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Business Analyst the pivotal role of the future
1. The Business Analyst The Pivotal IT Role of the Future Presented by: Kathleen B. (Kitty) Hass, PMP Project Management and Business Analysis Practice Leader [email_address]
4. The Present – Still Troubling Nearly ⅔ of all projects fail or run into trouble.
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14. Traditional Project Team Business Team & End-users IT Architecture Team Test Team Project Manager Business Sponsor Business Analyst Team Leads Test Manager Architect Business Visionary Development Team
15. Core Project Team Concept Business Team & End-users IT Architecture Team Test Team Project Manager Business Sponsor Business Analyst Team Leads Test Manager Architect Business Visionary Development Team SMEs
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18. Ambiguity in the BA Role Source: The New Business Analyst : A Strategic Role in the Enterprise, November 2006 Evans Data Corporation Research Study Conclusion: there is a need for Business Analyst competency and career path definition 13.0% Other 10.1% Tester, Test Lead 13.5% Subject Matter Expert, Domain Expert 15.4% Developer, Engineer, Development Lead 18.7% Project Management 29.3% Business Analysis
19. Business Analyst Career Path PM/BA Principles BPR, Six Sigma Principles Business Writing Scribe Simple models Help Desk support Ability to perform simple tasks with assistance Associate Business &/or IT Domain Project Management BPR, Six Sigma Workshop Facilitation Requirements Modeling Elicit, Analyze, Specify, Validate, Manage Requirements Ability to perform simple-to-moderately complex tasks with minimal assistance Intermediate Business & IT Domains Project & Program Mgt. Systems Engineering, BPR, Six Sigma Requirements Engineering Elicit, Analyze, Specify, Validate, Manage Requirements Ability to perform complex tasks with minimal coaching Senior Business & IT Strategy Program and Portfolio Mgt. Systems Engineering, BPR, Six Sigma Enterprise Architecture Business Case Development Strategic Planning Enterprise Analysis Mentoring Ability to perform strategic tasks with minimal direction Strategic Competencies Responsibilities Proficiency Level
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22. BA Role - The Past Elicitation Analysis Elicitation Specification Validation and Documentation Requirements Phase
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24. BA Role - The Future Enterprise Analysis Strategic Planning Requirements Design Construction Test Deliver Operations and Maintenance Deactivate
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26. The BA Drives Strategic Alignment Enter New Mkts Increase Quality Grow Market Share Reduce Costs Improve Shopper Experience Certify 1000 Reps Coaching Job-related e-learning Higher Hiring Stds Learning Management System TMM NAITF* In-store Learning Kiosks Content Acquisition Training Policy etc. DB Boxes Apps etc. Certificate Process
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28. Business Solution Value Cost to Develop, Operate and Retire the Solution Business Value Deployment Value = Benefits – Costs to Develop, Operate, Retire Project Costs
The Standish Group’s 2004 Third Quarter Research Report, culminating a decade of that organization’s IT project surveys, shows a reversal of gains that had been evident in recent years: Five percent fewer projects were deemed successful than in 2003; the IT project failure rate increased by 3%, while challenged projects increased by 2%. Source: The Standish Group International, Inc., 2004 Third Quarter Research Report, <http://www.standishgroup.com/sample_research/PDFpages/q3-spotlight.pdf> (20 May 2005), Resolution of Projects.
The Standish Group’s 2004 Third Quarter Research Report, culminating a decade of that organization’s IT project surveys, shows a reversal of gains that had been evident in recent years: Five percent fewer projects were deemed successful than in 2003; the IT project failure rate increased by 3%, while challenged projects increased by 2%. Source: The Standish Group International, Inc., 2004 Third Quarter Research Report, <http://www.standishgroup.com/sample_research/PDFpages/q3-spotlight.pdf> (20 May 2005), Resolution of Projects.
The New Project Leader: From implementers to business decision-makers It is not enough for executive teams to just select the right mix of projects to achieve their strategic imperatives. Executive teams must also establish organizational capabilities to deliver. Executives must ensure that project teams are capable of contributing to the success of their organization. For project success, several elements are essential: Effective and targeted project management processes, tools, and techniques Appropriate executive decision making at key control gates High-performing teams Exceptional project leadership As programs and projects are launched to realize critical strategic goals, the project manager of strategic initiatives should be looked upon as the executive officer of a small enterprise. Just as a business leader must be multi-skilled and strategically focused, a project leader must possess a broad range of knowledge and skills including competence in: Technical areas of the project, Project management, People management, Team building, General management (e.g., marketing, finance), Organizational behavior, Political maneuvering, Change management, Strategic alignment, Conflict management, Negotiating, Communications
Strategic planning focuses the executive team on the organization’s reason for being. The formal strategic planning document usually defines the vision, mission, guiding principles, values, and objectives of the organization. To drive from vision to strategy, executive teams build strategic plans consisting of initiatives or programs. The strategic focus of the organization serves as the foundation to select and prioritize programs and projects - and to manage changes to the portfolio of projects as the competitive landscape changes, or the business case no longer justifies the project. Note : While it is noted here that the executive team performs strategic planning, it is not only their responsibility. Strategic planning needs to occur at all levels in the organization (e.g., the organization level, the department level, the project level, and even at an individual level). Thus, everyone is responsible to some degree for strategic planning . Note : A project portfolio is a collection of projects co-managed under the same management umbrella. The project portfolio may be at the organizational, departmental, program, or project manager level. We will use this term synonymously with the term program (a group of related projects managed in a coordinated way).
