Yellerdog

Last night  I attended my local IIBA chapter's May meeting. This meeting was formatted as a 'lightning round' information exchange workshop. The room had five tables, each with three discussion questions on a topic relevant to BA work. We each rotated around the room in 10-minute sessions and, during each session, discussed the questions at each table. Ground rules similar to a brainstorming session (safe environment, respect privacy, everyone is allowed to speak, etc.) created an environment encouraging honesty and openness.
 
Topics included scope management, requirements elicitation, managing stakeholders, tools, and career management. Some questions were obvious ("what is your favorite tool for BA work? " ), while some evidenced a good understanding of the challenges of BA work ("how do you manage a stakeholder who dominates a brainstorming session? " ).

I learned a few things about myself and my area.

1. There are a surprising number of BA's in my area. Disney, Wyndham, Marriott, credit unions, banks, they're all employing significant numbers of BAs.
2. With 15 years of consulting experience I am one of the more experienced analysts at the table. I'm not used to that, as most of the team I work with has tons of experience.

I also learned some things about the software marketplace.

1. Just about everyone uses Word, but most users aren't happy with it. The chief complaints seem to be the complexity and, over time, the messed-up file format. There's a real opportunity for Lotus Symphony, this tells me.
2. Just about everyone struggles with document and information management. There's a real need for a lightweight, cost-effective document management system for departments and the SMB space. I can see a stripped-down version of Lotus Domino Document Manager filling this space quite nicely.
3. SharePoint is starting to get to the place that Lotus Notes has been in for years -- if you don't assign plan and resource your deployment adequately, you get a lousy implementation and the product does not perform as advertised. My employer is a big SharePoint shop, so I think I see an opportunity to sell our SharePoint expertise.

Are you a business analyst? Do you perform business analyst activities? You may do BA stuff and not know it. If you...

• Gather requirements
• Interview users
• Run workshops
• Create specifications
• Perform prototyping or JAD sessions with users
• Participate in or facilitate brainstorming sessions
• Design test plans

...then you are performing BA tasks. Most software developers, whether they know it or not, perform some BA tasks at least part of the time. It's pretty hard to get anywhere as a developer without understanding business requirements, after all.

So what is a Business Analyst?

A business analyst works as a liaison among stakeholders in order to elicit, analyze, communicate and validate requirements for changes to business processes, policies and information systems. The business analyst understands business problems and opportunities in the context of the requirements and recommends solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.

 

The role of the BA differs from the role of the Project Manager in that the BA is responsible for defining and managing the scope of a business solution, while the PM is responsible for the work necessary to implement that solution.

Last year the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) founded a chapter here, and I have been a member since. As someone who has been doing BA activities for over 15 years, I think the establishment of a BA professional organization like the IIBA is long overdue.

If you do BA work, or check out http://www.theiiba.org ASAP!