So, following on from the post about what BAs do, the next question is what do they need to know in order to do it? I’ve decided to split the answer to that into two separate posts, the first of which (this one) is going to focus on knowledge and experience.
Knowledge and experience are aspects of any profession which take time to develop and strengthen. A BA needs to develop knowledge and experience in the following areas, all of which are core to the delivery of effective Business Analysis. A BA who wants to develop their career should seek out opportunities to work in all of these areas.
Stakeholder Management
This is about building positive, effective and productive working relationships with people. It involves identifying and understanding the people who have an interest in or are affected by a project, then engaging with them to ensure their needs and concerns are addressed.
Good stakeholder management will contribute to project success, help support decision making, identify and manage risks and help create a collaborative environment where people are more willing to contribute to a project’s success.
Requirements Management / Engineering
This is about making sure that everyone involved in a project is on the same page in terms of understanding what the project needs to do and ensuring that it does those things as it progresses. Requirements management involves identifying, documenting and maintaining the needs and expectations of stakeholders for a project.
Good requirements management will ensure that there is a clear understanding of what the project needs to do, it will help with project planning by ensuring that resources are most effectively aligned to meet the goals of the project, it will reduce the risk to the project by helping to identify potential problems as early as possible and it will contribute to greater stakeholder satisfaction.
Business Process Engineering
This is all about looking at how things are done and finding ways to do them better. It involves analysing and redesigning workflows and processes within an organisation to make them more efficient and effective. This includes understanding current processes by mapping them out, identifying improvements, designing new processes, implementing changes and then monitoring those changes to ensure they meet their objectives.
Good business process engineering will result in increased efficiency by helping to streamline processes and remove unnecessary steps, it will bring cost savings by reducing waste and minimising errors, it will give the organisation greater agility as they will be able to adapt more quickly to changes in their environment and it will help improve employee satisfaction as their workload will be reduced and frustrations will be removed.
Benefits Management
Benefits management is all about making sure that the efforts put into delivering a project result in tangible improvements and value for the organisation. This includes ensuring that projects identify up front the positive outcomes they are expected to deliver and actually deliver them.
Good benefits management will help ensure that projects deliver real value and contribute to strategic goals, they will help the business make more informed decisions about which projects to undertake and where best to allocate their resources, they will improve accountability for projects by assigning clear responsibilities for delivering expected outcomes and they will enhance stakeholder satisfaction when it can be demonstrated that a project has delivered the expected benefits.
Change Management
This is about guiding and supporting an organisation through change. It includes understanding the impact of change, communicating with stakeholders, ensuring the transition goes as smoothly and as stress-free as possible and making sure that the changes are adopted by the relevant stakeholders.
Good change management will help reduce resistance to change in the business, it will help improve efficiency and productivity by ensuring projects and initiatives are planned and delivered effectively, it will help enhance staff morale as they will feel more involved and consulted on change and it will improve organisational performance by helping ensure that change is adopted and contributes to long term success.
User Experience
User experience (or UX) is quite widely misunderstood. In the context of Business Analysis, it relates to helping ensure that a product or service is easy to use, meets the user’s needs and provides a pleasant experience. It includes giving consideration to the design, functionality and overall usability of the product or service.
Good UX will lead to increased customer satisfaction (remember that customers can be internal or external), this in turn will lead to more retention and loyalty and will also assist with change management in the context of adoption. It will result in improved efficiency as it will allow users to complete tasks more quickly and with less effort and it will reduce the support costs for the product or service by making it more intuitive and easy to use.