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SDTimes posted an article about the ever-increasing importance of the business analyst (BA) in software development. In this piece, author Jennifer deJong describes the new style analyst, a role that demands more IT expertise and a deeper business understanding than ever before. No longer the generic bridge between business and IT, the new business analyst must tap into everything from strategic issues (e.g. a company’s exit strategy) to technical implementation specifics.
This “new analyst” idea underscores what iRise has been evangelizing. The BA’s role is to bridge the communication gap between business and IT. iRise’s visualization software elegantly solves that problem by bringing both parties together to easily review and iterate a proposed application, then use the approved simulation as a blueprint to which both teams refer back. Visualization is what allows a BA to cut through the miscommunication issues that often plague application projects. The status quo for doing visual mock-ups has traditionally been static wire frames and PowerPoint screen shots – a process that can be painful, costly and time-intensive. As the BA function has evolved, the technology has now finally caught up so business analysts can fly through simulations in high fidelity with a group of stakeholders, leaving the days of missed requirements and rework behind.
To learn more about the shifting role of the business analyst, listen to Carey Schwaber’s Webinar and the report she co-authored with Rob Karel.
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At iRise, we have been preaching for many years that words by themselves do a poor job of defining the requirements for software applications. So, it’s refreshing to see someone else – especially a Forrester analyst – pile on to the discussion.
Tom Grant, a senior analyst in the Technology Marketing group at Forrester, published a research document this week titled “Improving Your Product Management Tools”. While the note is targeted at product marketing and management professionals, the roles and tasks performed by these workers have significant if not total overlap with business analyst and usability professions.
The problem is actually double-edged. According to Tom, “most product managers rely on tools – predominantly Microsoft Office – that do not adequately support them.” And while there are tools specifically designed to handle product requirements, the majority of technology companies do not embrace them.
Tom further identifies 6 functions needed to address the requirements challenges for product managers and describes the shortcomings of trying to use Microsoft Office, Web 2.0 tools and CRM systems:
- Collection
- Analysis
- Prediction
- Connection
- Communication
- Updates
By the way, iRise was mentioned as one of the tools for the Communication function which Tom defines as modeling or simulating use cases to communicate to stakeholders.
Tom’s research also pointed out that innovators are more than twice as likely to adopt requirements tools. He examined companies based on their size, company age and product delivery and found that requirements tools were adopted at a much higher rate in companies that were 1-5 years old, smaller than 500 employees and who used software as a service (SaaS) delivery.
The full 16-page report is available from Forrester for $279 and is worth a read for anyone involved in defining and managing requirements. You can also read Tom Grant’s blog at this link and he welcomes feedback.
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Carey Schwaber, Senior Analyst from Forrester Research presented at the iRise-sponsored June Catalyze community webcast last week.
In addition to presenting her top 10 list of ways to improve project outcomes for business analysts and others involved in software definition, Carey answered nearly 20 questions from the audience. If you missed the live broadcast, you will definitely want to listen to the webcast recording so you can hear Carey’s unique perspective on the role of business analysts, software definition and requirements.
For a sneak preview, here is a peak at Carey’s top 10 list:
- Define the business-IT division of labor
- Be part of the team
- Understand and communicate impact
- Define future as well as present business needs
- Remember non-functional requirements
- Make requirements painless for the business
- Measure project progress in terms of requirements
- Don’t rely solely on text
- Maximize feedback on requirements
- Invest in future project outcomes too
The webcast was recorded and can be viewed in the iRise Media Center, and the slides from the presentation have been embedded below.
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Catalyze Webcast – “10 Tips for Driving Better Project Outcomes”
Featuring Carey Schwaber of Forrester Research
Thursday, June 12 @ 10am Pacific/1pm Eastern
Register for the webcast here.
It’s no secret that in the battle to bring effective business software to market on time and on budget, business analysts are on the front line.
- What can business analysts do to improve requirements definition practices and make a difference in project outcomes?
- What skills do business analysts need?
- What roles can they play?
- What tools should they use, and what role should those tools play?
Don’t miss this valuable online seminar sponsored by iRise and featuring one of the industry’s leading experts on the subject of requirements definition, Carey Schwaber, a senior analyst from Forrester Research. Carey has talked with hundreds of organizations that use a variety of requirements definition tools and methods. From this experience and accumulated knowledge, she has developed a set of 10 practical tips that you can immediately put into action in your own organization.
