I was talking with a business analyst at the Boston Business Analyst World conference. She asked if we offer any training on how BAs should navigate the politics in their organizations. She was facing a situation where the IT group disagreed with a business unit request but she was a paid consultant, hired by IT!
Although dealing with office politics is necessary for many professions, BAs face some unique challenges, often driven by where they officially “report” in the organization.
Many BAs “report to” or “reside in” IT. This means that they are paid out of the IT budget and evaluated by IT management. Promotions and assignments to plum projects are controlled by IT (you see where I am going with this!). As BUSINESS analysts we are tasked with representing the business to the IT group. We are supposed to be advocates for the business. But what happens when the business disagrees with an IT decision or direction? Guess who is stuck in the middle? The BA. All of our talk of being a bridge or a liaison can be destroyed by an organizational structure that makes the BA’s career progression at odds with the best interest of the business. Of course there are also issues when the BA “reports to” the business unit (I’ll save that for another day.) Ideally BAs would be an independent group and could truly act as liaisons. Analogous to the PMO (project management office), a Business Analyst Office or Center for Excellence may eventually help us with these conflicts. The recent Gartner report on business analysis placement also defines a hybrid model where there are BAs in IT and in the business units.
In the meanwhile, a business analyst must represent all of his or her stakeholders as fully as possible and work to resolve conflicts through communication and consensus building. We may have to walk a fine line between representing business stakeholders while not alienating our management. Thank goodness that we are excellent communicators and listeners. Sometimes simply listening and asking questions help disparate groups to come to a common vision.
December 1st, 2006 at 7:23 am
[…] Many organizations employ Business Analysts who act as a liaison between the business stakeholders and the IT. Business Analysts play a crucial role in organizations, and are typically at the center of the usual organization politics between IT & the Business. […]
December 1st, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Thanks for your comment. I agree that the IIBA BA BOK needs more emphasis on business rules. I would encourage you to give that feedback to the IIBA at www.theiiba.org
Setting industry standards for a new profession is very difficult. The best way for them to develop accurately is for lots of professionals to contribute.
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:52 pm
The eruption of much cliched phrase “organizational politics” is a norm in the vocabulary and perception of BA and IT groups in organizations. I have witnessed, experienced and tackled this notion several times during my seven year old BA career.
Honestly speaking, I love the business users for whom I try to propose a solution. Afterall, I get to spend so many hours with them during typical inception phase(s) of project(s) while undertsanding, analyzing, modeling and verifying their needs which I then translate into formal requirement defintion. I get to go out for lunch(es) with them and share an occasional ride back home. When I witness an imbroglio centered around “Organizational politics”, I am obliged to walk a fine line between the business and IT(as Barbara opines in her note).
Should a stalemate crop up between the two teams over requirement-based issue(s), I prefer to demonstrate an alternate way of working to the business users by using low-fidelity paper prototypes that mimic their way of working but does not constraint my IT group into using a system development methodology, application development tool or a testing tool. If I perceive that the IT team is having a tough time pulling resources and wants to avoid over-straining the already starined developers and QA teams, I usually try to buy some time from the main stakeholder(s) representing the business user community by contemplating over the priority of the requested feature(s). Some times we are able to negotiate by moving down the requested feature in terms of its priority. Yet other times, I choose to give a brief status update to the main stakeholder(s) in the business user group around the “critical” requirements that my IT team is currently working upon and demonstrate the business value(s) that would abound once those requirements are delivered.
I understand that this tight rope walking can be daunting at times, but then as all of us would vouch for the dictum “Thou shall not be faint-hearted” .