Tag: Training

Inspiration, Enthusiasm, and Triumph – The Journey to Becoming a Certified Business Analyst

Written by Gail Toussaint on March 7, 2017. Posted in Articles.

They say a journey starts with a single step forward, but the reasons behind taking that first step can lead you down paths you never thought you would be able to walk upon.

This is the story of my journey into becoming a certified Business Analyst.

This whole journey didn’t start out with great fanfare. The reason behind why I chose to pursue the IIBA Certified Business Analysis Professional CBAP® certification was not actually a lofty one. It did not stem from a need to align myself with, at that time, the rapidly growing global network of professionals dedicated to raising the awareness of Business Analysis value through Business Analysis standardization and professional designation. Nor did it stem from a desire to authenticate my many years of Business Analysis and be recognized by the established Business Analysis standards association. The only reason I had initially for obtaining my certification was that I thought was doing a good friend a favor. But, by the time I sat for the CBAP® exam, my reasons had evolved!

It was the winter of 2008 in Minnesota when a dear and trusted fellow BA stuck his head into my cubicle at work and announced, “Hi, I am applying to sit for IIBA’s brand new CBAP® certification exam in June, and YOU are going to do it with me! We can study together!” Well, I thought to myself, it is winter here in Minnesota, after all, and there will not be much to do over the next 2-3 months.

“Okay,” I responded to my friend, “Let’s do it!”

So, my friend and I started our preparation for the CBAP® exam.

In 2008, the IIBA was all of 4 years old, but it had literally exploded from a start-up 37-member work group into an established association of over 5,000 members worldwide. There was a published Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK Guide®), an implemented certification program and IIBA chapters were being established all over the world. In those four short years, there had arisen a groundswell of Business Analyst and industry support for the IIBA and everything that it stood for. This phenomenon was evidence of the high dedication and well-placed vision of the initial 37 members and of all those who joined their ranks in the next few years.

Our first step in preparing for our certification was to apply to sit for the exam. Sitting for the CBAP exam requires that applicants meet a specified number hours of BA work experience, with a minimum number of hours spread across a minimum number of the BABOK’s Knowledge Areas (KA). Being the dedicated BAs we were, we used a requirements management approach to filling out the exam application.

First, we broke down our resume’s work history into Business Analysis related tasks within projects, listing each project’s start and end dates. Using this chronology, we built two grids. One grid, cross-referenced our Business Analysis work history to each of the BABOK’s Knowledge Areas (KA,) where it applied, and the second grid calculated, by project, the net number of work hours spent on each BA task within each project.

These two grids made it very easy to calculate the total number of BA work hours and BA work hours by BABOK KA for the exam application. One huge advantage to building these two grids was that we had to survey each BABOK KA deeply enough to understand what each KA was about and understand where our work experience applied. Building these grids to fill out the exam application provided us with the perfect overview of the BABOK.

Once our applications for the exam were completed and submitted, we turned our attention to studying. The first thing we did was to set a realistic, but solid goal of 3 months to prepare for the exam. We quickly figured out that we could not memorize the entire BABOK in 3 month’s time, to the depth it would take to pass the exam. So, we needed a targeted approach to guide us through consuming all of the knowledge in the BABOK.

Today BAs are very fortunate to have so many and valuable resources available to them. There are certification prep classes offered by many training organizations, multiple study guides, practice exams available both online and through training organizations, and study groups hosted by local IIBA chapters. There are also virtual study groups, online blogs, online flashcards, etc. Searches online for ‘how to study for the CBAP’ bring up a plethora blog posts for your review. These blog posts are certified BAs mentoring fellow BAs and are a very valuable source of information for anyone wanting to sit for the exam.

In 2008, there were good resources available to assist with studying, albeit not as many as available today. After surveying all the available resources, we chose our strategy. We signed up immediately for a prep class through one of the training organizations. And we purchased practice exams and prep question flashcards from two different training organizations.

The prep class we took provided the perfect guide for consuming the vast amount of information in the BABOK and enabled us to pass the exam. The class took us through the tasks and activities within each BABOK KA and taught us the inputs (most important) and outputs of each activity. The class also took us through all the different types of modeling: usage, process, flow, data, and behavior models and showed us when to apply each one during Business Analysis. Lastly, the class pointed out important terms and definitions to memorize and gave us mnemonics to help memorize lists of Inputs/Tools/Techniques/Outputs (ITTO).

My friend and I formed our own 2-member study group, tossing practice test and flash card questions at each other throughout our workdays as often as possible, over our 3 months of study. The practice exams and the flashcards were also invaluable in helping us prepare for the wording of the questions on the exam. The exam questions go through multiple reviews before becoming exam questions, and they are designed to test subtle understanding. The questions are written to ensure that a BA can distinguish between what is correct and what is almost correct in a given situation. It takes practice to learn how to read and understand these types of questions correctly and to answer them accurately. The practice tests and flashcards taught us this critical skill.

