It has become a good habit for me to review the projects completed over the last financial year. The company I’m at has recognized my contribution over the finished year in a very positive way. The business stakeholders expressed their positive feedback and intention to engage me in the new projects in the coming year. I think it’s important for me to analyze the reasons so that I can reinforce the successful aspects of my approach and find areas for further improvement.
Project Challenges I Faced
Was it easy to work on those projects? For the most part it wasn’t. The projects were not similar. I participated in regulatory compliance, internal compliance, IT infrastructure improvements and business transformation. Each of them required knowledge of a business domain “language”, a deep understanding of the existing information landscape within the organization, good communication skills, and knowledge of project management.
Regulatory compliance projects required the use of risk management techniques to mitigate risks of non-compliance.
The infrastructure improvements were even more challenging as I had to understand and use IT jargon and knowledge of the current state of the enterprise architecture across different branches of the organization. I also had to be aware of the latest technologies and the lifecycle of IT assets in different locations.
The Internal compliance projects required an ability to engage stakeholders at different levels, facilitate software implementation and user training, manage risks and contribute to improvements of various policies.
The business transformation project was the hardest as it dealt with replacing the existing information systems, modifying business processes, designing ways of collaboration with the external providers and considering options of migrating vast amounts of data into a new information environment.
Lessons I Learned
Every project was about learning something new, and each time the new knowledge was outside the domain of business analysis. I needed to rely on the key ideas of project management, change management, risk management, IT service delivery, presentation and communication of complex information, and understanding of organizational change and industry related business functions in order to succeed.
As you progress through your business analyst career, and more generally as companies evolve and grow, you get involved in more and more complex projects and you are expected to produce more results in the same amount of time. My view is that in order to be able to meet these challenges, you need to go beyond business analysis and become proficient in other knowledge domains. The BABOK® 2.0 provides a necessary foundation but by itself it can only provide a fraction of the knowledge you require.
In a way, the role of a business analyst is that of a facilitator or a translator. Business analysts need to interact with a lot of different stakeholders who speak different languages and have somewhat different goals, so BAs need to have a grasp of all the different knowledge domains they encounter.
Going Beyond Business Analysis
How can you get all the knowledge you need quickly and start applying it in practice? When I reviewed all the things I’ve learned from a variety of projects ranging from software development to ERP implementation, I realized that I have collected this knowledge along the way but it took me a long time to get to where I am now.
There are many books on the fundamentals of the knowledge domains I mentioned, however the key word here is “many”. You would need a lot of time to go through these books and extract the main concepts. I couldn’t find a book aimed at business analysts which would collect and summarize the broader range of topics that I have found necessary.
This is why I decided to write Business Analysis Kickstart. It has a broad but concise coverage of multiple knowledge domains and the relationships between them. It shows what works and where, how it all relates to business analysis, the organizational landscape and its layers, as well as providing an overview of the range of techniques used in business analysis.
I see it as an opportunity to provide business analysts with a quick way to get oriented in a number of knowledge domains which are relevant to business analysis, to allow them to be more effective and to make it easier for them to communicate with various stakeholders, and ultimately to be more successful in their projects.
What knowledge beyond business analysis has been important for your career and how did you attain it?
|
By Sergey Korban. Sergey Korban has been in the IT industry for over 25 years and has hands on experience in business analysis, project management and software development management. He has held a variety of roles, including program director and chief sales officer. He is passionate about making businesses more effective and enjoys presenting complex information visually to make it more accessible. He contributes to the business analysis community through his articles on the Aotea Studios blog. View more blog posts by Sergey Korban |
Related posts:
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
thanks for sharing the info..
I will check out your book..
Great post! I love learning from fellow business analysts!
I agree with you fully, and my agreement is codified in the book Business Analysis: Best Practices for Success, which focuses on all the aspects of a business analyst beyond simple requirements definition. For example, in reference to your comment, “the role of a business analyst is that of a facilitator or a translator”, there is a chapter on the various roles a business analyst plays as an organizational communicator: conduit, emissary, translator, liaison, referee, mediator, negotiator, etc. The book will be on the shelves in November from John Wiley. You can check out some material on EssenceoftheBA.com (the original title of the book was The Essence of the Business Analyst).