plan (BAWP) activity is to outline the deliverables, timetable for work activity, RACI, and other project engagement activities. The BAWP allows the Business Analyst to share with the organization the expected activity that they will complete as part of this project. The Business Analyst plan enables the organization to refine the activity before too much work has taken place.

Business Intelligence Specific Activities

The first three steps would apply to the majority of Business Analyst project engagements; this step is now more closely aligned to Business Intelligence (BI). When you the Business Analyst is working on BI projects the deliverables list will include some of the following:

Data Dictionary (definitions of all data items contained within the data warehouse)
Relationship Diagrams (document the data structure of the systems, their relationships, data hierarchies, and data refresh timeline)
Architecture Document (Solutions and technical interfaces, hardware, application, connectivity)
BI Standards (naming conventions, interface guidelines, reporting structure, UI expectations, security/access)

The Business Analyst will need to facilitate some discussions/workshops with the subject matter experts (SME’s) throughout the enterprise IT department to effectively capture the requirements to support the completion of the above deliverables.

If you are not familiar with the technology and Business Intelligence (BI) environment before commencing work on such a project, I would recommend you speak with the project sponsor or business lead who will be able to outline the project from a business point of view. Having a common reference point from the business to the technology will support your success in the project delivery.

What If You Don’t Follow Best Practices?

Utilizing best practices allows Business Analysts to learn from the experience of others. Of course, you can jump into the Business Intelligence (BI) project and try not to follow the outlined suggestions. Typically, what will happen is the business is excited about the metrics output from the new BI system. They are keen to get everyone in the enterprise utilizing the BI tool for specific metrics. The Business Analyst will focus solely on the output of metrics and its distribution across the business. Getting the first few metrics and dashboards up and running is seen as a success, and the Business Analyst feels their job is completed.

What then happens is data validation, and confidence issues spring up around the business. Users are complaining about the report they run having old / out of date information. They even stop using the BI tool and revert to the more labor intensive source of information (spreadsheets or hardcopy review). The Business Analyst is brought back into the project, and it is quickly identified that there are issues with the refresh cycle of certain data fields or a new table has been added to an ERP system, and it caused issues to the data warehouse. Now you are going to have to work quickly to resolve the issue.

If only you had completed the required deliverables and obtained sign off from the organization, you would not be in this problem.

Top 5 Techniques in Business Analysis

Written by Bola Adesope, B.Sc, MCITP, CCNA, MCTS, PMP, ITIL, PRINCE2, BAP, SSYB, SFC, CSSBB, CBAP, MBA on May 10, 2017. Posted in Articles.

Having been involved in several Business Analysis engagements and assignments, I have discovered top 5 techniques that I find most useful for Business Analysis, and they are highlighted below.

One Caveat: I am more tilted towards Strategic Business Analysis.

1. SWOT Analysis

The SWOT Analysis, which stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threat is a very simple, yet powerful technique used by Business Analysts to analyze both internal and external organizations under analysis.

When using SWOT Analysis, the Business Analyst conducts, and thorough analysis of the internal (Strength and Weakness) and external (Threats and Opportunities) actors and factors at play in the space the organization operates in.

In using SWOT Analysis, the Business Analysis answers the following questions under each of the quadrants

Strengths: characteristics of the business or project that give it an advantage over others
Weaknesses: characteristics of the business that place the business or project at a disadvantage in relation to competitors or other projects
Opportunities: elements in the environment that the business or project could exploit to its advantage
Threats: elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the business or project

Use: The SWOT Analysis is useful in understanding the position of the organization and helps to recommend the capabilities the organization needs to build or the feasibility of any initiative based on the result of the analysis.

2. MOST ANALYSIS

The MOST Analysis is a very simple and extremely powerful framework tool used by Business Analysts for analyzing and planning the details of what an organization does and initiatives the organization should be looking at doing and helps maintain strategic alignment. It can also be used to give the business or organization a fresh sense of purpose and capability.

The M.O.S.T. Analysis is a highly-structured method for providing targets to team members at every level of an organization. Working from the top down, it ensures that you retain focus on the goals which matter most to your organization

The MOST Analysis comprises of four elements:

Mission: Mission is the top-level, overall reason for being in business and defines outcomes the organization wants to accomplish. The more specific the business is when defining the mission, then the more success the business will have later on trying to define the remaining points within the tool.

