Most business analysts, due to their project success focus, think of requirements management when questioned about their work. So the BA responds by describing the features of a business solution that the BA is currently working. The BA seldom mentions the associated business benefits with the work (i.e. why the work is vital to the business). Unfortunately, the BA ignores the first rule of conversation: know your audience. The executive asking the question is more likely to understand and be interested in the business value provided by the work, rather than the solution features.
As the BA response states, the focus is on requirements – new and/or enhanced features, not the business benefits for which the project was initiated.
But suppose the BA responded citing the business values: increased revenue, reduced cost, maintained compliance, or increased employee/customer/constituent satisfaction. Below are four possible BA benefit management responses and take note of the underlined words.
Now the BA is addressing the executive’s interest with an effective “elevator speech.” Note that the first three are private sector examples: two discretionary with the third non-discretionary. The fourth example reflects the public sector. All are in the SMART4 format (underlined words).
BAs need to be more business success focused (i.e., benefits management), rather than just project success focused (i.e., requirements management). Don’t get me wrong – BAs need to be focused on both and collaborate with project managers. But my observation is that most BAs today are solely requirements management focused; I base this on student feedback from teaching many business analysis training courses over 15 years.
The BA focus transition from project success to business success is not difficult. In fact, the alignment shift uses the same requirements management tool – traceability7, but with benefits in mind. In benefits management, BAs uses traceability to link business benefits to the requirements (benefits map) to stay within the SMART objectives of the business case8.
In requirements management, traceability is a mitigation tool for preventing requirements scope creep9. BAs use traceability to link business needs to requirements in order to stay within the time and money of the project scope. With a benefits map, the BA can cite the impact on the business case (cost benefit analysis10) if and when requirements change. And we all know requirements change.
Now when the executive asks, “So, what are you working on these days?” the business focused BA responds by citing the business benefits of the work, not the solution requirements. Gaining the executive’s interest, the executive may now invite the BA for an extended conversation in the executive’s office.
Mark is the President of Monteleone Consulting, LLC and author of the book, The 20 Minute Business Analyst: a collection of short articles, humorous stories, and quick reference cards for the busy analyst. He can be contacted via - www.baquickref.com.
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