I attended the Project Summit/BA World in Boston this week. Once again it was great to be with so many individuals who understand the importance of business analysis work. Most of the same challenges that we have been talking about for a couple of years still plague organizations: lack of understanding of the roles of PM and BA; not enough time allowed for analysis and requirements development; difficulty getting time commitments from business stakeholders; and lack of authority and career growth opportunities for business analysis positions. Although many people still say “users don’t know what they want,” more and more people are recognizing that business analysis work is the key to helping users understand what they need and how best to solve their business problems.
I spoke with a few forward thinking managers who see the BA role as one that will improve our organizations significantly. They talked about the role of the business analyst being the person who looks at the project within the context of the big picture. BAs ask the ”why” question before diving into a project and want to make sure that the project result will be in alignment with the organizational goals. This broader perspective is one that PMs sometimes do not have. They are given a project and work to get it done. The BA is the person who raises the red flag when the objectives of the project seem outside of the enterprise objectives or don’t make good business sense. A business analyst who sees the “forest” and the “trees” is a very valuable resource whose expertise and skill set are really coming into the fore front of many organizations.
Even though development tools and techniques have improved drastically I still hear from corporate application users that the systems their IT department built or purchased for them lack usability. We all know that projects are still failing or challenged based on the triple constraint (Time, Budget, Scope). I wonder if the addition of a fourth element, usability, would put more numbers in the failed category. Teams often claim all the features were delivered. True, but if ease of use is missing was the feature really successfully delivered?
Would Apple profit as much if they did not incorporate usability requirements and testing in their iPod and iPhone product development? Let me answer that for you. No! Successful companies around the world conduct focus groups and usability testing to help differentiate their products from their competition.
At our last IIBA meeting in Atlanta, the speaker, Dave Altman, asked how many people work in an environment where there is a usability lab or any usability activities taking place. 1 person out of 40 raised their hands. These 40 people represented 10-15 large companies in the Atlanta area. As IT professionals why are we not focusing more on this important step? In my opinion money and time is wasted if we implement solutions that lack usability even if the triple constraint is met.
There is a lot of talk lately on why business and IT are disconnected. Most of the talk is around aligning strategies which I believe is the first step. Provide usable solutions and you’ll see that gap shrink even more.
As BAs and UX professionals we need to push for more time and money for usability testing. It is our job to help provide workable solutions to meet the business need.