Objective: The objectives are one step down from the mission. Think of these as a collection of individual goals that will add up to reaching the overall mission. Just like with the mission, objectives should be specific enough to guide decision making and planning for the future. With the mission in place, it should be relatively easy to develop a list of a few objectives. Objectives should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely (S.M.A.R.T.). Otherwise, goal-creep will set in, and objectives will become fuzzy and difficult to implement.

Strategy: These are the things the organization or business will do to reach the objectives. What actions should be taken to accomplish the objectives, and in turn, the mission? Strategies offer a way to quickly review and group the tactics implemented on the ground floor, so they make sense as methods to achieve your objectives

Tactics: Tactics are the methods you will use to carry out your strategies. They should be simple and relatively discrete processes that can easily be understood and carried out even by people who do not have a high-level overview of the M.O.S.T. analysis.

Use: The MOST Analysis is used to ensure the BA recommends the solutions that the organization needs to meet its objectives and mission. It is also used for alignment.

3. PESTLE ANALYSIS

The awareness of the influence the environment has on the organization the Business Analyst is working with is a very important factor in any Business Analysis engagement. The PESTLE Analysis, which is also called PEST Analysis is a tool used to identify and analyze the key drivers of change in the strategic or business environment. The analysis looks at the drivers and factors in the following and how the happening in those areas influence the decisions and the type of recommendation the Business Analysts gives the organization

Political: What are the current happenings and factors in the political landscape of the environment the business operates and how can it affect or change our business.

Economic: What are the important economic factors such as inflation or meltdown is happening, has happened, or will happen in our business environment and what do they mean to our business

Social (or Socio-cultural): What cultural aspects are most important that we need to pay attention to

Technological: What are the trends and innovation in the technology space. What is the direction technology is going, and what impact will they have in our organization or business?

Legal: What are the regulations or legislations that directly impact our industry or environment and how do they affect our business

Environmental: What are the environmental considerations we need to make in our business and organization.

Use: The PESTLE Analysis is used to understand the factors and drivers within the environment the organization operates and how those factors will influence the narratives of the organization

4. BRAINSTORMING

Brainstorming in a group creativity technique that is used extensively by Business Analysts to generate ideas, identify root causes of problems, and solve complex business problems. Most of the other techniques such as Mind Mapping, Root Cause Analysis, SWOT, and PESTLE Analysis use Brainstorming and an underlying technique.

I particularly find this technique very useful in generating diverse ideas.

Use: This is used in problem-solving, fact finding and idea generation

5. MINDMAPPING

You want to be sure you have all the areas within the analysis covered, you want to certainly confirm you have considered the different and diverse components and elements under analysis, you do not want to miss anything out? Then you would need the MINDMAP technique.

The Business Analysis function has over the years been greatly helped by this special and often unrecognized technique, but I find it extremely helpful during my business analysis engagement

What are the techniques you find useful in Business Analysis engagement? Share in the comment sections

The Business Analyst of Tomorrow

Written by Ben Harvey on April 27, 2017. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on The Business Analyst of Tomorrow

Business Analysts of today – we are no longer the hired help of years gone by. Handing over Business requirements to IT to interpret and build and then moving onto the next project.

Business Analysts are no longer the bottom of the rung on the ladder or passive contributors who follow orders. Business Analysts are not arbitrarily adjusting scope, timescales, and budgets from week to week.

Business Analysts and Business Analysis now have a growing voice – but more than that, we are finally being heard.

Business Analysts is now our time to make a real impact in the world. To take advantage of the now and ensure the role of BA of Tomorrow (BAoT) is flexible and in-tune with what our Business, Customers and Technology partners want and need.

Why Now? How Did We Get Here?

We have adapted. We had to! We have gradually, painstakingly moved from the periphery into the center of our Business and Customer worlds. Our jobs dictate that we are experts in people, process, and technology. We have created a space in this new world by collaborating, iterating and staying relevant.

We are driven by the wants of our customers, the needs of our Business and through data and evidence-based attitude that makes us increasingly hard to ignore.

