Managing & Leading Analysis Teams

GUIDELINES - How to use this forum!

ModernAnalyst.com — 2007-06-26T03:17:43Z

Use this forum to post questions, issues, and information on topics related to managing and leading business analysts or systems analysts including but not limited to: Project Execution Leadership Skills Principles Management Skills Principles Motivation Recruiting and Retention etc.

Resource Management

Tadoow — 2011-11-20T21:55:49Z

Hi all I lead a team of BA and having a difficult time showing to our user groupf the resource hours available vs the # of hours requested. Anyone have a good resource tool to help me solve this puzzle?

Exercise to show value of BA?

bernard — 2009-09-08T08:43:37Z

Hi all I'm in an environment where BA's are not valued at all. There are 4 of us and about 15 PM's. The PM's do all the tasks that the BA's should do, but they don't do it right so we have to go in afterwards and clean up. I've been asked to give a talk to the PM's on the value of BA's. Is there an exercise I can get the PM's to do that shows the value / need for proper BA's in a project? For example, we had a talk on AGILE and SCRUM a few weeks ago and it involved throwing tennis balls to each other and estimating what we could do. There would be a 2 minute break to discuss what worked, what didn't and how to improve. We then set a new target and went again. This went on for 5 revolutions. We then related what we did back to AGILE. I'd like it to be interactive but am at a bit of a loss on how to make it a bit 'sexy'!

Should the BA help or do the testing strategy?

qwertyjjj — 2013-01-07T15:01:39Z

We have a number of projects where we utilise developers and QA. In a number of cases, QA (offshore) doesn't always fully understand the software so I feel it might be necessary for a BA to supplu them with test cases, scenarios, etc. But how can they do the QA properly if they don;t understand the changes? How can they do the regression testing without understanding the entire data chain?

BA Team

masaiculin — 2012-08-07T00:35:18Z

Hi all, I call myself and BA and will be managing a small team of BA. I work in a large organization, however a small unit within the org. I will ultimately have a staff of 3. I am trying to build a plan to develop a deep understanding of the systems nad business processes. I have see a few posts on other BA site providing a template of questions to help build domain knowledge, does anyone have something they can share?

BA Team

Tadoow — 2010-04-07T02:43:59Z

Analysis head responsibilities!

Hadeel — 2008-10-22T09:20:02Z

Hi, What would an analysis head's responsibilities be? Im working on establishing an analysis unit that already has five analysts. Regards, Hadeel

"Qualatative" auditing

cazzy83 — 2011-11-15T17:03:18Z

Hi, Any help much appreciated here: I have been tasked with assessing the quality of the analysis in my department... While this is really subjective I need to come up with a scorecard or list of checks that we can carry out on documentation. Has anyone tried anything similar before? Can anyone give me any pointers please? Many thanks, C

Organisational Capability Assessments

Craig Brown — 2011-03-15T11:54:58Z

A bit of a poll; Have any of you BA manages conducted an organsational (ie BA team/community) capability assessment? What would you expect to discover from such an activity? What sort of things do you think it should investigate?

Reluctant to change

Dirk D — 2010-12-06T20:07:26Z

Hi, I'm hired by a company that told me the business is reluctant to change, and that I would have a hard time to propose changes in the organization. I'm working now already 2 months, and I figured out that not the business users are reluctant to change, but the other business analysts mindset is wrong! Their attitude is 'the business is happy with the way they work', but by doing some business improvement, we have already decommissioned one application completely to great satisfactory of all business users! It is a schoolbook example on how business analysts should not work and forget an important step: improvements. I'm looking for a way to bring in the new spririt to find better ways of doing the business analysis with the team. Does anyone has success stories how they have accomplished a mindset change, and how this is done? Should I write a blog on the sharepoint? Do a presentation? Does anyone has some material? Thanks!

2011 Objectives

Tadoow — 2010-12-21T00:23:15Z

I was wondering what sort of goals everyone is putting together for 2011. I have 1 or two Major Projects that I will be driving in the next year as well as many others (not too large or high visibilty but important as well. Also, I am looking to spend a lot of resource time documenting our existing systems and processes as the documentation we currently have is 'lacknowking'. Lastly, I plan to train my staff on all functions and knowledge I possiby can. Hopefully will put the team in a better position to spread the wealth as the volume of work that comes my way is not getting and smaller.(Of course i have a few specific topics in mind too start).

BA Tools and Software

Marcelo Neves — 2010-01-29T15:54:52Z

Hi guys! I am conducting a survey and I would like your help. 1 - Wich tasks does a business analyst leader (or manager) perform on a daily basis to manage a business analysts team? 2 - Wich tools (spreadsheets, forms, tables) or software does a business analyst leader (or manager) use to manage a business analysts team? Thank you for your help. Marcelo Neves Rio de Janeiro Chapter of IIBA

RE: Objective Setting Urgent Help Required

Jiggsy — 2010-07-06T11:44:49Z

Hi, I have been placed in a lead BA role to assist to improve the performance of the BA team. I need to set them SMART objectives and need some assistance from the BA community. I have a team of 5 but the Business including the HR department have been historically poor at setting objectives and assistance to Managers. I would like to reach out to the wider community in some guidance and examples on How can I set team objectives to measure their performance. I wouldlike to take the simple approach focus on the main activity of capturing of requirements. Key activities: 1. Validation of Scope of the change 2. Validation of Resource allocation (estimate) 3. Capturing requirements method i.e. workshop - I intend to get feedback and score it from stakeholders 4. Peer review on document - measure the number of changes due to incorrect, and missing requirements 5. document approval - sign off 6. Number of Change request recieved due to missing and incorrect information in Business Req Doc Also, consideration to ensure that adminstrative tasks are completed such as timesheets, document folders are up to date, traceability matrix etc. I just need some help on advice, resources, articles. Absolutely anything that may be able to help me!!!!! Thanks

