Does my business actually need Business Analysts?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I have to admit, it threw me a bit! \u00a0I’ve always taken the need for Business Analysis for granted, but perhaps we don’t need Business Analysts after all…<\/p>\n
What Does a Business Analyst Do?<\/h2>\n
Before we decide to start handing out P45s to Business Analysts everywhere, let’s take a moment to consider what they actually do.<\/p>\n
Role, Responsibilities and Characteristics<\/h3>\n
Okay then, what does the role of the Business Analyst involve?<\/p>\n
The very short answer is “a lot”! They play a central role in identifying, analysing and delivering business change. They are responsible for: investigating the business need; analysing the environment which surrounds the organisation; identifying and managing stakeholders; modelling existing business processes and systems; identifying areas for improvement; modelling future business processes and systems; working with and managing requirements; measuring the benefits delivered by business change projects; and much more.<\/p>\n
In a nutshell, a\u00a0Business Analyst is responsible for\u00a0ensuring that the evolving solution to a\u00a0business problem\u00a0meets stakeholder expectations and is what the business actually needs, at the right cost.<\/p>\n
A World Without Business Analysis<\/h2>\n
To kick-start\u00a0our exploration into their benefit\u00a0to an organisation, let\u2019s imagine\u00a0a world without Business Analysts.<\/p>\n
Mabel\u2019s Homemade Jam<\/h3>\n
Suppose\u00a0that we work for “Mabel\u2019s Homemade Jam”;\u00a0a small business with four employees which produces, packs and sells a mouthwatering range of fruit jams to local supermarkets. Initially started in a small but efficient kitchen in Mabel’s family home, the business has grown quickly. We have several ideas\u00a0to improve our small business, including:<\/p>\n
- \n
- outsourcing our payroll;<\/li>\n
- improving our jam production process;<\/li>\n
- moving our production facilities to a new location;<\/li>\n
- finding new buyers for our product;<\/li>\n
- re-targeting our\u00a0products to concentrate on specialist jams.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
These all seem like reasonable business strategies, but which is best for Mabel to adopt? What is the local jam market like? Is there much competition? Is there a high demand for our product? What is the predicted return on our investment for any of these options?<\/p>\n
There are many questions to ask before we’ve even selected a strategy<\/em>. For now, though, let\u2019s assume we have chosen to improve our jam production process.<\/p>\n
But wait! More questions!\u00a0What are we trying to achieve by improving our production process? What is the expected benefit of this improvement? Who are the stakeholders involved in the production process? What activities take place when we are producing jam? What resources do we need in order to produce jam? How will our improved jam production process be better than our existing process,\u00a0and how are we going to measure these improvements?<\/p>\n
Let’s assume once again that we’ve somehow answered all of these questions without Business Analysis (perhaps we have a spare magic 8 ball!). Hurrah, we can finally look at actually improving the process… Now, how do we achieve this? How will we deliver the change? What changes do we wish to make\u00a0– what requirements do we have for our new process?<\/p>\n
Okay… Please Bring Back My Business Analysts<\/h2>\n
If you\u2019re anything like me, you will be screaming for answers by this point. I’m\u00a0analytically-minded and I don\u2019t like to make decisions when I’m missing key information.<\/p>\n
Trained Business Analysts have access to\u00a0a range of techniques for tackling a variety of business questions. Let’s\u00a0look at just one of the questions in our list: “what activities take place when we are producing jam?”. A Business Analyst might\u00a0start by producing a Business Activity Model<\/strong> for the existing process. This would capture\u00a0the main steps in transforming\u00a0raw materials (fruit, sugar etc.) into our finished product (jam). It would include enabling actions required\u00a0before it is possible to produce our jam (obtaining the raw materials, obtaining the cooking equipment), plans \/ budgets \/ targets (how much jam do we need and at what cost and quality?). It helps us to identify the measures by which we can judge the process\u00a0(product wastage, time to produce 100 jars\u00a0etc.) and where improvements can be made (more accurate measuring equipment, better quality packaging etc.).<\/p>\n
What’s more, the Business Analyst can use their skill to present this information in a way that can be easily understood by anyone in the business.<\/p>\n
As you can see from just one technique, they can not only\u00a0gather a great deal\u00a0of information, but also communicate this to others effectively and efficiently.<\/p>\n
The Real World<\/h2>\n
Although\u00a0we’ve deliberately opted for a simple example, even here we have\u00a0illustrated the value of\u00a0Business Analysis on any business change project. The Business Analyst:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Helps identify and define business needs.<\/li>\n
- Considers solutions.<\/li>\n
- Analyses the market, environment and constraints within which business processes must\u00a0operate.<\/li>\n
- Works with project stakeholders to ensure needs \/ expectations are managed.<\/li>\n
- Works with the business to define a clear\u00a0business case for delivering business improvements.<\/li>\n
- Captures and manages the requirements<\/li>\n
- Analyses and validates the requirements, checking for feasibility, conflict and alignment\u00a0with business goals<\/li>\n
- Assesses the expected and delivered benefits from the change.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Closing Thoughts<\/h2>\n
The astute amongst you may have noticed that\u00a0at the head of this post I said “I’ve always taken the need for Business Analysis<\/strong> for granted”, and not “Business Analysts<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n
In the real world\u00a0it is not uncommon to find that the role of Business Analyst is not discrete and separate. It may be held, for example, by the Project Manager. \u00a0In situations such as these, it is important to identify and monitor the conflicts between the roles, but it can certainly work. Watch out for my take on hybrid PM \/ BAs in a future blog post.<\/p>\n
For now, though,\u00a0it seems that the answer to our initial question:<\/p>\n
“Does my business actually\u00a0need Business Analysts?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
is:<\/p>\n
“Not necessarily, but you sure are gonna need Business Analysis!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"\/blog\/..\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/bcs-aep-mark.png\")
Convinced by the need for Business Analysis? \u00a0Why not become a fully certified\u00a0Business Analyst with the UK’s de facto BA scheme, the BCS Diploma in Business Analysis<\/a>. \u00a0Or if you’re just looking for a grounding, BCS Business Analysis Practice<\/a> is a great place to start.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Conferences are great places to engage in some interesting (and often unexpected!) discussions. \u00a0Recently, whilst at a Project Management conference, I was asked the question: Does my business actually need Business Analysts? I have...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,3],"tags":[20,34],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcc-net.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcc-net.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcc-net.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcc-net.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcc-net.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcc-net.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":402,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcc-net.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions\/402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcc-net.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcc-net.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcc-net.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcc-net.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}