The Past, Present and Future of the BA Profession

The Past, Present, and Future of Business Analysis
The Journey to Professional Excellence2009

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Introduction
Kevin Brennan, cbap®
V.P. Professional Development, IIBA®
Responsible for
IIBA® Standards (BABOK® Guide and Extensions)
EEP™ Program
IIBA Community Network
Career Centre
Delivering PD Opportunities to IIBA® Members
BA Experience
Over 10 years as a business analyst
Has used many different methodologies and worked in several industries
© International Institute of Business Analysis

What we will talk about today
What is a business analyst
What do they do?
What do they need to know?
What is the state of the BA profession today?
Why must BAs improve?
Impact of bad business analysis?
What is the future of the profession?
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© International Institute of Business Analysis®

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Vision and Mission
Vision
The world's leading association for
Business Analysis professionals
Develop and maintain standards for the practice of business analysis and for the certification of its practitioners
Mission
IIBA® is an international not-for-profit professional association for business analysis professionals.

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IIBA® Goals
Strategic Goals
Create and develop awareness and recognition of the value and contribution of the role of the Business Analysis Professional
Define the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® (BABOK®)
Publicly recognize qualified practitioners through an internationally acknowledged certification program
Provide a forum for knowledge sharing
Operational Goals
Ensure the long term viability of the organization
Enable sustainable growth to support the establishment of the IIBA® as a worldwide organization
Ensure financial viability to support the implementation and sustainment of the IIBA® operational and strategic priorities
Consistently demonstrate value of the organization to IIBA ® constituents

Defining a Profession
What do business analysts do?
What is the BABOK® Guide?
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Defining Business Analysis
“Business Analysis is the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies, and operations of an organization, and recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.”
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© International Institute of Business Analysis™

Less formally…
Business Analysis involves analyzing a business
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Orgs need self-awareness
“Organizational effectiveness does not lie in that narrow minded concept called rationality. It lies in the blend of clearheaded logic and powerful intuition.”
Henry Mintzberg
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Source: © Mary Harrsch, used under CC BY-NC-SA

Value of Business Analysis
It is about understanding:
How an organization works
Why the organization exists
What are its goals and objectives
How it accomplishes those objectives
How it needs to change to better accomplish objectives or to meet new challenges
It is about meeting business needs.
It is about ensuring investment in the right solutions.
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Business Analysis Body of Knowledge®
Version 2

Identifies currently accepted practices
Recognizes business analysis is not synonymous with software requirements
Defined & enhanced by the professionals who apply it
Captures the sum of the knowledge required for the practice of business analysis as a profession

The set of tasks, knowledge, & techniques required to identify business needs & determine solutions to business problems.
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BA Planning & Monitoring
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Elicitation
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Requirements Mgt. & Comm.
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Enterprise Analysis Structure
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Req’ts Analysis Structure
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SA&V Structure
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Underlying Competencies
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Techniques
BABOK Guide lists the most commonly used BA techniques
34 given detailed treatment
Many more mentioned briefly
All are used occasionally by a majority of BAs
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Core Business Model
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How do we know this is right?
IIBA followed the same process as used to develop ISO standards
Developed over 4½ years with multiple public reviews
Extensive input from industry experts
Backed up by surveys of over 1000 BAs
“Generally accepted” practice
Methodology-neutral
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Business Analysis Today
What is the value of business analysis?
How are companies using BAs?
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Constant Growth in IT Costs
Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
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Projects: Riddled with Complexity
A Legacy of Complexity
Complex business environment
Multiple, inflexible systems functioning together
Unproven technology
Multiple products from diverse vendors
Complex project teams
Political sensitivity
Complex organizational structure
Coupled with Constantly Emerging New Trends
IT Alignment
Adaptive approaches
Agile development
Incremental delivery
Complexity-reducing design techniques
Limit interrelationships of system components
Solution design tools
New technologies
SOA, BPM, Web 2.0, SaaS
Requirements Mgt, Auto Test Tools
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IT Project Performance
Nearly 2/3 of IT projects fail or are challenged
What Measure is Missing?
Source: The Standish Group Project Resolution History
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What the Experts Say
Meta Group Research
“Communication challenges between business teams and technologists are chronic - we estimate that 60%-80% of project failures can be attributed directly to poor requirements gathering, analysis, and management.”
Forrester Research
“Poorly defined applications have led to a persistent miscommunication between business and IT that largely contributes to a 66% project failure rate for these applications, costing U.S. businesses at least $30B every year.”
James Martin
“56% of defects can be attributed to requirements, and 82% of the effort to fix defects.”
> 41% of new development resources are consumed on unnecessary or poorly specified requirements
Source: Keith Ellis, Business Analysis Benchmark Study, The Impact of Business Requirements on the Success of Technology Projects, IAG Consulting, 2008
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Root Cause: Quality of BA Work
Poor Requirements
Questionable Strategic Alignment
Inadequate Business Case
Deficient Practices
System vs. Business Specs
Business Benefits not Measured
Business Need
Not Met
Lost Opportunity
Inadequate Tools
Ineffective Prioritization and Resource Allocation
Inadequate Business Involvement
Inadequate Focus on Business
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If 40% of work is fixing errors
In 2008 alone,
$82.9 billion
$207,300 per BA
or
Enough to cure world hunger
(Estimated annual investment required worldwide, UN FAO, 8 Oct 2009)
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Actually it’s probably worse…
Stats are U.S. only
Doesn’t take into consideration:
Opportunity costs
Requirements that failed to deliver full potential benefit
Non-IT related requirements errors
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We Can Do Better
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Source: IAG Business Analysis Benchmark - 2009