If you cannot make the live webcast, the recording will be uploaded to the iRise and Catalyze websites by June 16.
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It’s Business Analyst appreciation month at CIO.com and Forrester – and it’s a great time to be a business analyst as they are definitely a HOT commodity according to a recent research report.
Thomas Wailgum of CIO.com wrote an article last week titled “Why Business Analysts Are So Important for IT and CIOs“. In the article, Thomas references a new report that came out this month from Forrester analysts Carey Schwaber and Rob Karel which is called “The New Business Analyst“.
The Forrester report provides a “better understanding of this crucial yet largely undefined role”. One business analyst interviewed for the report said “everyone agrees on the importance of the business analyst role, but few know exactly what it is that business analysts do.”
Schwaber and Karel interviewed 338 business analysts and reviewed more than 29,000 business analyst job descriptions. They conclude that there is not a standard definition and that the roles between business-oriented and IT-oriented analysts is blurring. In fact, they coined a new role called the “Business Technology Analyst” or BT Analyst.
The Forrester report also pointed out several things that smart CIOs and IT managers can do today to prepare for the future:
- Look in your own backyard for talent
- Look for BT analysts in untapped parts of your business
- Establish centers of excellence for BT analysts
Check out these links for the complete story:
- Forrester “The New Business Analyst” – $279 unless you are a Forrester client
- CIO.com Article – “Why Business Analysts Are So Important for IT and CIOs” - be sure to check out the comments and feedback at the end of the article
- Carey Schwaber spoke at the Fusion ‘07 and her video interview is available from the iRise website
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There is a new study out by IAG Consulting that confirms many previous studies and the gut-level feeling that most of us have around requirements, namely that companies with poor requirement gathering processes are going to have more project failures than successes. In fact, the new IAG study points out that companies with poor business analysis capabilities will have 3 times as many project failures as successes. The report also went on to state that effective business requirements are a process and not a “deliverable”.
One of the more telling graphics pointed out that the competency of the business analyst team had a significant impact on successful projects. Companies in the lower 3rd of competency classified only 10% of their projects as successful or unqualified successes. On the other hand, companies in the upper 3rd of competency described more than 70% of their projects as successful
IAG also quantified the inefficiency of poor requirements using an average project size of $3 million. Companies with poor requirements processes will:
- Be on budget less than 20% of the time
- Be massively over budget in time and budget about 50% of the time
- Spend about 75% per project more than companies who follow best requirements practices
The survey focused on larger companies with development projects with budgets in excess of $250,000 and that delivered significantly new functionality and the average project size in the study was $3 million.
The Executive Summary is available from the IAG website. The full text report can also be downloaded by registering at the IAG Research Library and the press release on the study can be found here.
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In the Catalyze community webcast this week, Barbara Carkenord from B2T Training talked about ways to improve communication with project stakeholders and create a “Sure-fire Communication Strategy”. As is the case in many initiatives, being successful comes down to paying attention to the People, Project and Process.
The keys to a sure-fire strategy are:
- Understand the unique characteristics of each project
- Support the organizational standards and processes of your company
- Get to know the people, their roles and both the subjective and objective characteristics
She also outlined “The 7 Golden Rules” for creating a sure-fire communication strategy:
- Identify the people
- Get to know them
- Engage them early and communicate often
- Identify potential problems and risks
- Reduce problems with a communication plan
- Fit that knowledge into your work plan
- Review alignment to project goals and adjust as necessary
During the Q&A, two other interesting topics were discussed. While answering a question about what to do when you realize that a project should not continue, Barb referenced a book called Death March by Ed Yourdon about surviving ”mission impossible” projects. She also talked about how great managers must employ “intelligent disobedience” to be most successful. Intelligence disobedience requires taking risks, creativity, flexibility and perseverence and not ’sugar coating’ conversations with stakeholders. An article by Bob McGannon has been posted to Catalyze on the topic.
Be sure to check Catalyze for copies of Barb’s presentation and webcast.
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Are you having trouble communicating with your stakeholders? Do you want to improve how you gather requirements?
If so, you should join the Catalyze Community monthly webcast on February 14th with Barbara Carkenord from B2T Training as she explains how to design a sure-fire strategy for developing a communication plan.
