Business Technology Consulting

BA: Business Alignment

Wednesday, August 25, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

STAR BASE Consulting is conducting a new pulse survey this month asking the question “is there really a rivalry between IT and Business or is this all just sensationalized hype?” I am very interested in seeing the results of this survey, but I believe I can predict the results. In almost every organization I have ever worked in the “Us vs. Them” culture existed. The relationship between IT and Business was more segregated, even adversarial at times, than that of a partnership.

Kupe tackles this topic this week on BA Times, where he discusses creating an environment in which the business wants to work with IT to derive technology-driven solutions. Doug Goldberg does an in-depth analysis of the subject on his blog, in which he describes approaches that a business-side analyst and an IT-side analyst to take to create a collaborative environment.

This topic is nothing new, just as the relationship between IT and Business is nothing new.

It took decades to get it where it is today. I am sure you can find bright spots in which IT and Business work together to achieve their goals, but in more organizations than not, this is not the case. Just as business processes and technology advance year by year, the relationship between IT and Business can be made better. I believe the Business Analyst is in prime position to turn the relationship around to a positive, collaborative, trusting relationship in which the two work together to achieve the strategic goals and initiatives of the organization. Why the BA? The BA is one role that works on both sides of the fence. The BA works with business stakeholders to bring out requirements for business improvement or application development solutions. The BA also works with the IT Solution Delivery Team to develop the solution that meets the business requirements. As the BA works with both teams, they are in prime position to bridge the gap between the two. So how should the BA go about bridging the gap?

Build a Relationship of Trust

One of the often overlooked roles of the Business Analyst is that of liaison between IT and the Business. In order to fulfill this role the BA must have a relationship with both sides of the organization. That relationship has to be built on trust. The business must understand that the BA is there not only to gather requirements but to understand the needs of the business and represent those needs to the IT delivery team. The IT delivery team must feel that the BA will represent the capabilities and limitations of technology to the business.

Communicate

The greatest factor that creates the “Us vs. Them” relationship is a lack of understanding. The business wonders why it takes IT so long to make a seemingly easy change. The IT application development team feels that business can not communicate effectively and does not understand the process of making application enhancements. Last month I spoke about creating a shared vision in relation to requirements and IT solutions. The BA should also create a shared vision of the needs and limitations of one organization to the other. The BA can communicate not only the requirements for IT solutions, but the stakeholder concerns surrounding those requirements. This adds context and can improve the ultimate solution developed as it increases the IT delivery team’s understanding. The BA can communicate to the business that the process of making application enhancements is more involved then changing a little piece of code and there it is. Testing, Quality Assurance, moving changes to production, Sox regulations, post-install processes and support are all time consuming tasks and increase the amount of time it takes the IT application development team to make an application enhancement. The more the business understands about these processes and the value they add to the solution, the more considerate they will be to the needs of the IT delivery team.

Build the Bridge

Through effective communication of the needs and limitations of one side of the business to the other and representing the other team to each team the BA can build a bridge of understanding between the two groups. By making each side realize that we are all in this together and desire the same outcome, you can build a relationship of trust and get rid of the “Us vs. Them” scenario and replace it with a collaborative working relationship that brings about better IT solutions to business needs.

So take the liaison role of the BA seriously and work to replace the adversarial relationship with a collaborative, understanding relationship. In this way you can show the BA value to the organization.

BA: Am I Certifiable?

Thursday, August 5, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

Like Adriana Beal, I am often asked by BAs and aspiring BAs if I think that becoming certified would be a good career move. Adriana covered the Certified Business Analysis Professional^TM (CBAP^®) certification from the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA^®) very well. She noted two situations in which she, and I, would recommend you to obtain the CBAP^® certification:

the job titles on your work history do not reflect your experience in business analysis (they include other titles such as programmer, software developer, financial analyst, etc.) and/or;
you spent many years doing business analysis work for one company (perhaps even with the title of BA), but never obtained post secondary education, and is finding it difficult to get your resume noticed by other companies.

So I will cover the new Certification of Competency in Business Analysis^TM (CCBA^TM),

just introduced by the IIBA. This certification is targeted to the intermediate BA who has not yet achieved the 5 years of BA work experience required by the CBAP^®. The IIBA has positioned this certification as a stepping stone to the CBAP^®, as such it does not have a recertification process. The CCBA^TM is good for 5 years and it is expected that within that time most recipients will achieve their CBAP^® certification. If not, you will have to sit for the CCBA^TM exam again.

