What the coming day is preparing for us: the professional development of a business analyst in the context of world trends
I offer the readers of “Megamind” an expanded material prepared by the author on the basis of a report read at the REQ Labs 2014 conference.
Over the past years, there has been a steady increase in the popularity of the business analyst profession. In support of this statement one can cite several facts. Thus, according to TEKsystems, the largest player in the recruitment market, from 2008 to 2013, the demand for business analysis specialists in the US market grew by 236%.
This trend is also characteristic of the domestic market. If we talk about the post-Soviet space, you can additionally note the emergence of thematic conferences on business analysis (ReqLabs and AnalystDays), the organization of the Kiev and Russian branches of the International Institute for Business Analysis (IIBA). The growth of interest can be explained by a general increase in market capacity , the rapid growth of product companies, the desire of outsourcing companies to reach a new qualitative level due to the implementation of all project activities on their side.
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In this article, I would like to consider the trends of recent years and give a number of recommendations on the professional development of business analysts.
Before proceeding to the discussion of trends, I propose to determine the basic terms “business analysis” (business analysis) and “business analyst” (business analyst, BA).
The Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (AABOK® Guide) version 2.0, created by IIBA experts, spells out the following definition:
Business analysis is a set of tasks and techniques used to ensure interaction between interested parties in order to understand the structure, policies and operations of the organization, as well as to recommend solutions that allow the organization to achieve its goals (hereinafter the translation of the author).
From this definition, we can conclude that the main task of business analysis is to help the organization, in whose interests we conduct our activities - our customer, to achieve our goals. I would like to note that part of the needs / expectations of interested persons may remain unmet. But if the goals of the organization are achieved, the decision can be considered successful.
Immediately, I note that the IIBA considers business analysis not only in the context of IT solutions, but much more widely. Since the solution can be not only an IT system, but also the reengineering of business processes, changes in staffing, transfer of some activities to outsourcing, etc. We concentrate on business analysis in IT.
The definition for the term “business analyst” in the BABOK® Guide v 2.0 personally confuses me a little:
A business analyst is any person who performs business analytic activities, regardless of the job title and role in the organization.
I would add a clarification that the business analyst is busy most of the time with business analytic activities, since otherwise the project manager (PM), the testing specialist, and the developer will also fit the initial definition.
Speaking about the trends of recent years, we will rely on the research of the largest training company ESI International (Top 10 Trends in Business Analysis in 2013/2014), the work of Aaron Whittenberger, published in 2014. (The translation of these works can also be found here ), as well as materials IIBA®.
The first trend to which I would like to draw attention is the continuation of the expansion of the field of application of flexible development methodologies (Agile-methodology). Despite the understanding that Agile is not a silver bullet, a large number of implementations failed for various reasons and clear signs of aggressive marketing of its adherents, Agile’s popularity remains high. Without going into details I wanted to point out two, perhaps the most important aspects from the point of view of the customer. First, the customer begins to receive a certain business benefit from the first releases (we keep in mind the Pareto principle and the principle of calculating the present value from the theory of finance). Second, the methodology is adapted to work with a large number of changes, and the world around us is more than changeable. Based on personal experience, I can say that even such conservative structures as financial institutions, at least, transfer some of their projects to flexible methodologies. I will quote one of the work mentioned above: “Being“ Agile ”becomes a competence, not a methodology.” In this context, business analysts are required to have knowledge of the techniques, strengths and weaknesses of this methodology, the scope of its applicability sharpened for Agile.
