CHAPTER 12
How Capable Do Business Analysts Need to Be to Ignite Creativity?

The value of business analysis lies in the absolute necessity of driving innovation through projects. Organizations are beginning to acknowledge this value, but as they do, they are struggling to figure out three things:

This chapter focuses on the first question: What are the characteristics of our current BA workforce, and how capable does our BA team need to be? Looking once again to our framework (Figure 12-1), a BA workforce needs to be capable enough to perform BA work successfully on projects that are increasingly complex and innovative.

FIGURE 12-1. The Framework of a Mature BA Practice

© 2011 by Kathleen B. Hass and Associates, Inc.

THE CHALLENGE: CLOSING THE GAP IN BA CAPABILITIES

Your challenge is to close the gap in your organization’s BA workforce capabilities, to meet the needs of your organization’s complex innovation projects. What will it take? Are BAs up to the task? According to a recent study, most organizations’ BA workforce fall into the categories listed in Figure 12-2.¹

As a BA, you need to start grooming yourself right now to be prepared to meet your organization’s needs. According to Carey Schwaber and Rob Karel of Forrester Research, Inc., “Future business/technology analysts will be the most valuable business analysts, because they can single-handedly turn business-requested IT-delivered applications into tomorrow’s dynamic business applications.”²

FIGURE 12-2. The Current State of BAs

CREATIVE LEADERSHIP ACROSS THE BA CAPABILITY SPECTRUM

The array of BA competencies required to successfully deliver innovative products and new business solutions that meet 21^st-century business needs is vast. But it’s not just about competency (what you think you can do or your score on a multiple-choice knowledge assessment); it’s all about capability—examining your competency level against your current and future work assignments and the performance and project outcomes you need to achieve within your organization.

To determine your own BA capabilities and those of your BA team, identify your capability gaps, and put a plan in place to close the gaps, it is helpful to use a BA capability model like the one shown in Figure 12-3, which was first presented and described in detail in Chapter 1. The model aligns with the latest industry research, the IIBA BABOK^® Guide, and the newly released IIBA BA Competency Model^®. The BA capability model shown here is four-tiered, each tier requiring different BA competencies based on the complexity, the innovation required, and the focus of typical work assignments.

FIGURE 12-3. BA Workforce Capability Model

© 2011 by Kathleen B. Hass and Associates, Inc.

THE OPERATIONS/SUPPORT-FOCUSED BA AS INNOVATOR

Operations/support-focused business analysts, who work to continually add value to products, business processes, and their supporting IT systems, need to think about the entire business system and view their efforts as part of a larger project. They should look for opportunities to creatively change and improve the system rather than thinking that they are responsible only for fixing bugs or problems and should bundle and prioritize change requests based on business value. Once a business analyst takes a systems and business-value approach, opportunities for innovation begin to emerge. Innovation is everybody’s job; it is not just up to a few superstars or senior BAs to foster creativity. And it is not just quantum-leap changes that bring about innovation; it can be done through lots of incremental improvements as well.

THE PROJECT-FOCUSED BA AS CREATIVE LEADER

Project-focused analysts work on moderately complex projects designed to develop new or changed products, services, business processes, and IT systems. IT-oriented BAs and business-oriented BAs, who may range from entry to senior levels generally fit into this group.

It is a little more obvious how business analysts can foster innovation when working on a project to develop something new, whether it is a new product, process, or service. However, as we learned earlier, even with a project focus, it is easy to fall into inside-the-building thinking and allow the requirements SMEs to simply define requirements for rebuilding an existing system with only minor enhancements. Business analysts who allow this to happen will undoubtedly be thought of as note takers, as opposed to trailblazers.

To fulfill your role as a creative leader, it is your job to establish an environment in which creativity can surface and thrive. Once the team of SMEs has a shared vision, target, and objective, the business analyst encourages the team to create something new by imagining what could be, inspiring one another, collaborating, brainstorming, and experimenting. As you encourage team members to see themselves as unique individuals with valuable contributions to make, participants will start “getting it” and “getting with it,” and you can then quietly step into the shadows and let the team do its thing.

Keep in mind that if your team members are not challenging each other and building on each other’s ideas, they have not yet made it into the innovation zone. In this case, they likely need more prodding and encouragement from you in your role as expert facilitator, collaborator, and innovator. Caution the participants not to be critical or judgmental but to use conflict positively to encourage the contribution of different perspectives and new combinations of ideas. Hone your innovation-inducing facilitation skills on moderately complex projects to train yourself for the big leagues.