Prior to 2008, I had not been highly involved with the local IIBA chapter. I periodically went to monthly chapter meetings and occasionally read their newsletter. I had been a Business Analyst for over 25 years and loved the work. But, my experience was that there was widely varied understanding of what the discipline of Business Analysis involved. The importance of Business Analysis was not consistently valued, and the role of a BA was often not as empowered on a project as it needed to be.

Shortly after delving into studying for the CBAP® exam, I discovered how much momentum and dedication was behind the IIBA organization and the solid value that IIBA was bringing to the Business Analysis discipline through standardization and credentialing. My reason for pursuing my CBAP® matured from merely doing a friend a favor into a sense of total pride for my profession and excitement over becoming part of this movement and obtaining my CBAP®. Today, I get excited over the growing list of certified names on IIBA’s Website and that IIBA now offers 4 established levels of certification in Business Analysis.

The journey can be rough, but very rewarding. In the end, Business Analysis certification was the most rewarding part of my career.

Letter from the Editor Ides of March and the Certification Quest

Written by Paul Crosby on March 6, 2017. Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Letter from the Editor Ides of March and the Certification Quest

The Ides of March are coming. Officially marked on the Roman calendar as March 15th as the date Julius Caesar was assassinated in Rome and which put a rather definite end to his career.

If Emperor certification existed in ancient Rome, it might have saved him from that fatal sponsor meeting. The Emperor Book of Knowledge must have an entire chapter dedicated on how not to be stabbed in the Senate. Talk about sponsor management!

Certification is a relatively new thing in our existence. For many centuries the Master, Journeyman and Apprentice system was in use. Masters of the craft would teach Journeyman and Apprentices their craft working with each other side by side for many years. Eventually the Apprentice becomes the Journeyman and the Journeyman becomes the Master. Although we don’t use these terms today in business, you can certainly see these roles being played out. In the modern world, we take certification tests to prove our knowledge after we have an enough experience in the profession.

My certification journey started off when I was a director of project managers and I was meeting with the PMO director and CIO. In this meeting, we were talking about PMBOK 1.0 and how some of these concepts could be used within our organization to drive our projects more effectively. When the subject of certification came up, we passed on the idea. A few years later I’m in a similar meeting discussing PMBOK but in this meeting my leadership turned to me and said, “I think to make yourself more credible as a leader of Project Managers, you should get this certification”.

I was a leader of other Project Managers and good at my craft of Project Management. Being asked to prove my expertise to body of folks outside the organization was terrifying. What if I failed? Did that make me a “fake” project manager? Would my leadership and team really view me differently with a certification? It was clearly a situation where failure wasn’t an option. Failing the test in my mind would mean I failed at Project Management and that I shouldn’t be a manager. I had to ensure triumph and victory.

I spent the next 3 years studying and preparing. I did not take just one PMP Prep Course – I took several. I took Project Management training classes on all subjects. I grabbed a copy of the PMBOK and read every word over several times. I got the flashcards and simulated tests. I took that simulated test over a dozen times. Every question I got wrong went on a list. I analyzed that list and dug into the materials to find the correct answer. By the time, I was finished taking the simulated tests, I was getting only 1 or 2 questions wrong.

I gathered up my work history and all the projects I worked on over the years and spent an entire Monday putting it all together. I remember clicking the submit button on the application like it was yesterday. The next day I got the confirmation. I scheduled the exam at a local exam center in 2 weeks. After I got off the call, I started sweating. Am I ready? I mean REALLY ready to take this exam?

I build my brain dump paper of all the formulas and things that I thought I would need during the exam. Two pages of glorious detail memorized. I practiced making sure I could write it all out perfectly with in 10 minutes.

Two days before the exam, I stopped. No studying, no simulated tests, no practice – nothing. I stopped thinking about it cold turkey. I took the day off work telling everyone I was going on some personal errands – I just couldn’t get enough courage to admit I was going to take my certification test. On the day of the test I got in my car and drove to the testing site. I reviewed my brain dump paper and took a deep breath. “You just have to pass”, I kept telling myself, “70% is enough to pass. You’re not going to know it all. All you can do is your best.”

I walked in, signed in and probably got frisked for contraband but I don’t remember. I sat in front of relic of a computer, took a deep breath and was given the all clear to start. In less than 3 minutes my brain dump paper was completed. I was nervous and on hyper drive at that point. I then started the computer exam. I finished in one hour, then looked up at that clock and total panicked. Did I go too fast? Am I missing everything? I went through the test again worried I totally fouled it up. I changed a few questions which every prep class out there tells you is never a good idea but I did it anyway. Over and over I went through the questions until there was 15 minutes left. Should I spend more time?

