As a BA community we need to come together and start promoting our frameworks, our methodologies, our approaches in order to shape the future of the profession rather than worrying about defining our role. We should define the scope of what is business analysis as a discipline. Once we achieve this end, this will empower us to look at what the discipline offers in the way of frameworks and tools to interested practitioners, as the specialists in this field.

Organizations representing Business Analysts are looking to certification or accreditation as a way of defining the role and bringing in some level of standardization in order to decrease ambiguity in the marketplace. There has also been a lot of debate about the role vs the discipline of business analysis. Garrett cautions that if we go down the track of defining the role we inevitably threaten someone’s sense of identity. If the Business Analyst’s role differs from the organization’s job description, then does it follow that they are not Business Analysts?

Alternatively, we could argue that whatever the discipline of business analysis is, it follows that those who are specialists in this field are Business Analysts. Although this has the potential for the BA to be “boxed in” may result in Business Analysts having little influence or control over important aspects of projects, where Business Analyst competencies and capabilities are of great value and adding strategic value to organization goals and objectives for process improvement.

As a Business Analyst I’m more often involved at a strategic level. Rather than my involvement with projects ending with the delivery of requirements, I’m utilized throughout the project: I bridge the gap between the business and the technology team; review processes and operations; as well as investigating and advising on the project’s impact and dependencies on other systems and programs initiatives across the enterprise.

All this activity means my role is not easily defined. This is not because I’m trying to be all things to all people (the Project Manager, the Business Analyst and the Systems Architect) or take over another project team member’s role, its more a reflection of the discipline of analysis being increasingly seen as a core capability and that the frameworks and tools used for analysis can be drawn upon for expertise throughout the life of the project and through all the programs across the enterprise.

In short, as a Business Analyst I do lots of things. Don’t put me in a box or label me and don’t predefine what I do … it limits the possibilities for my involvement to add value within projects, between projects, across programs and across the enterprise.

Ultimately, the definition, role, responsibility, and the future of Business Analysis will be determined not by us but by organizations that will base their decisions on their resourcing needs. It is therefore up to us as a Business Analysis Community to continue to promote what we do and how we do it and share our knowledge, understanding and expertise within the community. By doing this as a community we can go out to organizations and showcase the capabilities and competencies of business analysis. This will show the value of the discipline regardless of the role within the organization. Instead of prescribing what a Business Analyst is or isn’t, let’s talk about our frameworks, our theories and what tools are out there to get the job done.

We have seen in the US presidential candidate race and indeed during our own Federal election here in OZ, that Politicians who want to have street cred are getting themselves on MySpace, Facebook and You Tube to try and tap into wider audience of potential voters. It’s very much about having a conversation and really connecting with your target audience. This makes it a really interesting time to be a Business Analyst or Information architect.

I am finding in my own work and that of my colleagues, that we are getting more and more requests from corporate organisations, media organisations and agencies, wanting help to scope out requirements for making their online presence more interactive and taping into social computing tools. My friend Matt and I have recently been discussing the role of the User in a social computing context and how this role has changed. As Business analysts, we need to be aware that stakeholders now play many roles and ensure that we incorporate these changing needs in our requirements specifications for web sites.
Users are no longer just the audience in a social computing context. They can also be the customer, the consumer, a participant, and part of a community. Users want to comment on your website, review and rate articles and through this contribution, can help the organisation understand what Users see as valuable information on their website. The communication channels to the User needs to recognise these multiple roles and move to greater interaction with the User. We need to ensure that the medium being used is able to fulfill the requirements of the User (in their numerous roles) and marketers need to ensure that the message is tailored and specifically relevant to the audience they are trying to involve and excite.

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules
2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself
3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged

So, I have taken up the challenge and here is my list of things you may not know about me:

1. I was born in the Bris Vegas (Brisbane Qld) and am the middle child, but I am the oldest girl
2.  My parents were both teachers so that prolly explains why i have way too many Degrees and a Masters as the importance of education was a key theme in my family. I continue to learn and seek knowledge so I guess Mum and Dad did something right
3. I have travelled the world but mainly for work so I am trying to rectify things and start travelling as a tourist and taking my time to see the real cities (and not just the hotel conference facilities) and gain a better understanding of the history and the people.
4. I am accidentally in Canberra but have found great friends and rewarding and challenging  work to do even though it has meant a big career shift for me.
5. I have known great love in my life and am loved I am just a hopeless (hopeful) romantic.
6. My Dad died when I was too young to appreciate his brilliance and amazing talents. He was not the kind of guy you noticed (as he was always in the background organising and supporting). He was a gentle, quite soul that was happy to let others shine and was very proud of his children’s achievements.
7. I come from a very sporty family. We all played Tennis to a high level. At school I also played netball, volleyball, hockey, softball and in my spare time, athletics. I still play netball competitively 3 times a week.
8. I have two wonderful children and I just hope that I am a good Mum and am always there for them when they need support and love. I love them unconditionally.

The people I’d love to know more about are:

1. Julia Gillard — It’s great for young women to have an  inspirational role model in government and I hope she can live up to this expectation.
2. Matthew Hodgson — My best friend who constantly challenges me to do great work and be a better person. He is also a bit of a KM (knowledge management) guru so I have lots to learn from Matt and he is the most passionate presenter you will ever see.
3. Donna Maurer — I have only just gotten to know Donna recently on a personal level and have always respected her professionally. I look forward to getting to knwo her better.
4. Andrew Boyd — He is one of my friends who has encouraged me to blog. He has a lot of ideas and cares about others.
5. Allison Denny-Collins— She is very knowledgeable in HRM and has a very level head on her shoulders. 
6. Caroline Elton — She was my good friend back at Pharmacia and has been overseas for ages and is now moving back to Sydney so we have lots of catching up to do.
7. Helen Mirrem — I just think she is a fascinating woman, a great actress and have always admired her choice of gritty roles. 
8. David Beckham — He seems to be genuine and down to earth despite his high profile and a lot of Australian sportsmen could learn from his example.

