Getting Business Analysis Right — Model
It will inspire you to get the business analysis right.
I can guarantee you one thing. You can get the business analysis right. I have gone through these steps many, many times.
The getting business analysis model outlines the steps you and your organisation can undertake to get the business analysis right and achieve the industry best practice.
You may ask, how so?
To get business analysis right, you need to have these techniques nailed down:
1. GOVERNANCE
Governance includes all the practices and processes that will assist you and your organization in the right direction.
You must have exceptional governance to ensure high-quality business analysis work, such as requirements deliverables are at a high-quality standard.
Make sure you hold business analysis work to the highest standard. When working on projects, use your skills to complete duties with the highest standard by conducting quality work.
Don’t forget to ask your peers and team members to review your documents before sending them out to your stakeholders.
Don’t be afraid to ask. Judgment is not important here. I have a paired my team to ensure that they have someone to go to.
Work as a team in this area. Help each other out.
“Peer reviews can be tedious and time-consuming, sometimes even stressful. Nonetheless, suppose you’re serious about maximizing the quality of your software. In that case, your teams will carefully review all of their requirements, using more formal inspections to examine the most critical or error-prone portions carefully. My general rule is: “Review early and often, formally and informally.”
— Karl Weigers.
Additionally, it is imperative to ensure your work is compliant with any regulatory requirements (based on the industry you are working in e.g., financial institute APRA (Australian Prudential Regulation Authority) as well as the business analysis industry standards (for example, IIBA — International Institute of Business Analysis).
Design and Quality
You need to design high-quality performance in every aspect of your business analysis work, including and not limited to:
- Scope
- Strong requirements standards
- Quality reviews
- Approval processes and more.
Design your standards, and share with your team what exceptional quality requirements look like? What do bad requirements look like?
Don’t forget our change partners. Conduct detailed groundwork to capture requirements by working with the change team to identify potential impacts.
2. COMPETENCY
It is essential to balance the business analysis competency levels in the BA practice and organization by upskilling and learning your skillset.
“The right person for the right project has now been selected, and everyone can get to work. To keep the BA engaged in the project, implement a plan to manage and support them throughout the project. Provide them with continued business analysis education and resources and encourage them to join business analysis organizations and communities where they will be around like-minded people that will push them to learn and grow in their careers.
Stay engaged and be strategic in keeping the right business analyst on the right project and in the right organization, so they can continue to be focused and energized, and will create unmatched results for your organization.”
— Jeff Martin.
Make sure you spend valuable time in:
- Conducting the business analysis professional development (mentoring, coaching, training)
- Regularly undertaking your competency skills audit
- Ensuring the right people are involved
- Having a well-prepared stakeholder’s matrix
- Having a clear understanding of analysis purpose and needs
- Tuning into your impacted stakeholders and systems
- Setting the right business analysis expectation.
When setting up the BA practice, develop competency and professional development plans, and continue to conduct an audit of your and your team’s competency skills.
Skills-sharing is also imperative as it allows the exchange of knowledge. It assists with new approaches to a successful outcome.
It is important to question: “Is it the right business analysis for the right projects?” — Jeff Martin.
Ownership
Make sure you take ownership of the project, take pride in your work, and make sure you always add value.
3. COLLABORATION
Effective collaboration is key to successful requirements gathering and the success of any project.
The secret to efficacious collaboration is to:
- Ensure the right people are involved
- Have a well-prepared stakeholder’s matrix
- Have a clear understanding of analysis purpose/needs
- Tune into your impacted stakeholders/systems
- Set the right business analysis expectation.
Collaboration adds efference to your teamwork. Set the expectations at the start of a project or piece of work you are assigned to do.
It improves the way your team works together and solves problems.
My favorite saying is ‘Seek to understand, then to be understood.
Collaboration is important in everything you do so that you can understand your purpose and needs as a BA.
Ensure you are adaptable. Adaptability results from collaboration, the change is happening, and the teams need to be prepared.
Teams and organizations have to change quickly, and if your team isn’t aligned, it’s easy for change to lead to disaster.
People
Key part of the BA role is working closely with people and your team members. Make sure your team members are engaged.
Encourage open communication and participation — it is important that as a team, there is ability:
- To share ideas
- To add new processes and tools where required
- For teams to communicate with each other in a safe, trustful, and transparent manner.
This supports the ability to be adaptable and in finding new ways of working.
You need to set up an appropriate governance process to ensure the overall quality of the project.
Relationships
This is a heart-soft spot for building trustful, healthy relationships.
I came across the same complex or challenging stakeholders stereotypes when moving between different organisations. When I moved from the financial sector and had to deal with the accountant-type stakeholder, I recognised this stakeholder; they don’t like to be told and quizzed too much.
I needed to understand what they were saying before even talking to me. I changed my approach to collaborating with them to what I needed. I ended up drawing lots of T-account ledgers to understand their need.
Make sure you have a close and healthy relationship with:
- Program and project managers
- Stakeholders, e.g., project sponsors, product owners, subject matter experts (SMEs), process owners
- Project team members, e.g., change managers, change analysts, communications specialists, process analysts
- Enterprise, business, and solution architects.
Engage with them on a personal level. Take them out for a coffee or lunch.
Learn what they like and what they don’t like. Understand their point of view and what they need from you.
“If you’re in a relationship with somebody and meet one of their needs, you will have an acquaintance. If you meet two of their needs, you’ll have a friend. If you meet three of their needs, you’re going to have a deep friendship or love.”
— Tony Robbins.
I still see business analysts being expected to know everything. I can closely relate to the term ‘We are jacks of all trades!’
If you are dealing with vendors, you will have multiple external stakeholders and even vendors that you also need to consider. How do we work with them? We can’t control our vendor’s quality, or can we?
Projects are set for disaster if teams are not working together across projects!
Takeaways
You can get the business analysis right; follow the business analysis model. Right?
When the business analysis is not done right, it shows a lot of painful challenges and problems during the project, ending with a lack of desired results.
There is a high expectation of business analysts to know everything.
Remember, getting the business analysis right (or other aspects of your life) is not about being right; it is about getting it right.
By following the Getting Business Analysis Right — Model, you will be close to getting the business analysis right in your job and organization.
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