I held the mouse pointer over the finish button for several minutes just staring at it. I just couldn’t click the button. This was the point of no return. I took a deep breath and clicked. A survey popped up. “How was your experience today?” it asked cheerfully. Now you want me to take a survey? I think in some small way I lost it. I just clicked all over the page to get rid of that survey. And then it happened. After a long pause that moment I feared and dreaded was upon me. The answer to all my efforts was on the screen.

Passed.

I’m not sure but I probably floated out of that testing center. I know for certain I had a big smile on my face. It was spring and sunny out when I walked to my car. I got into my car and wore out the battery in my cell phone calling everyone I knew to tell them I passed. You couldn’t wipe that smile off my face for days.

Certification is life changing. It’s hard and requires a significant amount of time and dedication to complete. There is great reward in achieving this milestone and It has certainly helped my career many times over the years. Beware the Ides of March? Caesar didn’t make it out of his test but I certainly did.

This month’s featured articles are about certification. We hope you enjoy the great stories and journeys to get certification as told by real Project Managers and business Analysts. Don’t miss a single week’s issue!

Updates from BBC Vegas With Angela Wick

Written by Angela Wick on November 2, 2016. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Updates from BBC Vegas With Angela Wick

Angela Wick is at BBC (Building Business Capability) Conference in Las Vegas this week. Be sure to check back often for all her updates!

Update #9 – Emerging Trends in Technology and Critical Skills – Ken Fulmer

Ken gave a talk this morning on how disruptive technologies are impacting the BA work we do. This has been a major theme at the conference; so many sessions talking about this and the conference twitter storm (#BBCcon) is buzzing with tweets about it.

What strikes me about this is how easy it is to think that this is far way, or that it does not impact my org or client?

IT IS CLOSER THAN WE CAN IMAGNE! As BAs we will be impacted VERY SOON and likely already but not seeing it!

Ken covered 3 areas of impact in his presentation.

Cloud Computing and SaaS

Key impacts to BAs:

Move to product vs. project capability and enhancing the value of the product ongoing. Short lifecycles and very frequent releases.
As BAs we need to help the users adjust their process to fit the package and its options without code change

Artificial Intelligence

Decisions knowledge workers make will be automated
New Skill – How to teach a machine how to think?
How much BA work can be automated?
The work left of BAs will be strategic, facilitative, insightful and creative

Automation

Things like IoT (internet of things) devices, 3D printing and Robotics
The “digital BA” helps analyze and link all these things.

Other factors of all this that impacts our business analysis:

More sophisticated customer and their needs are changing FAST too!
Disruptive business models – Like Uber? – Could a disruptive start-up or disruptive change by a legacy company totally change your industry? Are you ready?
Is your company disruptive enough?

Career challenges for BAs with this?

Understand business models and how to influence it
Understand how to digest and handle TONS of information and develop insights to value
Lifetime learning – Good BAs need to get better, learn more, expand your role

Organizational Challenges:

Invest in learning as well, develop relevant skills for teams
Expanded role in BAs, agile teams, product owners

Shout out to all of you – Do you have a disruptive mind set? Do you know how to adjust your business analysis and decision making facilitation to account for disruption in your industry? Are you ramping up your skills?

Update #8 – Business Analysis On the Cusp of Change – Katie Bolla, KPMG & Stephen Ashworth, IIBA

IIBA commissioned a research study on Business Analysis and the results have been published and discussed this week. This morning a session on the results!

A link to download the study results is available on www.iiba.org

Three Trends:

Technology and Data
Sophisticated Customers
Industry Disruption

Top CEO Concerns:

Customer Loyalty
Relevant products
Not enough time to think strategically

Key Takeaways:

Trends – How to compete in disruptive era – and where the BA fits in
- BA role moving from tactical to value centric
Shifting expectations of business analysis skills
- More cognitive, strategic, innovative, insightful
Delivering value and insights
- Looking at data differently. What insight does the data give not just how does it flow through a system
Conditions for Success
- Support and awareness of business analysis in the organization

Update #7 – Crucial Conversations: 5 Critical Concepts to Help You Effectively Discuss What Really Matters Most – With Bob Prentiss, BobTheBA

It’s Friday at 8am in Las Vegas and hundreds have their coffee in hand ready for Bob to wake us up!

As BAs, we don’t have enough crucial conversations! They are needed to lead! Mastering soft skills will get us through these conversations.

Bob took us through the steps and key elements that we need to understand how to have crucial conversations. As always he provided us with great humor and entertainment along the way.

Update #6 – The Need for Agile Portfolio Management – Shane Hastie

We are just getting used to agile as a delivery model, but now do it at a portfolio level! What does this mean? Shane has set out to help us understand!