Our Challenge:Close the Gap in BA Capabilities
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“Off Balance”
Without clarity in the Business Analyst role:

Focus on technology instead of the business
Rush to code/build
Insufficient customer involvement
Deficient requirements practices and tools
Not measuring business benefits

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Typical BA
40 years old
Well educated
Hails from IT
> 5 years BA experience
Analysis skills acquired on the job
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Sources: Recession in America July 17, 2008, Business Week http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2008/tc20080717_842379.htm. The New Business Analyst: A Strategic Role in the Enterprise, November 2006 Evans Data Corporation Research Study

Importance of Specialist Skills
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Source: Forrester/IIBA Survey, 2009.

Must Use Wide Range of Skills
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Source: IIBA Survey, 2008

Change Still Needed
We know what to do, but don’t do it
BAs believe that all aspects of role as defined in BABOK are important
BAs spend most actual work time on elicitation and specification
EA, SA&V known to be important but are still not being done
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The Future of Business Analysis
How is the BA role changing?
How will BAs adapt to new technology?
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Business & Business Analysis
Business
Developing, packaging, and selling products and services to customers to generate revenue
Business Analysis
Identifying and articulating the need for change, and facilitating that change
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The New Reality
20th Century
It’s about the technology
“If the business would just give us the requirements, we could build a custom solution”
or
“If we build it, they will use it and love it”
21st Century
It’s about the business
Architect the future state of the business when our strategy has been executed
Identify gaps in capabilities needed to achieve future state
Conduct feasibility analysis for best solution to fill gaps
Build and continually validate the business case
Elicit , analyze, evolve, iterate, validate requirements/solution
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How does BA Add Value?
Benefits of BA
Realization of Benefits
Avoidance of Cost
Identification of New Opportunities
Understanding of Needed Capabilities
Modeling the Organization
Models are useful for:
Communication
Training
Persuasion
Analysis
Compliance
Software Requirements
Direct Execution
KM and Reuse
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The Opportunity
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Organization Need for BAs = (maturity, size, diversity)
MATURITY
SIZE
DIVERSITY
Number of Product Lines
Marketplace Uniformity
Number of Employees
Geographic Dispersion
Age of
Product Lines Marketplace Stability
Competition

Multiple product lines may require a combination of generalists and highly specialized individuals
Highly specialized industries or niche markets will require specialists
Established product lines & stable markets require limited business analysis
Competitive and developing markets have a critical need for highly experienced generalists and specialists in the competency domain (e.g., strategic, marketplace analysis)
Larger organizations can support higher levels of specialization
Smaller organizations may be more dependent on generalists and hybrid BAs (i.e., possess knowledge across multiple professional domains)

Forces changing the BA role
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Four Stages of EA
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Source: Enterprise Architecture as Strategy, Harvard Business Press.

Implications for BA
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Specialist BAs Will Be In Demand
More companies will move to stages 3, 4, and beyond
Generalist, project-oriented BA will remain but not be alone
Top talent will gravitate to successful companies
Other roles than these will likely emerge
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Focus and Orientation Change
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Getting it Right
Three key stakeholders are needed to get it right.
Business Leaders
Managers of Business Analysts
Business Analysts
Together, you create an effect-ive management environment and community of practice
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Business Leaders
Represent the Vision of the organization to Managers and BAs
Empower your people to act
Reward innovation – even if it fails
Recognize that your success depends on your employee’s success
Walk the walk - Formalize the role
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If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Managers of BAs
Support the role of the BA
Formalize the role
Identify and fund training
Establish a community of practice
“Lead from the side”
Step forward, to protect the team
Step back, to give the team the credit
Step aside, to let them do their jobs
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Unless commitments are made there are onlypromises and hopes… but no plans.
Peter Drucker

Business Analysts
Be assertive, not an order taker
Deliver on the Vision
Keep the goal at the forefront
Solutions, not documents
Performance, not perfection
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It’s not strongest of the species that survive, or the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
Charles Darwin

Contact Information
Kevin Brennan, cbap
kevin.brennan@theiiba.org
Twitter: @bainsight
Get this presentation at
http://bit.ly/BRFIIBA
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