Business Analysts are often thought of as project resources, but could you be undervaluing your Business Analysts by not using them to their full potential?
Most of the time Business Analysts, Project Managers and Change Managers are brought in after a project has been approved. The Business Analyst is informed what the project is expected to deliver in terms of scope and objectives and asked to ‘elicit requirements’ or user stories to elaborate on what is defined as scope. Very often scope definitions are centred around a solution that has already been decided rather than a solution-agnostic business need.
Is there a role Business Analysts could play before a project is commenced? Is there a way Business Analysts could help the organisation understand their true business needs? To assist with problem definition and helping shape projects to resolve clearly-defined problems? The answer to all of the above is yes and it falls under the broad knowledge area of Strategy Analysis.
The International Institute of Business Analysis™ (IIBA®) is the global voice on Business Analysis with over 29,000 members worldwide. Their latest body of knowledge publication, BABOK® devotes a whole chapter to Strategy Analysis. It replaces what previous versions of BABOK® described as Enterprise Analysis.
According to BABOK®, Strategy Analysis consists of four key tasks:
- Analyse current state
- Define future state
- Assess risks
- Define change strategy
Just the first of these (Analyse current state) consists of looking into the following elements:
- Business needs
- Organisational structure and culture
- Capabilities and processes
- Technology and infrastructure
- Policies
- Business architecture
- Internal assets
- External influencers
The idea of using Business Analysts outside of a project to clarify and document organisational structure and culture, policies, business architecture, capabilities and process is something that very few organisations take advantage of. Many organisations commissioned projects to document some of the above elements as part of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance requirements several years ago and what a great way to use any Business Analyst non-project time. Business Analysts within your organisation will have an insight on some of the above areas through knowledge picked up in the course of projects within your organisation.
Having a repository of knowledge regarding business architecture, structure, policies and processes is something that, unfortunately, not a lot of organisations maintain – even the larger, more mature organisations. When this repository does exist though – in whatever form – it can be invaluable to the organisation that maintains it. Some of the potential benefits include:
- Avoiding commencement of projects that don’t align to company strategy or significantly improve processes or capabilities;
- Understanding what areas will be impacted by an upcoming project and therefore who needs to be involved and the extent of process and perhaps structural changes;
- Identifying process duplication and inefficiencies – i.e. opportunities for improvement within the organisation;
- Understanding dependencies between projects before or as they are commissioned; and
- Speeding up projects via a head-start on understanding needs/requirements and easing the role of change management.
How valuable would it be to your organisation to make sure business needs are clearly understood before a project is commissioned to change something? To make sure everyone agreed why a project was required and what benefits are expected, who needs to be involved, what systems are impacted and how it will impact processes?
Business Analysts within your organisation are often a treasure trove of information. Ideally this information is stored somewhere in a retainable repository. To get the most out of your Business Analysts, ensure you are tapping into this information before you start a project and use your Business Analysts to help guide and advise during project formation.