So is it a good idea to get the CCBA^TM certification? There are many good reasons to obtain a certification; Adriana points many of them out in her article so I will not repeat them here. However, I am often asked this question by BAs with no or less than one year of work experience. They clearly do not meet the requirements of the CCBA^TM certification; so what is the alternative for them?

The alternative to a certification for someone who is just starting out their BA career is a “certificate” from an education provider that you have completed some training in a specific area. It is advisable to get your training from an Endorsed Education Provider (EEP^TM) of the IIBA so that you know that what is being taught is in line with the IIBA Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® (BABOK^®). One other recommendation for those just starting out their BA career, go ahead and join the IIBA now. Just putting your IIBA membership on your resume shows your dedication and passion for the BA profession. It also gives you an excellent talking point during interviews.

As you are beginning your career as a BA, concentrate on improving your BA skills and gaining experience in a breadth of BA tasks and techniques. Remember, work experience can stand alone on your resume; a certification (or certificate) can not.

Why? Because that’s The Way It Is!

Friday, July 30, 2010 by Matt Warman

If you thought your job as an application development person is difficult, try being a consultant. I love my job as a consultant because I am able to affect change, that is, when people want it. The most dreaded phrase a consultant can hear is “that’s the way it is”. Those words have no rebuttal, no further review. It’s the organization’s way of saying “talk to the hand”! My job is to find gaps in code or process and bring them up to the client. Often times the client has fallen into way of doing things that are counter productive, or more likely, have not changed since the process was in place. A case in point, I was having a discussion with an architect about code review. I noticed that they had the Legacy style user, date, and change comments at the top of their classes. I made a review comment that they weren’t necessary, because Subversion tracks the changes for them. It was due to their work process that comments would be lost by Subversion on multiple merges. I mentioned that several high profile companies use Subversion and don’t seem to have a problem. The architect said that research was performed and it doesn’t, and if I have a better solution, I should do my own research before making a comment. I told him that software does indeed improve, and that if research has been done, it should be reviewed periodically to see if the issue had been fixed. I did research the issue, and Subversion did have bug but was fixed, and my client could use comments in their merged code. The key here is that the staff complains that changes don’t get done, but when they are in a position to make it better, they don’t do it. If anyone investigates a new technology or work process it should be DOCUMENTED AND REVIEWED! I don’t know if it will be investigated because it seems like a trivial issue, but the main problem is that the application development people complain that nothing changes. It’s our Culture. Culture is people, and all people, especially application development people can change culture. If there are deprecated methods and TODOs in production code, bring them up in your code review. I don’t accept “that’s the way it is” as a reason. You can’t change a decision for business reasons easily, but you can fix how things get done. If I don’t like the way that it is, I make it better.

Seven Deadly Sins of Consulting, Part 2.

Monday, July 26, 2010 by Jeff Welsh

See Part One here. These deadly sins are not limited to IT Consulting in Cincinnati, but everywhere. I wish that someone would have shared the list below with me earlier in my career. It might have saved me a few grey hairs and sleepless nights. I have to admit, I have been guilty of a couple of these in the past, but that’s why it’s called experience.

5. Blame it on Rio. And I am not talking about the movie, I am talking about pushing the mistake/error onto something else like, the Operating System, another consultant or worse, one of the client’s employees. While the problem could very well be any of those things, your job as a professional consultant is to find solutions and to set an example in leadership and even diplomacy. While you may see glaring errors or mistakes and perhaps your way would have been the better way to do something it is best to keep the criticism and commentary to yourself. (See #3 in Part One)

6. Bubble gum and baling wire. Many times consultants are brought in to fix something. The last thing you want to do is to take a shortcut that you aren't sure will last. Band-Aids are fine if you know you are coming back to make a more permanent fix. But eventually, those shortcuts will fail and will need further attention and the time to failure is an unknown. It could be the minute you drive away or months later. This is not the type of chance you want to take. It frustrates the client, and it makes you look bad. You also don’t want to make the client totally dependent on you. A client told me once that Peter (not the real name) is very talented; the problem is he is the only one that knows how it works and can manage it.

7. Showing up, Gotta Go. (AKA I gotta hangnail). Once you’re on a gig, most clients want to see you on some sort of regular basis and some might have a “core hours” expectation. It’s important for both the client and the consultant to know what each should expect. I once heard a client make a comment about another consultant that went something like this: “Larry(not the real name) runs out of here all the time and uses sickleave for a hang nail!”