Both business analysts and usability professionals will be more effective when they think ahead about how best to communicate with their stakeholders. This presentation provides attendees with a communication planning technique that can easily be used on any project.
Webcast Details:
- Date and Time — Thursday, February 14 at 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern
- Registration — Sign up at this link
- Recording – If you miss the live broadcast, the recording and presentation will be posted in Catalyze by February 18
Barbara is the President of B2T Training and has over 20 years experience in business analysis. Barbara has an MBA from University of Michigan and is a Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP).
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At the World Congress for Business Analysts (WCBA) in Disneyland today, Amy Nichols of Wachovia (an iRise customer) and Glenn Brûlé of ESI International talked about the best practices around building a BA Center of Excellence.
Amy laid out the business case for why Wachovia started their BA Center of Excellence 18 months ago. They had unpredictable project cycles, no concise way to measure ROI, customer satisfaction after project closeout was poor and they had waste with their SDLC. There was also confusion around what are requirements, why are they valuable and what makes a good requirement.
Glenn laid out a Capability to Maturity Model to follow when building a Center of Excellence.
He also mentioned that you have to work incrementally by starting out with a Community of Practice (COP), progressing to a BA Bureau and then to a Center of Excellence (COE). One way to think of the progression is as a bulls-eye with the Community of Practice as the outer ring and the Center of Excellence as the bulls-eye.
Where do you start? Glenn said the model is designed like a checklist – start with the first row for each column and work your way down the model to move from a Community of Practice to a Center of Excellence.
Why build a Center of Excellence? The benefits include:
- decreased risk on our projects
- increased value for our projects
- improved quality of our deliverables
- improved time to deliver our goods and services
Amy and Glenn closed with Five Factors for Success:
- have a plan (from concept to enterprise analysis)
- consider the framework
- obtain executive sponsor
- align corporate goals (what’s the value perception?)
- define roles and responsibilities (who’s going to maintain it?)
Glenn thought step 1 – have a plan – was the most critical while Amy added that having a passionate executive sponsor was also very important.
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At the World Congress for Business Analysts (WCBA) today, Dr. Ed Hoffman from NASA shared how NASA uses storytelling to share knowledge and develop leaders. Ed is Director of the NASA Academy Program which is part of APPEL or Academy of Program/Project & Engineering Leadership.
Ed started out by describing NASA’s new mission statement which can be summed up in one word – “Exploration.”
Ed showed a short video about NASA’s mission to return to the Moon by the year 2020 which highlighted some of NASA’s challenges, such as:
- what is the “story” of the project?
- how do you plan a 30-year project?
- how do you build something robust enough for technology that isn’t developed yet and you know is going to change?
- how do you pass knowledge along to the next generation?
The Academy was established to build leadership capability for individuals and project/program teams with the goal to:
- provide a common frame of reference for all NASA employees, provide and enhance critical job skills, support program and project teams
- supplement for all educational programs
Ed talked about what makes a good story. A good story:
- starts with a problem/conflict/challenge
- describe a unique experience
- describe concrete actions by people
- makes a point
- arrives at some basic truth
To illustrate his point about stories, he showed another video about Gene Krantz who was program director for the Apollo program. The video didn’t show their greatest success of putting a man on the Moon, instead it showed their greatest failure which was the Apollo 1 fire which killed astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee. In the video, Gene remembers what he told his team on the day after the disaster. “No one said no – and this won’t happen again. In the future we will be both tough and competent. We will write that on our blackboards and we will never erase it.”
Ed’s team sponsors a number of knowledge sharing activities, such as conferences and forums, multimedia, and publications that emphasize the vital role of stories. Ed said that it is important to discuss both successes and failures and he likes to see a 7 to 1 ratio of success stories to failure stories. People need to think about what’s going right and what’s going wrong – and the community needs to learn that it’s ok to share and collaborate.
In the end, it comes down to trust and the social connection between people. People must trust one another enough to share their successes and failures. In addition, you must impact social norms that learning is ongoing, that there are resources out there to help you, and to get teams to understand how to go beyond the boundaries of their expertise. Finally, it is critical to build a network and community where knowledge sharing and collaboration is the norm.
[go to the APPEL website for more information and stories]
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