We don’t need Business Analysts…

…everyone should understand the business

IIBA UK North Branch seminar

21st April 2015

Techies and users

IT director

Triumvirate of ownership

Technical

Lead

Project

Manager

Business

Analyst

Defining programme content

Technolo

gy

partn

ers

Busin

ess S

trate

gy

Busin

ess S

trate

gy

Busin

ess S

trate

gy

Busin

ess S

trate

gy

Busin

ess S

trate

gy

Programme content delivering

value for the customer

Business Analysts

Hardware specialists

Software specialists

Data specialists

Core Skills for Operational Excellence

• Standardised visual management

• Effective meetings management

• Hubs

A Yorkshire Water Hub

• Large Whiteboard

• Measures

• KPIs

• Stats

• People related data

Printed and stuck to the board

Board positioned where a team meeting can take

place in front of it so all can comment, contribute

and see the data

Business Analysis Visual Management

KanBan

• A visual display of all the projects, tasks and ideas that

we are or may be working on soon

• PowerPoint

• Split into categories:

– Ideas

– Approved ideas that are being worked up into a Concept

– Approved Concepts which are having their specific tasks defined

– Projects in deliver

– Project gone Live

• Names of those from the team also added

Business Analysis Visual Management

eKanBan

• The same elements that are on the KanBan, but stored

in a ShrarePoint List

• More information attached…

– Title

– Description

– Tags

– Whether parked or not

– Strategic Business Stream

– Whether it was in the Business Plan agreed at the beginning of

the year

– Cost estimate

– Benefit estimate

Business Analysis Visual Management

eKanBan

• The same elements that are on the KanBan, but stored

in a ShrarePoint List

• Can be displayed / ordered / filtered / grouped in

whichever way we feel is useful, e.g.

– By Strategic Business Stream - with cost, benefit and ROI

(calculated)

– By Team member

– Those updated in the last month / fortnight / week

– Those not updated in the last 3 months

– Those parked

– Sorted by whether they were on the original Business Plan

– Etc…

Other tools developed

• Skills matrix

• Terms and Acronyms

• Concerns, Causes and Countermeasures (CCCs)

• Lessons Learnt

• Successes

The future – a Business Analysis practice

• We have set up the tools and the environment for a

Business Analysis Hub, now we need to start using them

Community

Practice

• Operational Excellence Tools (Hub, etc)

• Define Best Practice

• Communicate best practice

• Coaching

Challenges

• Defining what A Business Analysis is!

• The people

• Time

Conclusions

• Not all IT directors are clowns

• Collaboration technology allows remote, asynchronous

teamwork

• We do need business analysts