Consider your organizations project investment portfolio a backlog of projects in the organization like a backlog that gets regularly prioritized, items can come on and off and change priorities.

According to Shane, 75% of requirements change every 12 months, and this is why we need to adaptive portfolio management.

The life of a requirement is short!

So, let’s imagine requirements at the business objective level, if these are changing just as often, how can we plan our project investment in Q4 for all of the next year?

This totally resonated with me! Many leaders I work with are frustrated that they have to decide now what projects they think they will need a year from now, and then the project takes months or years to deliver. By the time the project is implemented, it is years from the idea and too much has changed since to deliver value. And, more important things have come up since! Agile portfolio management helps organizations plan and use uncertainty and change strategically in their investment and portfolio planning.

My favorite quotes from Shane’s session:

“Stop starting to start stopping”

“The essence of strategy is saying NO, not just adding another backlog item.”

“The Portfolio/Program/Program office (or PMO) should be about value facilitation, not cost and risk office.”

Lots of deep thoughts coming out of this session!

Update #5 – I Wish I could be in More than 1 place at the same time!

I can’t be in more than one place at the same time, but I wish I could!

So many great sessions from many great BATimes.com bloggers you read!

I am currently sitting in a session with Stephanie Vineyard and her co-presenter Jennifer Starkey. They are presenting on how to build tests from User Stories and connecting Features to User Stories, and acceptance tests using Gherkin language, which is business readable and also computer-readable. This enables some automated testing in their agile environment. They have about 100 people practicing writing GIVEN-WHEN-THEN statements for sample user stories.

Also this morning Clinton Ages has a session on actualizing corporate innovation.

Yesterday while in the Agile BA Panel where BATimes Blogger Kent McDonald was part of the panel, I missed out on a session with Richard Larson, and yet another session at the same time with Kupe Kupersmith and Lori Silverman.

Later today Hans Eckman, Mary Gorman, and Heather Mylan-Mains are speaking. And, tomorrow “BobTheBA” Bob Prentiss wakes us up with an 8am session.

I have also been hanging out at the Agile Open Jam area of the conference. Last year and this year I have been honored to be a facilitator at the Agile Open Jam where anyone at the conference can come by and ask a question or submit a topic for a 20 min huddle discussion with an experienced agile practitioner. The Agile Open Jam goes all day, each day of the conference and a group of experienced agile practitioners takes turns facilitating the discussions. This year the hot topics are: Product Ownership, Scaling the Product Owner Role, Difference Between Product Owner and BA, and more Product Ownership Topics! The Agile Open Jam is organized and hosted by the Agile Alliance in partnership with the conference. Below is a snapshot of what the Agile Open Jam looks like in action!

More updates coming!

Angela

Update #4 – Agile Business Analysis: Current State of the Practice

A panel discussion with Mary Gorman, Shane Hastie, James King, Kent McDonald, and Jas Phul. Moderated by Alain Arseneault

The panel is made up of part of the team creating the 2nd addition of the Agile Extension of the IIBA BABOK.

Agile BA is a HOT topic at the conference, and many are excited to hear from the panel. I have been talking to many attendees, and the Agile BA is on many minds. No longer is there a question of if a BA fits in agile, most are now talking about the various ways agile teams are using and leveraging the BA skill set and how agile teams are doing analysis.

Some key quotes from the panel:

“It’s about learning and adapting to enable our organizations to deliver faster.”

“Analysis is critical, and the BA brings those analysis skills. Asking the hard questions, identifying value, and what we shouldn’t be doing.”

“If you are a BA no matter what type, we need to understand what the actual need is. Think then act.”

“The agile manifesto is a historical document. Instead of valuing working software, we need to be valuing the outcomes are we seeing?”

How has the role of Agile BA evolved over the last 5 years?

• Focus on value and outcomes
• 5 years ago the idea of putting a BA onto an agile team was not as accepted. Today there is a recognition that product ownership is more complex, and analysis is a really important part of it, and analysis and BA brings a lot to this. Yes, that is product ownership, not just Product Owner.
• In the past 5 years, the BA work of an agile team is more evenly spread. The idea of a rigid role structure is evolving. The focus of analysis is broad, not just the next sprint.
• BA work is evolving and recognition that BAs are not replacing thinking they are facilitating thinking, helping the team analyze.
• The positive message here is as BA professionals we have the competencies that can add value to any project, even an agile context. We are really well suited to being BAs on an agile project.

“Agile should be making it quicker and easier to get the job done, not replacing the job.”

Skills needed for Agile BAs? Here is what the panel had to say:

User experience, customer experience focus, customer empathy and getting into the minds of the customer. Understanding the potentials of technology. Value stream mapping. Understanding data (model it and communicate it). Decision making, either you make the decisions, or you facilitate them and realizing what goes into making decisions. Understanding cognitive bias. Strategy, vision, goals, objectives. Deliver value every iteration! Facilitation, collaboration, negotiation, conflict resolution.