We Empathetically Understand Customers

Business traditionally interacted with customers only to understand and gauge a particular market or segment for a product launch or other Marketing purposes. Business Analysts historically never got to speak to real customers which made our jobs difficult. Things are changing. A design-centric view of the world – which is riddled with ambiguity and empathy – is the realm in which the BAoT starts adding value. Removing age-old stigmas, notions, and perceptions like:

‘The business already knows what the customer wants, so why would we need to speak to customers?’
‘The solution was already determined, so do not challenge it!’
‘We cannot showcase that to a customer. It is not ready!’
‘Well our competitor is doing it, so we must do it as well, they probably know more than us!’

Business Analysts have been integral in shifting these perceptions and expectations. Business Analysts have a proven value in talking to customers to elicit fantastic insights and hard evidence to back up good business solutions. The evidence is the key here. Business Analysts have played a huge part in changing the mindset of our business partners to accept the compelling evidence for creating the hypothesis to solve real business problems (1). Compelling evidence is drawn from ethnographic (2) studies which gather insights to real life problems are further proof the BAoT uses empathic thinking to solve the right problems at the right time for the right customers.

We Speak the Language of Technology

Traditionally this is where BA’s have excelled. Being required to act as a conduit between the Business and IT ensured we kept our skin in the game – albeit at a functional level. The new Business Analyst has to be even more conversant in the languages of our technologists. Defining the ‘what’ – simply extrapolating a business requirement into a functional specification to be consumed by a ‘techie’ – is no longer the sole role of the BA. We need to ensure that directionally, a project, program, portfolio, or strategic direction of a Business starts with the correct approach for the team, solution, technology and business. Being able to direct ‘how’ work is done (as well as ‘what’ work needs to be done) is critical to the success of the Business, and we play an important role in kicking off and guiding this work.

We Care About Results

The core competencies of fail fast-learn faster, agility, lean, customer centricity is the ‘action’ to our ‘thinking.’ Prototyping, testing, and measuring (think, make, and check) ensures our solutions address real problems and we can make decisions quicker by continuously learning. We bring everyone together to solve problems then quickly validate the ideas with customers, so time and money are not wasted.

Business craves results. The dynamic Agile world that demands business agility is here to stay. The Agile manifesto initially was a set of simple principles, but it has changed the way we all look at and perform work. It is not a fad, and the BAoT needs to ensure they take everyone on the journey to realization with them. Evangelism through pragmatism and espousing common sense to those uninitiated in Agile, CCD/Design Thinking is where real breakthroughs will be made.

The BAoT ensures the Business’ bottom line, goals, the things the Business determines to be critical to success are kept front and center at all times. We will ensure the problems and opportunities identified are real and that the solutions to these problems can be achieved and measured. We work to understand what success looks like and how we best achieve those results. Critically we measure that success so that we can learn how we can refine and improve.

BA’s Unite

Business Analysts act as the fulcrum between technology, the business, and the customer. We design solutions which solve genuine customer and business problems. We ensure the voice of everyone is heard. We make sure we are doing the right thing at the right time. We ensure the biggest value add is understood, delivered and measured. The role has finally got a voice at the table. We have moved on from being passive bystanders to vocal advocates of the Customer to activists of success for our Business to campaigners of critical thinking. We offer real value in this ever-changing world. Business Analysts now is our time!

Editor Notes

(1) Scientific Method is a systematic and ordered approach to the gathering data and solving problems. The basic approach is the statement of the problem which is then followed by a statement of the hypothesis. A hypothesis is a statement which attempts to solve the statement of the problem. Experiments are created to test the hypothesis. Experiments will either confirm or negate the hypothesis. The results of the experiment are observed, and conclusions are drawn from observed results. The conclusions may tend to uphold or to refute the hypothesis. Results of experiments may also find the statement of the problem as invalid or in need of modification.

(2) Ethnography is the systematic study of people and cultures. It is designed to explore cultural phenomena where the researcher observes society from the point of view of the subject of the study. BABOK refers to a similar technique called Observation. Observation is also known as “Gemba” (meaning respectful observation) and is a Six Sigma technique.