If we talk about the techniques of specification of requirements, then in recent years, the User Story approach has become more popular (User Story) and there is a return of interest in the Use Case technique (Use Case). Let me give you one of the standard patterns User Story: As WHO, I want WHAT so that WHY. In my opinion, the last part, WHY, plays a very important role. Understanding by the team, what goal the customer wants to achieve, allows us to offer him the best solution. For the analyst, this is a good tool for moving from "how the customer wants to solve a problem" to "what problem the customer wants to solve." This allows us, together with the team, to work out several potential solutions, from which together with the customer one can choose the best one taking into account the existing restrictions. Thus, User Story, on the one hand, gives us an understanding of who needs what opportunity and what it is for, on the other hand, gives the team relative freedom of action to develop an approach to meet the needs of the interested person. At the same time, it is worth noting that User Story does not fully meet such criteria of “good requirements” as completeness, unambiguity and verifiability. One of the approaches to deal with this is, for example, the practice of determining acceptance criteria (Acceptance criteria). The return of interest to the Use Case can be explained by the fact that it is quite a convenient mechanism for describing user interaction scenarios with the system, and a significant part of the systems being developed are automated systems, i.e. suggest a person with the system. Use case serves to document functional requirements, but at the same time it allows you to associate them with non-functional requirements. Using User Story Use Case, we can define the boundaries of the system (what we do and what does not apply to our project) and priorities for development.
Just a few years ago, most analysts working in the post-Soviet space worked as system analysts or requirements engineers. “Honest” full-fledged business analysis in the understanding of IIBA or the British Computer Society (BCS) before we were not engaged. Now such tasks for analysts, including in outsourcing companies, are assigned. SWOT analysis techniques, matrices of the Boston Consulting Group, PESTLE, benchmarking - all of these techniques are included in the arsenal of our tools. Thus, business analysts are increasingly involved in strategic business analysis activities, and a potential development roadmap may be as follows:
A lot of controversy raises the question of the delimitation of powers between a business analyst and a project manager ( for example ). Definitely it can be said that their areas of responsibility overlap, at least in the area of identifying and analyzing project stakeholders, as well as in prioritizing and defining a project roadmap. If you go back to Agile, the key role in the project is played by the Product Owner, the de facto business analyst. In grocery companies, it is practiced to introduce the position of a product manager, a significant part of whose activities are related to business analysis. For large projects, analytical groups are often organized, headed by a leading analyst. Therefore, the need arises for analysts to acquire managerial skills.
Requirements management remains one of the key responsibilities of a business analyst. There are many points of view that this task involves. I understand by management of requirements the following activities: decision / project boundary management, change management, requirements tracing and requirements prioritization. As projects / products become more complex, these activities become more important and labor intensive. Work in a distributed team also imposes stricter requirements for managing requirements. As a result, specialized tools for working with requirements, such as JAMA Contour, Requisite Pro, HP ALM, and others, are gaining more and more popularity. Accordingly, an understanding of the principles and skills of working with such tools become a mandatory requirement for business analysts.
The position of a business analyst is by nature dualistic: when working with a customer, he represents a development team, and when working with a team, he represents a customer. This imposes an additional requirement not only on soft skills, but also requires considerable skills in both technical and business domains. As he moves from the business analyst requirements engineer involved in the development of a company’s development strategy, the focus of communications shifts from the end-performers-ordinary employees of the customer’s company to mid-level management and top management. A few years ago, the only opportunity for career growth for business analysts was to switch to the position of project manager, but today the picture is more rosy. I will give a career roadmap developed by IIBA. As we can see, the prospects are more than interesting, both within grocery and outsourcing companies, and outside the IT sector. As they say, the choice is for every taste. Also, more and more often there is a transition of employees between these companies, accompanied by additional features.
Consider the main trends regarding the training and professional development of analysts. In many companies, especially large ones, in recent years there has been a tendency for self-organization of specialists, in particular, business analysts. These may be formal competence centers at the company level, professional communities, clubs, etc. Beginners form a request for knowledge, experts are interested in professional recognition, companies are in the formation of a personnel reserve. Two areas of these communities can be distinguished: the development of business analyst skills (techniques and tools, methodologies and standards) and domain knowledge. The latter is especially characteristic of a financial domain. There is also an increase in investment in employee training by companies. On the one hand, this contributes to raising the professional level of the company's employees, on the other, it can act as a reward for employees. The main focus is on the study of methodologies and “best practices”. As the industry matures, the demand for certification from analysts increases. Existing certifications for business analysts can be divided into 4 groups:
Summarizing the above, I’ll give a rather optimistic statement from Top 10 Trends in Business Analysis in 2014 from ESI: "There is a BA!".