There was a discussion on what the value of the BA is in agile… and one comment that struck the audience was: Value of a BA in agile? “Turn the question around and ask: Will you take the risk of not having a BA? Are you comfortable having developers make the decisions?”

From all of this, I hope you can feel the energy around this hot topic.

Other hot topics at the conference that I hear the crowd discuss are around themes of digitalization and getting closer to the customer.

More updates soon!

Angela

Update #3 – Your Customer is Changing – IIBA Keynote – Brad Rucker

Who is your customer? Are you sure?

Brad has challenged us at BBC this afternoon to rethink who our customer really is.

He discussed “Customer Friction,” which is any interaction that has a negative impact on the customer’s experience.

So, my line of thought when listening to Brad is: How as BAs does our requirements work impact Customer Friction? Even if the process or system being built, changed or fixed is not something the customer interacts with we still need to understand the impact and friction factor from the customer perspective.

For example, how does every project you work on impact a customer touch point? The user who uses that system or process likely is using it when interacting with or serving a customer, right? Do we, as BAs know the ways in that our requirements may cause negative feelings in customers? Or are we just thinking about the internal user? Are we helping our stakeholders think through the impact of their requirements on the end customer of the organization? Are we having these conversations on projects?

Brad talked about how easy it is to lose a transaction and eventually a customer do to customer friction and negative customer experience.

Provoking thoughts!

Update #2 – BBC Keynote – The Invisible Habits of Excellence – Juliet Funt

Juliet started us off this morning with an inspiring talk about how busyness is robbing us of being thoughtful, creative, and solving problems effectively. She talks about how taking the time to “pause” stimulates better work.

Does your office have a sense of thoughtfulness?

What would it be like to work in an environment like this?

Juliet resonates with the crowd that our time is under attack!

My favorite quote from Juliet this morning:

“Our global workforce is so fried it belongs in the food court of the county fair.”

Juliet contends that when talented people don’t have time to think, business always suffers. When is the last time you caught someone thinking? Thinking changes everything, and as BAs, our job is to provide, detail, strategy, and excellence. She is asking us to think about what is it costing for us to work without thoughtfulness?

Juliet talks about how we need skills to “de-crapify” our work life, and create space and pause for thoughtfulness to truly bring out our best skills. Juliet discusses how busyness and overload might be the biggest boulder in the road for what you are trying to achieve on that project!

I can relate, can you?

Does our detailed work as BAs keep us in the micro too much? How can we come up to the macro and influence a mindset of thoughtfulness in our teams? How can you model thoughtfulness to our team when we work and inspire creativity and better problem solving?

This is deep! Yes, we as BAs impact the thoughtfulness and creativity of others we work with!

In the age of overload, we are lured into a pace and pressure that actually reduces our effectiveness.

41% of our time is being taken up by low-value tasks. Why? It is so hard to let go of unimportant things. Letting go is the path to freeing up our time to create thoughtfulness.

Juliet has truly left us inspired to rethink how we spend our time and how important space and pause is.

Later today I am looking forward to sessions from Brad Rucker on how the BA role is changing with more digital business transformation and leading our organizations towards a customer-centric future.

I am also looking forward to the session on the Current State of Agile Business Analysis, a panel discussion.

Stay tuned!
Angela

Update #1 – Live from the BBC (Building Business Capability) Conference in Las Vegas!

BBC 2016 is the official conference of the IIBA and this year brings to us:

• 1400+ attendees, from 27 different countries
• 125 sessions, 32 Tutorials, 4 Keynotes
• Agile Open Jam hosted by the Agile Alliance
• Many sponsors, networking events, and great content and learn, network, and share!

Overall the conference is looking to provide pragmatic approaches to business innovation and excellence.

I will be blogging this week on the key sessions and hot topics that are all the buzz at the event this year!

I would love to hear from you on what you want to hear about.

You can comment on the blogs or use my twitter @WickAng, or @batimes to connect with us about the show. The conference twitter hashtag is #BBCCON; myself and many others will be updating the twitter feeds often.

Monday and Tuesday this week were the pre-conference tutorials. Half day workshop tutorials that explore topics more deeply. Today – Friday are the symposium sessions where speakers from around the globe give talks on leading edge business analysis topics.

There is a great video: http://www.buildingbusinesscapability.com/why-attend/ about what BBC is all about.

I am looking forward to bringing you event happenings and updates!

From the Archives: Diving Into Unofficial Roles & Responsibilities of the Business Analyst

Written by Angela Wick on August 18, 2016. Posted in Articles.

Why are we the psychologists and the babysitters?

