Andrea:

You have tough management!   Business Analysis to most (but not to me) is an unmeasurable "use what feels right" job.   I had a discussion with an Agile BA consultant the other day and asked her what are the essential tasks that a BA performs on an Agile project.  Her response:  There are no standard tasks, everything depends upon the specifics of a project. 

How do you establish metrics on the wind?

Anyways, if you want solid measurable tasks, learn about data flow diagrams.  DFD's are used to document the as-is and to-be behavior  of manual (yes manual) and/or automated systems to higher levels of abstraction.  With DFD's you, for example, have glaringly obvious proof that you have evaluated the interrelationships between requirements.  It is easy to establish metrics off of such work.  And requirements analysis is much more about discovering essenital interrelationships than it is about identifying standalone requirements.

Tony

 Hi,

Re:  In the first year I dont think there should be targets, there should just be a commitment to measure. Once you have a baseline you can establish an improvement program the following year

I agree totally with this statement! Working for a local Government in the UK, this is not always possible as they are obsessed with having a target but in my opinion it is totally arbitary and at times just used as a stick to beat people with, and most of the time setup to fail.

I am still learning as a BA and have undertaken my own training which i have funded myself, so any advice guidance would be much appreciated, as the organisation i work for have never set a structure around what the change lifecycle should really look like or when a BA, PM etc should fit in or even what they should be doing a each stage. I have my own understanding of this but it would be good to hear how it works in the real world from an experienced BA.

Speak soon,

Scott