Business Analyst Blog

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. 

I presented a webinar for Catalyze (www.mycatalyze.org) on February 14th entitled Designing a Sure-Fire Stakeholder Strategy. The presentation touched on the importance of business analysis planning, specifically planning for stakeholder communications. We had 150 attendees and I was not able to answer all of the questions that were submitted. I will answer the remaining questions in upcoming blog posts.

How do I manage a stakeholder that changes his mind and these changes cause large amounts of re-work. Any rules of thumb such as an extra 20% longer?

Great question. When we are planning and thinking about how best to communicate with our stakeholders we need to consider each stakeholder's ability to provide requirements in a timely fashion. This includes considering stakeholders who may tell us one thing one day and something different the next. If you are fortunate enough to have personal experience with your stakeholders than you can plan for their individual idiosyncrasies (this is not a judgemental statement, we all have some percular ways of thinking and communicating!). If you don't personally know a stakeholder, try to find someone who does. Ask questions informally to get a feel for the person's style.

When building your task list and estimates, you should not explicitly say that you need more time with John because he changes his mind frequently, but you might build in more formal reviews and re-reviews with that particular stakeholder because you know this issue will come up. You also should alert the project manager that when dependencies are built into the project plan - beware that dependencies on John may be risky. The PM can also plan better with this knowledge.

We don't always get the dream stakeholders - the people who are always availabile when you need them, always patient when explaining their needs, and always sure about what they want. We have to learn to plan for and work with whoever our stakeholders are and remember than variety is the spice of life. If all stakeholers could clearly articulate their needs, there would be no need for a business analyst!

We, B2T, often get career advice questions coming in to our blog.  They mostly relate specifically on how to enter the BA profession and advance once in it.  I thought you all would be interested in an article I just read, "It Worked For Me: Career Advice from Top CIOs" by Martha Heller on CIO.com. 

CIOs from FedEX, Campbell's Soup and more talk about the best career advice they received.  The theme is about taking risks and stepping outside your comfort zone.  This is great advice whether you want to be a BA, CIO, Musician or circus clown. 

 I'd love to hear your feedback after you read the article.

In today’s uncertain economic times businesses, governments, and non-profits around the globe are trying to maximize their efforts, develop innovative opportunities, and overcome difficult challenges. During this economic slump in the US some organizations are disappearing because they cannot keep up with their competition or their business costs. Businesses are looking hard at all their organizations, their processes, their information, and their policies to examine what can be reorganized, retooled, reengineered, and streamlined. Their goals are typically to slash costs, increase productivity, and increase value in their market place. One strategic tool that is tied integrally with all business opportunities and challenges is developing new technology. Management wants it done yesterday, cheaper, faster, better. Business analysis professionals need to make intelligent decisions. In our "do it now culture," let’s not throw out what we have learned over the past 30 years about software development.

Over the years developing software has often been compared to building homes. Much of the analogy works, but building software is more dynamic than building most homes where plans remain more fixed. Builders generally do not pull out all the dry wall or redo the electrical wiring from scratch because a requirement was missed. Unless something really bad is involved, homes rarely get leveled and started over. Can we say the same about software? Unfortunately not. Many software projects get scrapped on a daily basis and started over. So much time and money out the door. Failed projects make it hard to compete, and hence the need for intelligent business analysis. This leads me to repeat a mantra of several practices that I know to be essential and independent of any industry, project, or software methodology.

1. Get organized with a purpose and a plan.
2. Know your business.
3. Develop solutions iteratively.
4. Communicate clearly and frequently with stakeholders.
5. Acknowledge your lessons learned and repeat again!

More about each of these practices in the business analysis world in future blog entries.

When I was in South Africa last fall, a systems engineer told me about an organization called INCOSE. I was not familiar with it but he told me that they had many of the same goals as the IIBA so I decided to take a look.

 Some information from their web site (http://www.incose.org/):

The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) is a not-for-profit membership organization founded to develop and disseminate the interdisciplinary principles and practices that enable the realization of successful systems.

Mission
Advance the state of the art and practice of systems engineering in industry, academia, and government by promoting interdisciplinary, scalable approaches to produce technologically appropriate solutions that meet societal needs.

This organization was founded in 1990 and has over 5000 members worldwide. They have numerous chapters, a body of knowledge and a certification program. I reviewed the body of knowledge (G2SEbok) and it contains many of the same topics as the BABOK.

So the question is "What is the difference between a BA and a Systems Engineer?"

2008 promises to be a great year for business analysis! We have finally hit our stride - lots of people in our companies are beginning to understand what we do and the value that we bring to the organization. The IIBA has certified over 200 CBAPs in it's first year and is working to make the exam more accessible for everyone.

And there are suddenly many training, consulting, and software companies who now actively advertise their business analysis products. They have all recognized what we have known for years - business analysts are smart, focused, creative, and enthusiastic about helping their business run smoother and be more successful. Maybe we should declare 2008 The Year of the BA!!

You wouldn't seek treatment from an orthopedic doctor for heart surgery. So why would you want business analysis training from a provider who specializes in project management?

We understand that business analysis is a role comprised of a broad range of skills that can only be learned from an expert specializing in the area. Some see business analysis as just an extension of project management with the addition of requirements gathering. Most of those individuals or companies don't truly understand the complexity of the BA role or its value to the organization.

