When I was a young buck I could not beat this one kid on the block in a 100 yard dash. I was convinced it was my worn out shoes causing me to lose time and time again. I pleaded and begged my parents to buy me a new pair of sneakers for weeks. Eventually they gave in. I got the pair I needed to take down the champ. As soon as we got home, I ran out into the street and lined up for the big race. Guess what, I lost. That is when I figured out it was not the shoes.
So how does this relate to business analysis? Like shoes I now put less emphasis on the title business analyst. Is someone with the title of business analyst excellent in the tasks and techniques required of business analysis. Not necessarily. We should not focus on the title as much as the role. Every successful project team does not need a business analyst, but they better be doing business analysis.
Agree or disagree? Have something to add? Please share.
March 12th, 2008 at 2:34 am
What I feel is, any one who has a strong accumen towards analytical thinking with an attitude of Good Listening skills can add value in terms of business analysis. Not necessarily you need to be titled as a BA to actualy perform Business Analysis. The value you add to a project in terms of long run benefit to the customer can readily prove that some sort of Business understanding exists among the project team members.
Thanks,
Ganesh
March 12th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Bingo! That is exactly what I am talking about Ganesh. Thanks for commenting.
March 29th, 2008 at 11:27 am
In my observation, the critical success factor is all about being a strategic and systematic thinker of innovative solution design. Tittles mean nothing, rank is something we all wear, and respect is something that must be earned to connect all the dots. At the end of the day it is about people, process, and technology in this order. Get these items out of order and you will have project failure with the J-curve. Too many expect the hockey stick curve in business analysis.
“You have to see patterns, relationships, and processes and how they all fit together.” — Leonardo da Vinci
As B.C. Forbes once said, “The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.” This statement holds marvelous truth when the person is performing business analysis no matter what the title of the person is or what type of shoes the stakeholder is wearing.
Best…Steve
May 8th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
analytical thinking with a good ear are great. one must also give consideration to “KIS” Keep it simple. Too often BA’s pay attention to the people who propose complex (intelligent sounding) solutions. Way too often, they use their analytical thinking to implement the newest, and (often mistaken as) greatest technologies. Compare that to a doctor. Some prescribe medicine that have been tested for 10 yrs. Their benefits and side effects, well known. Others who prescribe the newest drug invented. How many new drugs get later pulled out of the market, due to their side effects… Phenphen? remember anyone?
By no means am I suggesting that old technologies are better. How many websites have we seen, that dont just make it, even though they use the latest of the web technologies. Yet we can learn from simple pages of Amazon.com, Ebay.com, for that even Google.com
As a BA, I always look for opportunities where “keeping it simple” is respected.
Shawn Debbad
Business Analyst/Systems Analyst
khalikrishna@yahoo.com
June 11th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I am not sure where you are going here. For any project I think that it is important to have clear cut description of people roles or title. I think analysis is time consuming task and requires considerable amount of time and effort. So if you have a dedicated person doing a business analyst role, you would not like to say that he is the project BA? I think BA is not just a title . It determines who is playing a role of doing analysis. So if a programmer is doing the business anlalysis for the project then he has to be the project BA/ programmer!
June 15th, 2008 at 4:56 am
Yes, the team should come together to make sure roles are clear. This sums it up. To me it is not important if no one has the official title of BA.
I think we are saying the same thing. I am just saying having someone with an official HR title of Business Analyst is not as important as making sure someone on the team is doing business analysis. In your example the persons title is Sr. programmer, developer, etc.