Here is another list that has some similar ideas here. I’m sure there are others. So go forth and sin no more!

Seven Deadly Sins of Consulting, Part 1.

Friday, July 23, 2010 by Jeff Welsh

You have probably heard your parents or grand-parents talk about when they were younger and how they had to walk to school, up hill both ways. When they shared this story with you it was to prepare you for times when things weren’t so easy and to provide you with their knowledge and advice from their hard earned experience. I wish that someone would have shared the list below with me earlier in my career. It might have saved me a few grey hairs and sleepless nights. I have to admit, I have been guilty of a couple of these in the past, but that’s why it’s called experience.

1. Bill for time not worked. This will be the quickest way to end up out of a consulting gig. Make sure you bill the client only for the time you actually work. This can be tricky if your clients are friends. When you go to a job like this, you know there will be a period of time spent socializing, especially when you first arrive. Don't bill for this time. Start the billing period when you start working. Sometimes clients will have celebrations during the day. If you don’t want to appear anti-social, by not going, just don’t bill. If there are any questions, ask the account manager to find out. If you are the account manager, ask your client manager at one of your one to one meetings if it’s ok to bill. Some client’s have a culture where that is part of the expectation.

2. Negotiate rates and make deals with the client. If you work for a consulting firm, you know there are channels for clients to go though to make requests.. Most firms have some sort of account manager to handle those issues. Direct the client to the account manager. I had one consultant that actually went so far as to look in the client’s AP system to see how much we were getting paid and then wanted to negotiate a higher rate with the client. This particular action did not end well for the consultant and he has not been able to be considered for other assignments in this client even when his skill set was ideal. Never, ever work out a side deal or moonlight with a client this can comprise your integrity and jeopardize the trust between you, the consulting company and inevitably the client.

3. Act like a prima donna. Yes, you’re good, that’s why you have been hired. I actually heard a consultant tell the client that their employees were stupid. Hello? You are there to serve those employees. You don’t know what kind of constraints they have had to work with. Hind sight is always 20-20. Its always far better to politely make suggestions. You may find out your brilliant idea was considered previously and there was a very valid reason for it not being implemented. It’s much better to NOT have egg on your face or your foot in your mouth.

4. Miscommunicate or undercommunicate when engaged at a client I believe that the client should know what is going on with their project. Many times I have had to be the bearer of bad news. I also like weekly status reports to let the client know what I have worked on and what I’m planning on doing. If at all possible I like to let them know a percent complete. Years ago, I heard another consultant tell the client he was “unit testing”. The client assumed that meant he had all the functionality done and was testing. The reality was he had about 10% of the functionality done and was testing just that one small piece. When the truth came out, it was not pretty.

Tomorrow I will finish off the last 3 sins.
To be continued……

Phone Questions and Blog Roundup

Friday, July 23, 2010 by Matt Warman

I have been writing a lot about phones recently. What application development person wouldn’t be excited about the new smart phones? I will talk about that later, but first, the news! My colleague Aaron Whitenberger has been interviewed about his role as a Certified Business Analysis here at STAR BASE. If you didn’t know there was such a thing, you should read it now. I wrote my take about Google VS Viacom. Google spent 100 million dollars to defend their right, and it didn’t even go to trial. Vicacom is appealing, of course. The price of freedom is very steep.

Now on to my phone questions! A Java application development peer my client site refuses to get a Android phone because of “market fragmentation”. “I like that iPhone is walled off, but it’s on ATT”. He loves his blackberry, so maybe he doesn’t need it. This post from Slashdot seems to support his case. My questions to you are why did you get a smart phone? Did you consider the operating system when you got your phone? Which would you rather choose, a fragmented but open system where you can get any type of app but could have bloatware, or an operating system ruled by a “benevolent dictator” which strictly controls your hardware and software, but you are free of bloat issues? I choose Android because of its openness. I do have the technical skills to root my phone to remove bloatware if I need to. Some people can’t or don’t. I think Apple went down this road before, and I think you will see Android be the market share winner. Let’s see if Google can do better than Microsoft in maintaining some control of the platform, but still give 3^rd parties the tools to innovate.

BA: Creating Shared Vision

Monday, July 19, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

I am often asked what is a Business Analyst, what is the role of the BA or what does a BA do? Of course, those questions can be answered in many different ways that usually begin with the old standby answer “It depends…”.