While there appear to be some similarities between these two roles, their underlying detailed tasks are uniquely different.  For example, scoping is performed by the PM and BA, but for very different reasons and deliverables. The PM delivers a project charter which defines the project, the objectives, and a list of project participants including resources. The BA delivers a project scope which defines the boundaries of what is going to be analyzed as part of the project including high-level processes and a more detailed analysis of the root cause of the problem being addressed.  Overall, the roles have a different function. The PM is ultimately responsible for the project completion, its budget, resources, and a timely completion. The BA is responsible for fully understanding the business problem and providing complete analysis to ensure that the solution best meets the needs of the business. These roles have completely different focuses requiring unique training for each role.

The more analysis tools a BA masters, the more valuable he will be to the organization. Look to those who can truly help you master business analysis skills. Specialized business analysis training can help improve your analysis skills in areas such as critical thinking skills, root cause analysis, process analysis, and data analysis. Training provides a forum to fine tune your ability to widen the breadth of questioning and your ability to listen for true causes of the problems, not just symptoms. It also increases your agility in being flexible to work on many types of projects and become a critical resource to your organization.

B2T Training focuses on providing only business analysis training. Our instructors are seasoned business analysts who are passionate about the complexity and uniqueness of business analysis.

After recently attending a couple of conferences with business analysts and project managers, I noticed a common theme about the topics presented this year. Many speakers devoted their energies to discussing the importance and complexity of effective project communication. This topic was articulated in a number of presentation topics such as: how to work with virtual teams, how to manage stakeholders, how to elicit business requirements, how the BA and PM can work in harmony, sure-fire stakeholder strategy, how to leverage your emotional intelligence, communicate, communicate, communicate, how to understand stakeholder needs etc. The topics were each different but had common threads that highlighted the need to focus on improving our soft skills to better understand the individuals we work with on our projects. The goal to achieve excellent project results begins when we know how to build good relationships with fellow team members and stakeholders through careful listening skills and attention to diverse personal styles. This topic is popular because so many of us still struggle to handle communication successfully. How formally you need to communicate, which media to use and how often to communicate varies from project to project.  When you have a new set of stakeholders their attitudes, location, influence, culture and preferences should influence how you can best communicate.

Business analysts are able to adapt their communication style to their audience to effectively communicate requirements. We often say that business analysis is part science and part art. The science focuses on hard skills such as learning different analysis tools and techniques such as data modeling, scoping a project, context diagrams, work flow diagrams, process maps, use cases, etc. The art is the soft skills which include communication, facilitation, conflict management, persuasion and negotiation, leadership, etc. These skills are sometimes thought to be easy to master.  Often overlooked are the clues about stakeholder personal styles and preferences that could help us to develop closer relationships with our project stakeholders. Business analysts who plan for stakeholders’ diverse needs and concerns are likely to communicate more effectively than those who do not.

I remember I once had a very tough sponsor whose calendar was always full until I realized she and I shared some similar personal hobbies. We both loved snorkeling around the world in locations where there are beautiful, tropical sea life and coral reefs. As soon as I noticed an underwater photograph in her office, we established this kinship and she suddenly became so much easier to work with and talk with. We became friends. It is these small details that bind us together. We all have more in common than we have differences. Finding those familiar connections helps build satisfying relationships that last long after the project has ended.

How difficult are the soft skills for you? Is this an area where you think you need more experience or more tips? Do you have any tips to share for successful communication? Tell us a good story about a communication challenge you had and how you overcame it with a soft skill technique that our readers can learn from.

For more on this subject please see the bridge – Fall issue 2007.

Over the last few months I have been in more discussions than I can count about the role of the business analyst, project manager vs. business analyst, where the business analyst fits in on an agile team, and which roles are needed to make a successful team.  They have been wonderful passionate conversations.  With each discussion I kept coming back to the same conclusion…it's all about teamwork. 

When I look back at what made some projects challenged and others widely successful it came down to all team members doing what was needed to reach the goal regardless of their role.  I don't know about you, but I never had the luxury of the having the best in class PM, BA, development team, and QA analyst.  Since that was the case my most successful teams would discuss what needed to be done (tasks) to accomplish our goal and who on the team was the best person to complete or assist with that task.  I would say 85-90% of everyone's tasks fell in line with their role.  The other 10-15% was filled with tasks that individuals were more qualified to accomplish.  This 10-15% is what made those teams great.  When team members have the attitude of "what can I do to help the team" you'll have more success.  Chances of failure increase when team members bring an attitude of "that task is not in my job description."

This point was illustrated beautifully by Lee Scott and Dawn Solem of VSP in their presentation Business Analyst & Project Manager - The Strategic Partnership to Project Success at the PW & WCBA conference in Anaheim last month.  Thank you Lee and Dawn.

Defining roles have its place, but to be a successful team you have to figure out how to use everyone's expertise and skills regardless of roles. 

Please add your thoughts and comments!  

I wanted to share a great presentation from the Project World and World Congress for Business Analysts conference in Anaheim this month. Russ Pena from Sun Trust presented their professional development framework. His organization has recognized the importance of the business analyst role and built a career path with 4 capability levels. Each level has a unique title and describes how much supervision would be needed at the level along with the typical type of work done by each BA. The levels are intermediate, advanced, lead and expert. The organization encourages employees to plan for and build their own career goals and gives them direction and support. The BAs are in the IT organization which has recognized the importance of consistency in job roles and expectations.

 It was great to see an organization embracing our profession and investing in our future!

Click here for the presentation: Implementing a Professional Development Framework