BA - Business Analyst OR BA - Business Ambassador
Stephan (name changed), a Business Analyst, was handling a small project. It was in very initial stage and he was interviewing the stakeholders, trying to understand the business problem. Somehow he was not able to link the problems, stakeholders were narrating, to their business. After a lot of interviews he realized that they were trying to automate a very small portion of a complex process. He prodded further and realized that this would solve their problem for just a department and overall time taken to complete the process may not shorten, it may even elongate as the other department will suddenly be dealing with high work volumes. He shared his findings with one of the board member of the client; he had become friend with while interviewing. Board member realized that they have to automate the overall process and not in bits and pieces. Stephen shared his calculations that if they automate the process across the departments then only the delivery time to client's customers will reduce else it will hardly make any difference. Stephen was asked to study the processes across the department and come up with a plan. Stephen studied the overall processes and mailed his findings back to his sales team, realizing that this project can be 10 times of the existing one. One month later Stephen's employer got a project that was more than 10 times of the existing project. Stephen later on got two more projects from the same client.
As the business is getting more and more dynamic, the requirement changes with every passing day. In such a dynamic scenario the role of a Business Analyst is becoming more and more important. With more and more IT solution providers in the market the role of a Business Analyst has evolved from being a mere requirement gathering person to a business ambassador of the IT Solution provider. BA has to use a lot of his soft skills, negotiation skills and social skills to build relations with the stakeholders on the customer side. Strong relations only will not help you to get more business from the customer but it will help you to understand what the customer needs and also what the customers of your customers need. Once you have understood the business needs of your customer, you should map out clearly where you can provide a solution that will help your customer to satisfy his customer better. Remember only having strong relations will not help unless you can provide solution that help them grow.
As a Business Analyst you should focus strongly on:
- Building strong relations with the stakeholders
- Build a strong understanding of the business of your customers
- Learn about the customer of your customers
- Keep mapping how your solutions will help your customer to satisfy their customers.
Guess what would have happened if Stephen had just got the requirements for the project he was assigned to? The client would not have been happy and later may have contacted another IT solution provider. A BA is a Business Analyst for the employer but for the customer a BA has to be a Business Ambassador of the employer.
Tarun Chandel
The BA
8 comments:
Interesting post. I definately agree with the sentiment as you often need to find out more than what the client actually tells you to fully realise the potential of a project. Not always easy but I treat everyone as an equal and listen to all. Sometimes the best ideas come from the shop floor and not just the exec.
Gaurav
This is true for anybody working with customers. Why only BAs!! It holds true for developers, technical architects, sales guys , account managers , project managers also. Wipro , Infosys and most indian companies have expanded like this. Wipro became big because of its engineers who worked for Intel's chip design facilities. Infosys did same with its army of sales guys and engineers who started with bit works for US customers and built the trust to bring more business later. This is classical land and expand. Very often I have seen that maintenance engineers play most vital role in establishing trust with customers which translate in more business through other channels.
Roland Hesz
The only thing that I miss is the part when they end up with the 10 times as big project WITHOUT moving the deadlines. That's 90% of the cases unfortunately in my experience. Also, on the majority of the projects there is little time to bond with the stakeholders (2 or 3 weeks top any thing over that and you have been spoiled).
But I like the post, and I wish there were companies in my career where it works like this.
Tarun Chandel
--> Jamie: That's a very good tip, listening to everyone . It is true that sometimes the best ideas and better clarification of processes (if it's a process refining project) or business problems comes from the people at shop floor (just a bit of modification of your statement).
Tarun Chandel
--> Ronald: That's why so many projects fail, lack of proper scoping, impractical timelines and expectations of customer not being set properly. Do let me know how many projects were success out of those 90% cases.
Stephen's employer was no different than rest of the companies but it was Stephen's continuous prodding and questioning that got them bigger project.
Ronald I did not get what you meant by "2 or 3 weeks top any thing over that and you have been spoiled". Are you saying that you get only 2 - 3 weeks to do the BA tasks?
Tarun Chandel
--> Gaurav: Somehow I missed your comment earlier. You are correct that it is true for the everyone who is working with the customer. Since BAs mostly work closely with the customers, it is applicable to them and a BA should keep that in mind while working with the customer.
Roland Hesz
Yes, I mean 2 or 3 weeks top to do requirement gathering, analysis and write up for signing.
Alina
Interesting thoughts! Every BA should keep this in mind while involved with a client.