THE ENTERPRISE ANALYST AS CREATIVE LEADER

BAs with an enterprise or strategy-execution focus (often called enterprise analysts or business architects) are operating at the enterprise level of the organization, ensuring that business analysis activities are dedicated to the most valuable initiatives. Enterprise analysts focus on the analysis needed to prepare a solid business case for new strategic initiatives. They also work on highly complex enterprise-wide projects and programs, typically managing a team of senior BAs. BAs within this focus area are typically experienced and in high-level positions.

The need for innovation is even more critical for business analysts that are working on enterprise transformation initiatives. Here the stakes are higher, the investments bigger, the rewards greater, and the risks larger. It is at this level that business analysts most need to be on their game, familiar with and comfortable with innovative work sessions.

There is a delicate balance between instilling a culture of discipline in a team and smothering creativity. Business analysts who have mastered creativity techniques make a deliberate effort not to be too controlling; for example, they do not sit at the head of the table or get into prolonged conversations with only one or two people. They insist on full participation, summarizing and sharing their own opinion only after full discussion has taken place.

The techniques you select to encourage creativity need to be customized to your team composition: mind mapping works well for left-brain thinkers; brain-writing for right-brain thinkers. Make your team meetings fun and exciting—and yes, you may even need to “perform” a bit. Spend ample time planning how you will facilitate meetings to ensure you have lots of tools in your toolkit, experimenting with them until the team begins to gel.

THE HIGH-LEVEL LEADERSHIP OF THE COMPETITIVE/INNOVATION-FOCUSED BA

Competitive/innovation-focused business analysts are visionaries, futurists, and creative thinkers. These seasoned analysts focus outside the enterprise on what the industry is doing, formulate the future vision and strategy, and design imaginative new approaches to doing business to ensure the enterprise remains competitive or even leaps ahead of the competition. They often function as business/technology analysts, converting business opportunities into innovative business solutions and translating strategy into breakthrough processes and products. Such a business analyst is really in the major leagues—truly at the pinnacle of her career.

Interestingly, most people who are engaged in these functions are not thought of as business analysts. They often operate at the executive level, carrying the title of product manager, strategy analyst, or portfolio manager. Indisputably, however, when individuals and groups are engaged in the activities described below, they are very much carrying out business analysis pursuits.³

Deciding What to Build to Seize Competitive Advantage

What we build today determines our place in the market tomorrow. All of the enterprise analysis activities the business analyst leads come into play when determining the most valuable products to build, including decomposing strategic goals into measurable objectives, conducting competitive and customer analysis to determine the differentiators that will make your organization stand out, defining the business need and assessing capability gaps to meet the need, identifying the most creative and innovative solution, defining the solution scope and approach, determining when to release the new product and how to manufacture and support it, and finally capturing the opportunity in the business case to secure investment funds.

Conducting Real Portfolio Management

With so much riding on the results, companies must invest in the most valuable projects, those that will provide value to customers and revenue to the company. However, as we have seen studies show that few companies have effective portfolio management processes. The emerging role of the competitive-focused business analyst must fill this gap in organizational capabilities by acting as the vital link between opportunity and investment, converting idea to value. To do this, the business analyst brings together an expert team and facilitates discussions to:

The business analyst then documents the opportunity in the business case.

Perhaps one of the reasons many organizations don’t have effective portfolio management is that not enough business analysts are conducting these important enterprise analysis activities.⁴

Ensuring That Customer Requirements Are Met

Business analysts continually validate that an emerging solution will meet customer requirements and win the expected competitive advantage. This is the business analyst’s reason for being. Specifically, the competitive focused business analyst understands the new process, product, or service as it will operate within the customer’s ecosystem and describes the intent behind features, thus helping engineers develop the appropriate design.

Navigating Complexity with Modelling

Since business analysts constantly strive to make the requirements for the entire system visible, models, graphics, and rich pictures are tools of the trade. Models show the relationship between requirements statements and product capabilities. As complexity increases, models and prototypes are an absolute must.

Managing Changes

Today, we can no longer attempt to limit changes; the world is just too dynamic and systems are too complex to get everything right the first time. The goal is to welcome changes that add value and reduce the cost of changes through iterative development. It is very difficult to predict the consequences of changes to complex systems because of the interrelationships and interdependencies of solution components, but using system models and simulating the impacts of the change help build an understanding of the effects of the change. Proactively limiting the number of interrelationships among system components will go a long way toward making it easier to examine the impacts and to reduce the cost of changes.