Choosing Participants For Your Requirements Elicitation Sessions

PJHeembrock — 2010-06-18T18:48:00Z

Having the right mix of people is critical to the success of requirements elicitation sessions. Here is a guide for making the right choices: http://www.iag.biz/images/resources/choosing%20smes%20for%20your%20rds.pdf

Lets Create a Task!

bernard — 2009-12-09T14:21:54Z

Hi all As you will know from previous posts the BA's in my company are facing a tough challenge of proving their worth and showing the PM's what it is that a BA can provide in a project. There has been a great suggestion in a previous post for a task, however, the head of department was scared by it. It needs to be shorter and not as tough! So I had an idea that as a forum we create a short task that we can all use. My idea so far is that I divide the room in to groups and set them the task of creating a process map and requirements for my cooked breakfast. I will already have written up my requirements for a breakfast - ie vegetarian and not fried. Coffee, white with 1 sugar after the food has finished. So it's a variation on the swing diagram! What I'm hoping to see is that all groups will go off without asking the customer (ie me) what I want. I want to see that the food is cooked in stages and I also expect to see people say 'I've always done it like that'..... I expect the BA's will have the requirements for each stage documented in detail.....I hope! I'm trying to keep it to something simple and not work related. Any other suggestions or additions?

PM wants a deliverable list

oo3762 — 2010-01-07T16:49:13Z

Our PM has requested a list of delverables for the client (and him) to be kept informed of the items currently included in the project. This document will change periodically based on new requests to be added in and not only include enhancments scheduled for the release but also future enhancements currently in progress, i.e requirements gathering and BRS. The original idea was to post these to the Release Notes. I disagree with this since the Release Notes should include only those items implemented forthe release. What document should this deliverables list be included with?

Seeking Ideas for Final Interview/Audition

christy — 2009-10-13T18:59:14Z

Hiya ~ We have whittled our candidate list down to a few finalists and are not able to make a decision for our enterprise-level BSA open position. What kinds of interview techniques have you used in this kind of situation? I'm noodling on the concept of providing a case study and having each candidate somehow 'audition,' but nothing really ideal comes to mind. We're specifically looking to test which candidate has the best combination of BSA skills, enterprise-level leadership potential, and ability to work autonomously. Does anyone have any suggestions or experiences to share? Thanks! Christy Manager, Business Systems Analysis

The BSA Team - where does is best fit within an organisation

Mike — 2009-08-18T13:17:19Z

I work for a medium size employer and we have a team of Business Systems Analysts. Presently we report up through the head of the Project Management Office and ultimately up to the Head of Technology and Operations. I've recently been asked my thoughts if the reporting line was changed, so we became managed by the Quality Assurance Manager. I've fairly mixed feelings about it to be honest, but wondered how other people's teams were structured and how it worked. What's your story?

ITIL Change Management

inhanc — 2009-09-02T09:07:08Z

ITIL stands for The Information Technology Infrastructure Library; it is generally grouped with ITSM. ITSM (IT Service Management) is an approach of organizing and administrating large scale technology systems by centering the management decisions around the customer's viewpoint of the contribution of IT and interconnected systems to the actual business. It basically is a framework which is designed in a way so that it can be used for the interaction of IT and business users.

Some people consider both of these terms as synonyms which is entirely incorrect approach. In fact, ITSM is a module of ITIL.'http://www.evergreensys.com/services/itil-consulting/change-management/'>ITIL change management focuses on IT services – it is considered as a source of industry-standard best practices that give a common ground for various components within a business to talk about service management.

The particular management service exists as a series of published books that each covers a crucially important area of IT Management. The designed framework informs an organization what is to be done and then it depends on the organization to work out how to do it.

The IT Service Management within the ITIL is divided into two separate disciplines:

· Service Support

· Service Delivery

Service support of ITIL is basically responsible for keeping control of all configuration changes which are made in management database. The particular service notice all changes occurred within the live environment – test or'http://www.evergreensys.com/services/itil-training/'> itil training environment. ITIL service deals with the user of actual services – the service actually depends on the need of user to have proper access to the services that are required by them. The user’s point of contact is the service desk of organization which is responsible for five different kinds of management to bring the issue to resolution.

On the other hand, the Service Delivery Discipline is related to practically reviewing the services are constantly provided to business users of IT.

The ITIL Change Management consists of mounting business justification. This is a expansion of scope from other perceptions of Change Management.

Fields required for Inventory

andy — 2009-02-03T22:57:46Z

Hi, I am currently working on a Medical Supplies Inventory System. Now I am having a hard time determining the fields for the table/database for the drugs. Does anyone know what the standard fields for an inventory system would contain? And does anyone know the data flow of this kind of inventory. My target company is not cooperating well because this is just a college project. If my question is too broad please do tell me.

Managing & Leading Analysis Teams

GUIDELINES - How to use this forum!

Resource Management

Exercise to show value of BA?

Should the BA help or do the testing strategy?

BA Team

BA Team

Analysis head responsibilities!

"Qualatative" auditing

Organisational Capability Assessments

Reluctant to change

2011 Objectives

BA Tools and Software

RE: Objective Setting **Urgent Help Required**

Choosing Participants For Your Requirements Elicitation Sessions

Lets Create a Task!

PM wants a deliverable list

Seeking Ideas for Final Interview/Audition

The BSA Team - where does is best fit within an organisation

ITIL Change Management

Fields required for Inventory

More...

RE: Objective Setting Urgent Help Required