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GETTING THE BA WORK PLAN
TO WORK FOR YOU Jennifer S. Battan, CBAP®
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
The benefits and uses of a Business Analysis Work
Plan
How to select a work plan tool/format for your BA
environment and maturity
How to gather and analyze “actual” work plan data
to create task estimates
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PULSE CHECK
Who is already using / creating Business Analysis
Work Plans today?
Do you update it throughout the life of the project?
Do you create it and use it as a checklist, but don’t
update it?
Do you create it and never look at it again?
What’s a Work Plan?
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WHAT IS A WORK PLAN?
A description of the planned activities that the
business analyst will execute in order to perform
the business analysis work involved in a specific
initiative. - BABOK 2.0
A deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of
the work to be executed by the project team to
accomplish the project objectives and create the
required deliverables. – Work Breakdown Structure
definition, PMBOK, Fourth Edition
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BENEFITS OF
THE BUSINESS ANALYSIS WORK PLAN
Establishes credibility
Demonstrates an understanding of what needs to be
accomplished to successfully complete project objectives.
Shows the BA has a clear understanding of their role in the
project.
Leads to more accurate re-estimates.
Encourages accountability
Enables the BA to if not determine, at least influence dates.
Assists in creating accurate forecasting and budgeting.
Streamlines status reporting, communicates detailed work to
be done.
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BENEFITS OF
THE BUSINESS ANALYSIS WORK PLAN
Promotes consistency
Across BAs within a team or teams within the
organization.
Powerful negotiation tool
Useful for managing expectations with the PM
Allows for negotiation of expectations, roles and
responsibilities
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IF THE WORK PLAN IS SO GREAT…
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WHY DO WE ‘FEAR’ IT?
LET’S MAKE THIS REAL
Fortune 25 company.
High Performance, fast paced work environment.
>50 Business Analysts across the company.
Centralized BA teams within functional vertical
organizations. (As opposed to BAs embedded within
application or technical teams.)
Established a CoE to define and deploy best in
class practices and drive consistency in delivery.
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HERE’S THE STORY
A “Work Plan” was embedded within the
Requirements Specification template.
Icky on so many levels.
A team specific Core Competencies Document
outlined required deliverables – but didn’t align with
the embedded plan.
Some BAs took it to the next level:
Created a ‘checklist’ of competencies / expectations.
Created a simple, basic work plan to include task
duration for tracking outside of the Requirements
document.
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THE STORY CONT.
Modifications were made and shared as BAs used the template.
Estimated and Actual hours added.
More detail and additional analysis tasks and/or deliverables.
BACoE was formed.
The Work Plan best practice was rolled out, although adoption was spotty at best.
The evolution of the work plan happened in rough parallel to the evolution of the role.
Department began using the Work Plan as a tool to ensure greater accuracy with re-estimates.
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THE STORY CONT.
Department had outgrown the existing format in several ways.
Initiated a Comparison Study to determine actual task hours and duration.
Pilot project/BA tracked detailed true “actuals.”
Reviewed other completed project’s plans for “reality check” and projects of varied size.
Created three templates based on project size.
Approach aligns to how the BA role is estimated.
Included average estimates for effort (hours) and duration (days).
As the team matured in the planning process, they moved to a MS Project template - now ‘plug n play.’
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PLUG & PLAY?
PLUG & PLAY YOU SAY?
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HEY JEN –
CAN YOU FINISH REQUIREMENTS IN A WEEK?
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CRITERIA TO CONSIDER
WHEN SELECTING A FORMAT/TEMPLATE
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Maturity of the BA role
overall
BA responsibilities
Estimating
Budget / Forecasting
Skill Sets: maturity in
planning / estimating
Project Size
Timelines
Project overall
BA tasks
Complexity
Role on the project
PM/BA
Lead BA w/multiple BAs assigned
Skill Set
Team Considerations Project Considerations
GATHER YOUR REQUIREMENTS:
REVIEW THE BA PROCESS
Is your process well defined and documented?
Your process will help you define what needs to be
included in the Work Plan as a required element,
versus those deliverables or tasks that are BA or
Project specific.
Ensure that Core Competencies are being
delivered on every project.
Ensure consistency with Best Practices.
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GATHER YOUR REQUIREMENTS:
WHAT LEVEL OF TASK TRACKING?
A highly detailed, granular work plan will become
cumbersome.
To little detail will not allow you to realize the
benefits of using and maintaining a Work Plan.
Finding the right level of detail will combine the best
of both worlds:
Serves as an up to date and consistent status report
that can be provided to the Project Manager.
Helps for ease of ability to incorporate/link to the Project
Manager’s overall work plan.
Variations by team or by project are possible.
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SO NOW WHAT?
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CONDUCT THE ‘PILOT’
Determine the base tasks for an average project.
Get the BA Team using the starter template.
If you’d like, enter estimates for hours of effort and
duration in days.
Most importantly – everyone must track and update
as they go.
Enter actual hours per task in the plan
Enter actual duration
Ready to hold the meeting, but the SMEs aren’t available for 5 days.
Mark completed tasks
Track what tasks were done, but not on the starter template.
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ANALYZE YOUR DATA
Assess pilot project data by looking at:
Actual hours
Actual duration
Be sure to compare similarly sized projects.
How does your company define a project? Small projects: up to 1000 total project hours
Medium projects: 1,000 to 3,000 total project hours
Large projects: More than 3,000 total project hours
Generate averages per task per project size.
Assess added tasks for inclusion as ‘base’ tasks.
Create the next generation template.
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SELECT A FORMAT
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Easy to use
Great for any size
project, possibly better
for small or ‘simple;
projects.
Easily accessible to
anyone needing to
view the plan
More robust tool
Can link directly into
the overall Project Plan
Allows for complex
tracking and
dependency driven
planning
Excel Project
WORK THOSE PLANS!
Determine which plan works for your project.
Tweak the tasks for the project.
Enter due dates
Estimates will already exist for hours and duration.
Share the plan with your PM
Negotiate dates or resources as necessary
During the project – update as you go. Enter actuals
Update remaining hours
Mark completed tasks
Adjust dates as necessary
Communicate deviations to everyone
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THE WORK PLAN IS GREAT!
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WHAT YOU’VE LEARNED
The benefits and uses of a Business Analysis Work
Plan
How to select a work plan tool for your BA
environment and maturity
How to gather and analyze “actual” work plan data
to create task estimates
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TOOLS FOR YOU!
Microsoft Excel BA Work Plan template
Simple
Detailed
Microsoft Project BA Work Plan template
Templates include:
Task lists
Sample estimated effort and duration
Download the templates or email me!
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© 2011 Trissential. All Rights Reserved. © 2011 Trissential. All Rights Reserved. 26
About Trissential
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• Average 22 years experience
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AWARDS & ACCOLADES
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Out of the Box
BA
Jennifer Battan, CBAP®
Blog: Outoftheboxba. blogspot.com
Email: Outoftheboxba
@gmail.com
Twitter: OutoftheboxBA
QUESTIONS?
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