Take up the challenge. Write some random facts about yourself.

In his presentation, Matt suggested that “as business analysts, we’re often focused on eliciting business requirements for systems, managing the relationships between the business owners and the vendors and developers of the technology. Unfortunately, we sometimes forget that what we’re doing is delivering a system that is for users. This results in us delivering the ‘what’ in terms of requirements, but forgetting that there’s a very strong need to find out from the people who will use systems the ‘how’ it will work for them”.

Matt works as an Information Architect and this is exactly the head-space that drives IA activities. In his presentation Matt suggests that IA and concept design can help “to determine navigation paradigms that are truly usable and accessible and systems that are designed to meet people’s needs in an intuitive way, rather than systems by developers that you have to ‘learn’ how to use”. Matt also stressed that “User-centred design seeks to change all that by putting the user as the focus of all project activities, from scoping, to analysis and requirements gathering, all the way through design and delivery”.

I think Matt makes raises some really interesting points about the focus on User Centred design, that as BAs we should consider. I believe it is really important to remember when you are developing requirements that as Business Analysts, we are NOT the Users. It’s not about us, it’s about the Users and what they need and how they will interact with this system. By using iterative prototyping, you can uncover the User’s need in consultation with them and use prototyping as a means of communication and eliciting and refining requirements. This will ultimately save a lot of development time and money.

Australian Business Analysis Association
User Group Meeting & End of Year Drinks

ABAA members and business analysis colleagues are cordially invited to attend the ABAA User Group Meeting to be held onTuesday the 4th of December 2007 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.

Please join us for an exciting presentation
“Iterative Prototyping & User Centred Design”
by Matthew Hodgson (Regional Lead for Web & IM at SMS Consulting)

Followed by
Christmas drinks and nibbles in celebration of another successful year for the ABAA.
Venue: SMS Management and Technology
Ground Floor 8 Brindabella Circuit, Canberra Airport
RSVP: by the 30th Nov 2007 actcomms@abaa.org.au
The Australian Business Analysis Association (ABAA) is a professional organisation which seeks to define, promote and support Business Analysis as a profession nation wide. Further information can be found at: http://www.abaa.org.au

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Yes, I’m busy and time poor, but what I’ve realised is, this is exactly why social computing works for me. By using the social computing tools available me i am sharing contacts with people I trust and learning how to quickly get through the noise on the Internet, to the sites that are going to be interesting and relevant to me.You can leverage off the power of the many and build your network through friends and friends of friends. Its about getting connected. It also about trust and how you trusted network can work for you so you can gain access to the knowledge and information you need.

This connectivity revolution is fostering innovation and creativity. Instead of the Web 1.0 top down approach to information, Web 2.0 allows a bottom up approach to sharing information. That’s why the social stuff is at the very core of Web 2.0. Knowledge may be power, but the real power is when that knowledge is shared. Viva the revolution!

I came across an interesting article forwarded to me by some information architecture friends, Matt and Andrew. The article on the discipline and role of IAs was written by Jesse James Garrett in 2002 and the issue of defining the roles of IAs that they were struggling with back then, are very familiar issues that we are now facing as BAs.

Garrett argued that there is a discipline known as information architecture as well as a role known as information architect and that they evolved hand in hand but the time had come for change. Thus, just as there is the discipline of Business Analysis, there is the role of a Business Analyst. If we define the discipline based on the role then we may potentially be too broad as the role of as business Analyst varies from organisation to organisation an em-compasses BAs working as commercial, process, financial, technical and systems analysts. If we define the role based on the discipline, then whatever the field of business analysis is, those who are specialists in this field are business analysts. This definition however could, in practice, become too narrow.

As suggested by Garrett we seem to be at an impasse “Any definition broad enough to encompass the role is too broad to foster useful discussion of the discipline; any definition narrow enough for the discipline is too narrow for the role” and “Basing either definition on the other means one is going to be insufficient. Trying to do both at once isn’t working, producing a classic chicken-and-egg problem”.

We really need to define the scope of what is business analysis and then can look at what that discipline offers in the way of frameworks and tools to its members, as the specialists in this field. If we decouple the definition of the discipline from the definition of the role entirely then we have the opportunity to concentrate on more precisely defining the discipline of business analysis.

I have had a number of comments with suggested tools to consider and comments wanting to know which requirements management tool we choose. After a couple of months of assessing different requirements management applications we did propose Holocentric to the management team. We liked its requirements management flexibility, business process mapping, ability to map relationship and traceability.

We hit a wall though when it can to implementation and unfortunately have had to go back to our previous tools. There were two main barriers.

1. Cost: Set up costs of initial training and licences required to to use the product (these costs were not part of the original project budget so would require new funding).

2. Downtime: We had invested so much time already using the current tools that to convert our current work to the new software would mean a lot of rework to get to the same point and extend the project time-lines.

So, whilst it was too late for this particular project, we now are aware of other tools out there and can captilise on these for our next project.

Where: The Hall, University House, ANU, 1 Balmain Crescent, Acton

When: Thursday 13 September, 7.15am for breakfast at 7.30am. Talk beings at 8.00am

This series is shaping up to be even more popular, informative and entertaining than ever, so once again, we are offering a special discount price if you combine your membership and purchase of a series ticket. Current members will have already received this offer in their membership renewal and new members can take up the offer on the registration form.