Often on airplanes I get asked, “So, what do you do?”

I am sure if you travel you get this one as well! Do any of you answer with “I am a therapist?”

Well, I do, and it works really well! I am a therapist that helps business teams and technology teams work together and create meaningful products, services, and systems.

I help them agree on changes and create a shared understanding.
I create a process and platform to communicate.
I make them both feel like they are the ones who came up with the ideas.
I make conflict seem like a non-issue and create win/wins.
I present options and alternatives and work through, with the pros and cons.
And, they pay me an hourly rate to do this!

You rarely see “therapist” on a list of required BA skills, but a comparison of BA job descriptions across industries, across nations or even across a single organization, yields an amazing variety of responsibilities and required skill sets. Even the industry leading IIBA BABOK (embedded link: http://www.iiba.org/babok-guide.aspx) highlights more than 20 underlying competencies that support the professional practice of business analysis.

Related Article: Your Next Business Analyst Will be a Robot

Lengthy BA skill lists that include creative thinking, technical skills, adaptability, listening, solution knowledge, teaching, testing, leadership, facilitation, etc., confirm our reality that BAs are expected to be the Swiss Army Knife of the project, product, IT, or operations world. It’s no wonder that most BAs claim to “wear many different hats.”

Despite the wide variety of accepted roles and responsibilities, BAs are often asked to wear strange hats—to take on unofficial duties that don’t really fit the wide range of normal. I get asked in my classes on a regular basis: “Is it the BA’s role to ___________?” Students fill in the blank with common things like testing, coding, and project management, but hostage negotiator, spy and therapist have also landed at the end of their question!

Here are a few true stories I’ve collected over the years, with names changed to protect those who might be embarrassed by their big, floppy, gaudy, leopard-print hats:

Undercover Agent

BA Becky was a well-respected senior BA in her organization. The BACoE leader recognized her accomplishments by asking her to mentor a struggling team. The odd part of the assignment—BA Becky was asked to be an undercover mentor—she was not allowed to tell the team she was mentoring them.
BA Barry was on a project team that needed to create a pricing strategy for the organization’s products. The strategy included several assumptions about their competitor’s pricing. The team leader asked BA Barry to “secret shop” the competitor to validate the assumptions.

Ghost Writer

BA Beth asked her stakeholders from California, Texas and Arizona to travel to Minnesota for a full-day face-to-face requirements review meeting. The day before the big meeting, the project manager realized that BA Beth’s requirements were a huge mess. The requirements review would be a disaster. So, the PM asked BA Bart to stay late, re-do BA Beth’s requirements, and bring the new and improved requirements document into BA Beth’s meeting.

Translator

BA Brody was fluent in Spanish, so it makes sense that he was asked to review, translate, and validate a 6-months old, 300-page requirements document written in—Portuguese! The business sponsor asked, “Since you are fluent in Spanish it won’t be too hard to translate, right?”

Scapegoat/Peace Negotiator/Psychologist

A crafty project manager tossed BA Ben under the bus when she asked Ben to present a feasibility analysis to an erratic, f-bomb-wielding business owner. The business owner had great vision, but cost and feasibility did not meet his expectations, and the PM did not want to be in the line of fire.
BA Belinda got along well with everyone on her project team. So, naturally, the project manager asked BA Belinda to “figure out” a way to get a notoriously mean and stubborn database engineer to cooperate with the team.
Late one afternoon in mid-October, BA Betty found out she would be laid off at the end of the month. That same day, BA Bill was asked build a relationship with Betty to get the information he needed to take over Betty’s requirements work for a few projects. Obviously, laid-off BA Betty was NOT excited to do the knowledge transfer!

Babysitter

BA Brent was very smart but quite odd. His analysis work was solid, but his social skills were suspect. The team leader asked BA Betsy to help Brent stay focused, to monitor his interactions with the business SMEs and to step in when needed to ensure deadlines were met.

After Hours Snooper

BA Bill worked in a business unit where employees processed checks. Employees were required to secure the checks when they left the office each night. To validate compliance with check procedures, BA Bill was asked to stay late one night to search employee cubicles for unsecured checks.
Important documents were missing from several client files in BA Brenda’s organization. Brenda’s team leader asked her to return to the office after hours and search processing analysts’ desks for the missing documents.

Data Detective

A third-party software vendor refused to provide their data model to their customer. The customer needed the data model to develop requirements and meet the needs of their business. BA Barb, a member of the customer project team, was asked to reverse engineer the vendor data model.

What is it about the BA role that makes us prime targets for these odd assignments? I don’t see project managers or testers or developers wearing these odd hats.

The majority of these unofficial roles rely on our ability to build and maintain relationships with a wide variety of people. Maybe, these odd assignments are a compliment? Perhaps people skills are the primary strength of effective BAs, and these unofficial roles are just a side-effect of our success.

