Business analysts are rarely allowed enough time to elicit, analyze, and confirm requirements. Why? One reason may be that we don't ask for it. An important BA skill is the ability to accurately estimate the amount of time required to perform analysis work and be able to explain and justify it to project managers and sponsors. Often they don't know why requirements take so long to "gather" because the word "gather" implies a BA with an Easter basket walking along the grass scooping up brightly colored eggs! It looks so easy!!
The best way to request and receive enough time is to build your case. You must be able to explain to the sponsor what you will be doing during that time and why your work is important. My suggestion is that you develop estimates by breaking tasks down into very small pieces. The smaller the task, the easier and more accurate the estimate. This detail also helps you justify the time. Let me give a small example - if one of my requirements deliverables is a Use Case diagram my task list might be:
Review project initiation documentation and draft UC Diagram 3 hours
Schedule stakeholder meeting (find room, call participants, prepare agenda) 1 hour
Conduct stakeholder meeting (present draft UC, get revisions) 2 hours
Revise UC diagram based on meeting 1 hour
Consult with IT architect to confirm feasibility 1 hour
Schedule review meetings with key stakeholders 2 hours
Conduct review meetings and ask for approval of UC Diagram 4 hours
By listing everything that you will have to do (including setting up meetings, etc) you will get an accurate picture of the time required. Remember these are work times - not lapse time. This is the amount of time that you would need if you were not working on ANYTHING else. Be sure to built in reviews and revisions as they will always be necessary. The less confident you are about the expected outcome of elicitation meetings, the more reviews/revisions cycles you should build it. Once you estimate, keep track of your actual work time so that you can learn and estimate even more accurately in the future. Take a look at our new course: Developing a Business Analysis Work Plan for more information.
February 26th, 2008 at 6:52 am
Barbara What do you think is more important; estimating work time or elapse time? Also a bottom up estimating process is best as it allows for a total quality approach to requirements (the way things should be) but what about when someone hires you and says you have two weeks… By the way we are midway through a series of posts on ime tracking at www.betterprojects.net right now. Come and have a look. We'd love to hear your thoughts.
February 27th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
[…] Estimating the Analysis Process February 27, 2008 12:01 pm — Rob Meyer So it’s clear to me that I’m coming at business analysis from a different place than a lot of people. That is very obvious when I catch articles like this one on Estimating Analysis Time from the Business Analyst Blog. An important BA skill is the ability to accurately estimate the amount of time required to perform analysis work and be able to explain and justify it to project managers and sponsors. […]
February 29th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Craig,
I like to estimate work time. Elapse time requires you to know all of the other things that may get in your way and is much less reliable. The important thing about work time is for everyone to understand that it is the amount of time needed if you weren’t working on ANYTHING else! Most project managers ask for work time and then schedule their project resources for 6 work hours per 8 hour day. This allows time for non-project meetings, breaks, other ongoing assignments, etc.
I looked at your discussion on time tracking and enjoyed it. Keep up the good work!
Barb
May 24th, 2008 at 6:57 am
Thanks
Interesting perspective on which type of time to track. The PM may care about effort, but only so far as you can fiot the work in to available time.
Once they start scheduling various workstream and committing to deadlnes they then get more focused on when you can complete the task, right?
I guess cost management and capability are the priorities at first but once you are underway you have to make deadlines so subsequent tasks can get started.