Denis Gobov
Over the past years, there has been a steady increase in the popularity of the business analyst profession. In support of this statement one can cite several facts. Thus, according to TEKsystems, the largest player in the recruitment market, from 2008 to 2013, the demand for business analysis specialists in the US market grew by 236%.
This trend is also characteristic of the domestic market. If we talk about the post-Soviet space, you can additionally note the emergence of thematic conferences on business analysis (ReqLabs and AnalystDays), the organization of the Kiev and Russian branches of the International Institute for Business Analysis (IIBA). The growth of interest can be explained by a general increase in market capacity , the rapid growth of product companies, the desire of outsourcing companies to reach a new qualitative level due to the implementation of all project activities on their side.
')
In this article, I would like to consider the trends of recent years and give a number of recommendations on the professional development of business analysts.
Before proceeding to the discussion of trends, I propose to determine the basic terms “business analysis” (business analysis) and “business analyst” (business analyst, BA).
The Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (AABOK® Guide) version 2.0, created by IIBA experts, spells out the following definition:
Business analysis is a set of tasks and techniques used to ensure interaction between interested parties in order to understand the structure, policies and operations of the organization, as well as to recommend solutions that allow the organization to achieve its goals (hereinafter the translation of the author).
From this definition, we can conclude that the main task of business analysis is to help the organization, in whose interests we conduct our activities - our customer, to achieve our goals. I would like to note that part of the needs / expectations of interested persons may remain unmet. But if the goals of the organization are achieved, the decision can be considered successful.
Immediately, I note that the IIBA considers business analysis not only in the context of IT solutions, but much more widely. Since the solution can be not only an IT system, but also the reengineering of business processes, changes in staffing, transfer of some activities to outsourcing, etc. We concentrate on business analysis in IT.
The definition for the term “business analyst” in the BABOK® Guide v 2.0 personally confuses me a little:
A business analyst is any person who performs business analytic activities, regardless of the job title and role in the organization.
I would add a clarification that the business analyst is busy most of the time with business analytic activities, since otherwise the project manager (PM), the testing specialist, and the developer will also fit the initial definition.
Speaking about the trends of recent years, we will rely on the research of the largest training company ESI International (Top 10 Trends in Business Analysis in 2013/2014), the work of Aaron Whittenberger, published in 2014. (The translation of these works can also be found here ), as well as materials IIBA®.
The first trend to which I would like to draw attention is the continuation of the expansion of the field of application of flexible development methodologies (Agile-methodology). Despite the understanding that Agile is not a silver bullet, a large number of implementations failed for various reasons and clear signs of aggressive marketing of its adherents, Agile’s popularity remains high. Without going into details I wanted to point out two, perhaps the most important aspects from the point of view of the customer. First, the customer begins to receive a certain business benefit from the first releases (we keep in mind the Pareto principle and the principle of calculating the present value from the theory of finance). Second, the methodology is adapted to work with a large number of changes, and the world around us is more than changeable. Based on personal experience, I can say that even such conservative structures as financial institutions, at least, transfer some of their projects to flexible methodologies. I will quote one of the work mentioned above: “Being“ Agile ”becomes a competence, not a methodology.” In this context, business analysts are required to have knowledge of the techniques, strengths and weaknesses of this methodology, the scope of its applicability sharpened for Agile.
If we talk about the techniques of specification of requirements, then in recent years, the User Story approach has become more popular (User Story) and there is a return of interest in the Use Case technique (Use Case). Let me give you one of the standard patterns User Story: As WHO, I want WHAT so that WHY. In my opinion, the last part, WHY, plays a very important role. Understanding by the team, what goal the customer wants to achieve, allows us to offer him the best solution. For the analyst, this is a good tool for moving from "how the customer wants to solve a problem" to "what problem the customer wants to solve." This allows us, together with the team, to work out several potential solutions, from which together with the customer one can choose the best one taking into account the existing restrictions. Thus, User Story, on the one hand, gives us an understanding of who needs what opportunity and what it is for, on the other hand, gives the team relative freedom of action to develop an approach to meet the needs of the interested person. At the same time, it is worth noting that User Story does not fully meet such criteria of “good requirements” as completeness, unambiguity and verifiability. One of the approaches to deal with this is, for example, the practice of determining acceptance criteria (Acceptance criteria). The return of interest to the Use Case can be explained by the fact that it is quite a convenient mechanism for describing user interaction scenarios with the system, and a significant part of the systems being developed are automated systems, i.e. suggest a person with the system. Use case serves to document functional requirements, but at the same time it allows you to associate them with non-functional requirements. Using User Story Use Case, we can define the boundaries of the system (what we do and what does not apply to our project) and priorities for development.