Have you ever taken on one of these odd roles or do you have another unofficial BA role to add to my list? Share your story in the comments below!

Note: This article was originally published on batimes.com on September 14, 2015

Well, I do, and it works really well! I am a therapist that helps business teams and technology teams work together and create meaningful products, services, and systems.

· I help them agree on changes and create a shared understanding.

· I create a process and platform to communicate.

· I make them both feel like they are the ones who came up with the ideas.

· I make conflict seem like a non-issue and create win/wins.

· I present options and alternatives and work through, with the pros and cons.

· And, they pay me an hourly rate to do this!

Here are a few true stories I’ve collected over the years, with names changed to protect those who might be embarrassed by their big, floppy, gaudy, leopard-print hats:

Undercover Agent

· BA Becky was a well-respected senior BA in her organization. The BACoE leader recognized her accomplishments by asking her to mentor a struggling team. The odd part of the assignment—BA Becky was asked to be an undercover mentor—she was not allowed to tell the team she was mentoring them.

· BA Barry was on a project team that needed to create a pricing strategy for the organization’s products. The strategy included several assumptions about their competitor’s pricing. The team leader asked BA Barry to “secret shop” the competitor to validate the assumptions.

Ghost Writer

· BA Beth asked her stakeholders from California, Texas and Arizona to travel to Minnesota for a full-day face-to-face requirements review meeting. The day before the big meeting, the project manager realized that BA Beth’s requirements were a huge mess. The requirements review would be a disaster. So, the PM asked BA Bart to stay late, re-do BA Beth’s requirements, and bring the new and improved requirements document into BA Beth’s meeting.

Translator

· BA Brody was fluent in Spanish, so it makes sense that he was asked to review, translate, and validate a 6-months old, 300-page requirements document written in—Portuguese! The business sponsor asked, “Since you are fluent in Spanish it won’t be too hard to translate, right?”

Scapegoat/Peace Negotiator/Psychologist

· A crafty project manager tossed BA Ben under the bus when she asked Ben to present a feasibility analysis to an erratic, f-bomb-wielding business owner. The business owner had great vision, but cost and feasibility did not meet his expectations, and the PM did not want to be in the line of fire.

· BA Belinda got along well with everyone on her project team. So, naturally, the project manager asked BA Belinda to “figure out” a way to get a notoriously mean and stubborn database engineer to cooperate with the team.

· Late one afternoon in mid-October, BA Betty found out she would be laid off at the end of the month. That same day, BA Bill was asked build a relationship with Betty to get the information he needed to take over Betty’s requirements work for a few projects. Obviously, laid-off BA Betty was NOT excited to do the knowledge transfer!

Babysitter

· BA Brent was very smart but quite odd. His analysis work was solid, but his social skills were suspect. The team leader asked BA Betsy to help Brent stay focused, to monitor his interactions with the business SMEs and to step in when needed to ensure deadlines were met.

After Hours Snooper

· BA Bill worked in a business unit where employees processed checks. Employees were required to secure the checks when they left the office each night. To validate compliance with check procedures, BA Bill was asked to stay late one night to search employee cubicles for unsecured checks.

· Important documents were missing from several client files in BA Brenda’s organization. Brenda’s team leader asked her to return to the office after hours and search processing analysts’ desks for the missing documents.

Data Detective

· A third-party software vendor refused to provide their data model to their customer. The customer needed the data model to develop requirements and meet the needs of their business. BA Barb, a member of the customer project team, was asked to reverse engineer the vendor data model.

What is it about the BA role that makes us prime targets for these odd assignments? I don’t see project managers or testers or developers wearing these odd hats.

Have you ever taken on one of these odd roles or do you have another unofficial BA role to add to my list? Share your story in the comments below!

21st Century BA: How to Become a Business Technologist

Written by Kathleen B. Hass, PMP on June 30, 2016. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on 21st Century BA: How to Become a Business Technologist

In the 21st century, all businesses are technology companies. To survive in the global economy, indeed to thrive, world-class, agile and flexible technology is a necessity.

Without it, organizations cannot cope with the ever-changing competitive environment. Competition is fierce, and an organization’s competitive advantage is always at risk. In addition, the business environment is stunningly complex. Innovation is a precondition to survival. Technology advances are coming fast and furiously. Organizations are struggling to find the talent needed to drive changes to the business and the technology to achieve and sustain competitive advantage.

WE NEED TO CHANGE OUR PERSPECTIVE

The business analysis discipline needs to elevate its thinking, discarding the notion that requirements management is the most important task at hand. That is a very narrow, and frankly doomed view of the scope of business analysis. As enterprise BAs, striving to fill the role of Business Technologists, we are adopting a core enterprise perspective that is driven by the need for business/technology investments to create optimal business benefits in terms of value to customers and wealth to the bottom line.