Unit 1: Key Concepts Verification and Validation The two key roles that this workshop will focus upon include: Project manager – The person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objectives. Business analyst – The person responsible for identifying the business needs of their clients and stakeholders to help determine solutions to business problems. As IT’s role moves beyond efficiency to business effectiveness, the business analyst becomes the central figure on the project team who is “bi-lingual” – i.e., speaks both business and technical languages.
Unit 1: Key Concepts Verification and Validation The two key roles that this workshop will focus upon include: Project manager – The person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objectives. Business analyst – The person responsible for identifying the business needs of their clients and stakeholders to help determine solutions to business problems. As IT’s role moves beyond efficiency to business effectiveness, the business analyst becomes the central figure on the project team who is “bi-lingual” – i.e., speaks both business and technical languages. A
Refer to the Supplemental Materials section, 1-1 for a more comprehensive depiction of the Business Solutions Life Cycle.
Refer to Supplemental Materials : The Business Analyst: The Pivotal IT Role of the Future and the Business Solution Life Cycle graphic. Discussion: What happens during each phase? What deliverables are produced during each phase? What phases is the business analyst involved in? What happens during the requirements phase?
The BA manages business benefits by: Preparing project business case to invest in the most valuable projects Ensuring that the business case remains viable and continued investment in the project is still warranted during the project Measuring business benefits based on new solution - Actual benefits that are achieved vs. benefits promised in the business case
Unit 1: Key Concepts Verification and Validation
Capacity = Maximum # of Successful Projects. Gained Benefits = Ability to Deliver Successful Projects When Managing to Capacity With the unmanaged portfolio, eventually you will be taking on more and more projects, reducing quality, and all of your projects will fail or implode. You will be putting out fires and not performing the work on the projects that are important to the organization.
Models are logical or functional representations of a system, and therefore are representations of business or functional requirements. They are usually graphical in nature, and represent the system from the perspective of whatever is moving through it. Decomposing requirements to restate and clarify them. Confirming project scope through interaction with key project stakeholders and users to ensure that the project will satisfy the need for which it was funded. The goal is to reduce requirement risks through early validation prototyping techniques. Assessing requirements feasibility by analyzing requirement risks and constraints, and modifying requirements to mitigate identified risks. The goal is to reduce requirement risks through early validation prototyping techniques. Prioritizing requirements to reflect the fact that not all requirements are of equal value to the business. Then, perhaps, lower priority needs can be addressed in a later system release.
Purpose of Requirements Analysis: Documentation of requirements for development Confirmation that scope is feasible Validation that project meets user needs Prioritization of requirements Reduction of project risks Progressive clarification of requirements
A model is a representation of the solution or a solution component. A model is used to depict a process, investigate risk, or to evaluate an attribute, such as business reengineering models (process), technical feasibility models (risk), and physical fit models (attributes). Models may be physical or computer-based. Software models are constructed to prove or demonstrate technical feasibility. Reference: Hal Mooz, Kevin Forsberg, and Howard Cotterman, Communicating Project Management: The Integrated Vocabulary Of Project Management And Systems Engineering (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2003).
In making the argument that modeling actually occurs in a more iterative manner rather than in tidy, linear phases, Ambler presents eight Agile modeling categories. Refer to Supplemental Materials: Phases Examined: Why Requirements, Analysis, and Design No Longer Make Sense. Reference: Scott W. Ambler, “Phases Examined: Why Requirements, Analysis, and Design No Longer Make Sense,” “Agile Modeling (AM) Home Page: Effective Practices for Modeling and Documentation,” Ambysoft, Inc., <http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/phasesExamined.htm> (accessed June 7, 2005).
Requirement specifications are elaborated from and linked to the structured requirements, providing a repository of requirements with a completed attribute set. Through this process of progressive elaboration, the requirements team often detects areas that are not defined in sufficient detail, which unless addressed can lead to uncontrolled change to system requirements. Requirements are specified in either an enterprise requirements tracking system or the business requirements document (BRD). Note: This is not the software specification which is a deliverable of the design phase. Reference: Karl E. Wiegers, Software Requirements (Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 2003), 489.
After the elicitation and analysis phases, the BA will begin providing additional specificity to define system behavior. This increases the amount of information to be tracked by the project team. Reference: Dean Leffingwell and Don Widrig, Managing Software Requirements: A Use Case Approach (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2003), 144.
Requirements are validated for completeness, testability and level of risk: Complete The set of requirements is compared to the original initiating documents (business case, project charter, or statement of work) to ensure completeness. Testable During the validation process, initial test cases are often developed to ensure that each requirement is testable. Low Risk Validation activities include evaluating requirements to ensure that design risks associated with the requirements are minimized before further investment is made in system development. An often-used analysis technique to validate requirements is prototyping.
The Chaos study determined that good requirements, active user and management support and smaller projects were key success factors. Reference: Standish Group Discussion Point: Should projects be cancelled if lack of user or senior management support?
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