Just a few years ago, most analysts working in the post-Soviet space worked as system analysts or requirements engineers. “Honest” full-fledged business analysis in the understanding of IIBA or the British Computer Society (BCS) before we were not engaged. Now such tasks for analysts, including in outsourcing companies, are assigned. SWOT analysis techniques, matrices of the Boston Consulting Group, PESTLE, benchmarking - all of these techniques are included in the arsenal of our tools. Thus, business analysts are increasingly involved in strategic business analysis activities, and a potential development roadmap may be as follows:
A lot of controversy raises the question of the delimitation of powers between a business analyst and a project manager ( for example ). Definitely it can be said that their areas of responsibility overlap, at least in the area of identifying and analyzing project stakeholders, as well as in prioritizing and defining a project roadmap. If you go back to Agile, the key role in the project is played by the Product Owner, the de facto business analyst. In grocery companies, it is practiced to introduce the position of a product manager, a significant part of whose activities are related to business analysis. For large projects, analytical groups are often organized, headed by a leading analyst. Therefore, the need arises for analysts to acquire managerial skills.
Requirements management remains one of the key responsibilities of a business analyst. There are many points of view that this task involves. I understand by management of requirements the following activities: decision / project boundary management, change management, requirements tracing and requirements prioritization. As projects / products become more complex, these activities become more important and labor intensive. Work in a distributed team also imposes stricter requirements for managing requirements. As a result, specialized tools for working with requirements, such as JAMA Contour, Requisite Pro, HP ALM, and others, are gaining more and more popularity. Accordingly, an understanding of the principles and skills of working with such tools become a mandatory requirement for business analysts.
The position of a business analyst is by nature dualistic: when working with a customer, he represents a development team, and when working with a team, he represents a customer. This imposes an additional requirement not only on soft skills, but also requires considerable skills in both technical and business domains. As he moves from the business analyst requirements engineer involved in the development of a company’s development strategy, the focus of communications shifts from the end-performers-ordinary employees of the customer’s company to mid-level management and top management. A few years ago, the only opportunity for career growth for business analysts was to switch to the position of project manager, but today the picture is more rosy. I will give a career roadmap developed by IIBA. As we can see, the prospects are more than interesting, both within grocery and outsourcing companies, and outside the IT sector. As they say, the choice is for every taste. Also, more and more often there is a transition of employees between these companies, accompanied by additional features.
Consider the main trends regarding the training and professional development of analysts. In many companies, especially large ones, in recent years there has been a tendency for self-organization of specialists, in particular, business analysts. These may be formal competence centers at the company level, professional communities, clubs, etc. Beginners form a request for knowledge, experts are interested in professional recognition, companies are in the formation of a personnel reserve. Two areas of these communities can be distinguished: the development of business analyst skills (techniques and tools, methodologies and standards) and domain knowledge. The latter is especially characteristic of a financial domain. There is also an increase in investment in employee training by companies. On the one hand, this contributes to raising the professional level of the company's employees, on the other, it can act as a reward for employees. The main focus is on the study of methodologies and “best practices”. As the industry matures, the demand for certification from analysts increases. Existing certifications for business analysts can be divided into 4 groups:
- subject area (finance, accounting, etc.);
- tools / notations (IBM Rational Rose, OMG Certified UML Professional ™, ARIS Certificate / BPM Certification Program);
- soft skills;
- comprehensive certification in the area of direct business analysis / engineering requirements from leading international institutions (IIBA, IREB, BCS).
Summarizing the above, I’ll give a rather optimistic statement from Top 10 Trends in Business Analysis in 2014 from ESI: "There is a BA!".
Denis Gobov
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/285804/
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