WE NEED A HOLISTIC VIEW OF THE BUSINESS AND THE TECHNOLOGY

The effective Enterprise BA/Business Technologist thinks big. Thinks strategically. Thinks holistically. Thinks about the customer. Understands that the business and technology components of the organization are part of an ecosystem that is always changing and adapting to variations in the competitive environment and transformations in technology, resulting in requisite changes to business processes, technology, products, and services. While there is no technology that is the silver bullet, we continue to seek out technical products and technical managers to solve all of our problems.

There is no single silver bullet. It’s about being able to identify technologies, understand their implications, combine them in an effective way, and make intelligent decisions in employing them, creating a set of operational processes and organizational structures to surround them, which is a much harder thing than simply investing in one technology versus another.

… We need technologists who understand more in the way of the economic analysis and business strategy. I would also suggest we need technologists who are more integrative problem solvers, which is to say we need technologists who can solve problems across multiple technology domains, and across business and technology domains.

James Kaplan, Principal at McKinsey&Companyⁱ

WE NEED TO GROW UP FAST

An IBM CEO study as long ago as 2010 identified complexity as the biggest challenge, and creativity as the most important skill that is needed to understand and manage complexityⁱⁱ. They went on to say, they have not groomed creative leaders from within, and they can’t find the talent they need through traditional staffing activities. Conventional project roles are changing. The EBA focus is now on strategy, innovation, and value vs. requirements management. The PM focus is now on complexity management vs. project management. However, companies can’t find these types of BAs/PMs – critical thinkers with the ability to:

Adapt, invent, and re-invent
Collaborate, create, and innovate
Leverage complexity to compete.

The business analysis discipline, and therefore the effective business technologist, needs to quickly attain breakthrough skills and competencies – en masse. The need is urgent. Realizing that there is so much innovation in technology today, no organization can know all about the different technology domains that are emerging. Therefore, creativity, problem solving and integration skills become much more important that any specific knowledge about a technical domain such as cyber cybersecurity, cloud computing, or big data. To fill the void, organizations that rely heavily on technology such as banks, insurance companies, and healthcare companies are starting to recruit from within and from outside in the high-tech industry. They are seeking out individuals with a broad set of skills, individuals who have the ability to span business and technology domains, who have experience in integrative problem solving.

Staffing and career development operatives are responding to the need. Companies are seeking out internal and external managers and high performers who are willing to move between different parts of an IT organization as they progress. Some business managers are also moving from the business into selected roles in technology organizations in order to infuse more business acumen into the IT management staff. We need innovation in the world of training for business and IT professionals. Instead of focusing on technical disciplines, Kaplan urges us to foster what he calls first-principles technology problem solving or cross-domain integrative-technology problem solvingⁱⁱⁱ.

ELEVATE YOUR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT APPROACH

For the individual BA who is looking to elevate their career and status in their organizations, it’s time to modernize your career development approach. Get your hands around a new attitude about your professional development. Build strategy-focused, value-based thinking into your advancement plans.

SEEK OUT NEW ROLES

21st Century EBAs/BTs are bold and courageous. They search for new roles and new challenges to broaden and deepen their experience, knowledge, and expertise. They put themselves in positions with high visibility where the action is. They thrive when working collaboratively with other experts in uncertainty and ambiguity. People in the business and in IT seek them out, asking for them to be on their teams.

LEAD THROUGH CONNECTIONS

The 21st Century is all about connections. In the global world of business complexity, it takes a high functioning team of experts to negotiate the business and technical complexities. So, perhaps your most critical capability is to bring together a group of experts (first get the right people in the room!), and then create an environment where it is safe to experiment, suggest off-the-wall ideas, challenge and build on each other’s ideas; then rapidly test ideas to determine viability^iv.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN TO THOSE AT THE TOP OF THE BA FOOD CHAIN?

There are many things you can do to accelerate your transition to an enterprise, strategically focused business technologist. Review the suggestions in this article. Get yourself out there. Promote yourself and your project successes.

The next few articles will explore other roles for the enterprise BA, as well as business and technical domains that are undergoing significant transformations.

i Becoming a Better Business Technologist, May 2016. McKinsey and Company. Online at http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/business-technology/our-insights/becoming-a-better-business-technologist.
ii Capitalizing on Complexity, Insights from the 2010 IBM Global CEO Study. Online at: http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/ceo/ceostudy2010/multimedia.html
iii Becoming a Better Business Technologist, May 2016. McKinsey and Company. Online at http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/business-technology/our-insights/becoming-a-better-business-technologist.
iv Leading Through Connections, Insights from the 2012 IBM Global CEO Study (www.ibm.com/services/us/en/c-suite/ceostudy2012/‎