The BA function is a new one within our organization and as a result I want to be able to make the role more visible to our stakeholders, whether they be internal or external, with a view to promoting the BA role.
What techniques have you used in the past to achive positive visibility for BA's within your organisation?
Hi Pltroon,
Not sure if you are the manager of the BA(s) or one yourself, but the general process I've used before to successfully raise awareness of the value of BAs is:
1) Find a project where BAs are not involved or are being misused and could deliver tremendous value if properly used. Make sure the project is something that influencers actually care about, but that doesn't mean it has to be a big project. Ideally it is something that will complete in a relatively short amount of time or is working in an iterative fashion where BA results can be seen almost immediately.
2) Convince the PM and/or sponsor to allow BAs to be properly involved.
3) Over-deliver on expectations and make all stakeholders smile.
4) Hold up the reference project as an internal case study and then start going to the relevant stakeholders throughout the organizations showing them how BAs can help.
I've tried alternative methods where you give generic "Here's what a BA does/how they deliver value", but it usually will not hit home until they see it for themselves or have a respected colleague indicate that it's true. So instead of trying to let everyone know about the value of the BA up front, I would target some quick wins that will show people the value.
Thanks Jarett,
Your response is much appreciated. I'm in the process of implementing just such a project now.
I'm also keen on techniques that can be employed at a tactical level within the delivery teams. Something the BA's can do that will be a catalyst to motivate the DM, UEL's etc to start talking to their peers and spreading the good word about the BA resource group. Obviously, I'm thinking about more than just doing a good job!
The best thing I can recommend is to perform business analysis on the individual roles in the delivery teams and find ways to make their jobs better. Talk to them to see what challenges they are facing, identify the root causes, see if a BA can help address the needs and if so have the BA implement a solution that will improve the lives of those people.
Some things that I've seen BAs help with on the team itself to raise their perceived value include documenting decisions, gathering information needed for decisions, engaging difficult stakeholders no one else wants to touch but who are crucial to the project's success, facilitating group discussions on problems the team is facing and cleaning up messy or incomplete documentation that everyone wants but no one has time to work on.
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