A BUSINESS ANALYST PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Creating a balanced professional development program will reinforce technical BA competencies for project-focused BAs, and it will also specifically target the leadership skills of enterprise BAs who work on complex innovation projects. Work with the leaders of your BA practice to implement some or all of these development strategies.

A balanced program consists of activities to increase technical, leadership, and complexity management capabilities as outlined in Figure 12-4.

A multidimensional program consists of a variety of activities, including:

COORDINATING SELF STUDY THROUGH COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

PARTICIPATING IN LOCAL IIBA CHAPTER EVENTS AND PROGRAMS

MENTORING

ATTENDING FORMAL TRAINING SESSIONS

ATTENDING CONFERENCES

PARTICIPATING IN WORKING SESSIONS, WORKSHOPS, AND SEMINARS

Schedule quarterly working sessions, workshops, and seminars for BAs, PMs, and line managers (Figure 12-5). Meeting topics could include:

CONDUCTING COMPETENCY BENCHMARKING AND FACILITATING CAREER PLANNING

FIGURE 12-5. Focusing Working Sessions, Workshops, and Seminars on Key Competencies

THE APPLIED BA CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT: A GROUNDBREAKING APPROACH

Conducting an applied BA capability assessment provides the information you need to baseline your competencies and prepare your own professional development plan, and it also can serve as input to your organization’s professional development program. The results provide a basis for BA workforce adjustments and realignment, training requirements, professional development activities, and specific mentoring and coaching needs.

The applied capability assessment, which is available online at www.kathleenhass.com, collects basic demographic information about you, such as years of experience, time spent on BA activities versus project management or more technical tasks, and amount of BA education. It then compares your BA capabilities to those of other BAs in the industry as a whole.

The applied capability assessment provides an opportunity to participate in a multidimensional BA capability assessment. This assessment allows you to see where you compare against BAs at your level who are working on similar project assignments in other organizations. This tool is not your ordinary multiple-choice self-assessment. It provides an interpretive frame of reference for analyzing your responses and has high reliability and validity when you respond candidly to each question. Figure 12-6 compares the BA applied capability assessment approach to traditional competency assessments.

In addition to an integrated competency report, you receive a customized professional development plan to guide your performance-improvement and career-development efforts (see samples in Figures 12-7 and 12-8). The reports are customized to your specific work situation and provide you with relevant, prioritized recommendations to help you focus your professional development efforts. Your customized reports arrive via email in PDF format. You may request a 15-minute telephone consultation or email consultation if you have any questions about your results or would like further recommendations for professional development.

FIGURE 12-6. BA Capability Assessment Approaches

FIGURE 12-7. Individual Professional Development Plan Sample

FIGURE 12-8. Overall BA Workforce Report Sample

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE BUSINESS ANALYST?

Don’t wait any longer before putting your personal professional development plan together. You can conduct an assessment of your BA capabilities today. If you are interested in learning more about the Individual BA Capability Assessment, please visit our website at www.kathleenhass.com or contact the author at [email protected].

NOTES

1. Mary Gerush, Mike Gilpin, Alissa Anderson, and Forrester Research, “Get To Know Your 2010 Business Analysts,” Report on the 2010 Survey Conducted by Forrester Research, Inc., and the International Institute of Business Analysis (January 31, 2011): 1–39. Online at http://www.forrester.com/rb/Research/get_to_know_2010_business_analysts/q/id/58419/t/2 (accessed June 2011).

2. Carey Schwaber, Rob Karel, and Forrester Research, Inc., “The New Business Analyst,” April 8, 2008. Online at http://www.forrester.com/rb/Research/new_business_analyst/q/id/43178/t/2 (accessed April 2011).

3. IBM Corporation, “Turning product development into competitive advantage. Best practices for developing smarter products,” IBM Executive Brief: Developing Competitive Products (July 2009): 8–13. Online at http://www.idgconnect.com/download/5018/turning-product-development-competitive-advantage-best-practices-developing-smarter-products?source=connect (accessed April 2011).

4. Jim Brown, The Product Portfolio Management Benchmark Report: Achieving Maximum Product Value (Boston: Aberdeen Group, 2006): 2. Online at http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/Images/aberdeen_portfolio_mgmt_tcm1023-5843.pdf (accessed April 2011).