When answering those questions, as with most BAs, I will get into the role of the BA within the organizational structure, Enterprise Analysis vs. Requirements gathering on a project, tasks and techniques. I go beyond these limited explanations and try to answer what I believe the requester is really asking “What is the goal of a BA?” I believe the goal of all business analysis activities, whether it is Enterprise Analysis or Requirements Gathering, should be to create a shared vision among the stakeholders.

Create a Shared Vision

Creating a shared vision is much like painting a picture. You are painting a picture in everybody’s mind so clear that everybody can see and understand the picture. No, painting

is not one of the tasks of business analysis. You paint a picture with your words and documentation. Text documents, flow diagrams, use cases, storyboards, activity diagrams, business process models, wireframes and other mockups can all be used in paint a picture. These can be used in combination to paint an even more vivid picture for your audience. Sometimes, as in requirements elicitation, it may mean that you gain the vision of the stakeholder. If in a requirements workshop, focus group discussion or one-on-one interview, drawings on paper or a whiteboard can facilitate shared vision and understanding. Often, it may be that you paint the “as-is” picture for the business stakeholder(s), and then they paint the “to-be” picture for you. By painting a picture so vivid that all stakeholders share the same vision of it, this is how we build the bridge.

Target the Vision to the Audience

In order for your audience to gain a vision, they must not only see the picture, but understand it. The picture must be painted in a way that facilitates understanding; it must be presented in a way that the audience can comprehend. You may use flow diagrams, use cases, story boards and/or activity diagrams when painting the vision to a business audience. You may use text documents, flow diagrams and/or activity diagrams to paint the picture for a technical team. You may use very short summary text documents and/or flow diagrams to present to management. To create a shared vision the picture must be presented in a way that facilitates quick comprehension from the audience to whom you are now presenting.

Sell Your Vision

Not only in our business analysis tasks, but in work outside of business analysis, we must create that shared vision; then be ready to talk about the vision and ensure that all see the same vision. Adriana Beal writing for Bridging the Gap, talks about successfully selling your initiatives to management. As Adriana writes, understand your manager’s framework and persuade your audience not only to accept your point of view, but to act upon it. What she is describing is painting a picture so vivid for your manager that they gain a shared vision with you and that they will want to take immediate concrete action on your proposal.

Business Case vs. Project Charter; Do You Need Both?

Monday, July 12, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

A few months ago I wrote on the benefits of developing a Business Case and how it should be used during the IT Governance and SDLC (Waterfall) process. My main point was that the Business Case document needs to be revisited at different points in the SDLC by the IT Governance body to continue to give its blessing to the project. At any point, yes even after development, the IT Governance body can hold up the “halt” sign on the project when factors or the environment has changed to make the project solution of little to no value. However, this can not be done when the IT Governance body reviews the project and the Business Case only at project inception. Constant review of the business case also assists in initiating the risk mitigation plan when factors or the environment changes that makes such mitigation necessary.

Today I look at the Business Case from a different perspective, that of Project Management. I have been involved in organizations that did the Enterprise Analysis activities that identified a business need and built the business case for a solution. The business case was brought before, and received the blessing, of the IT Governance body and a new project was born. It was then turned over to a Project Services team whose first task was to create a Project Charter.

I found it amazing that the similarities, in format and content, between the Business Case document and the Project Charter document were far greater than the differences. Some sections were reordered and some content was moved from one section to another, but essentially it would be easy to swap the names on the documents and most people wouldn’t even notice. Other than the intended purpose and audiences of the documents, they were essentially the same document. This naturally leads to the question: Do You Need Both Documents, or is it a great waste of time?

Yes, the Project Charter defined a few details in greater detail than the Business Case, but also realize it was written at least a week later, when more factors were known. Also, such content as risks and mitigation plans were then transposed, and further defined, into the project’s design documents. So why can’t the Business Case be used as the Project Charter?

In most cases, I would submit that the Business Case should be used as the Project Charter. Remember the Business Case has received the blessings of the IT Governance body and should therefore direct the scope of the project. Going back to the IT Governance body for approval of a Project Charter mostly restating the contents of an already approved Business Case would definitely be overkill and put undo burden upon the IT Governance body.

One case where Project Charter(s) are necessary after the approval of a Business Case, is when that Business Case is to be split into multiple projects to bring about the Business Case solution. In this scenario you would want a Project Charter for each project to define what part of the Business Case scope that particular project was initiated to handle.

In rare, very complex, business problems with complex business solutions you may find need for both a Business Case document and Project Charter document(s). In most cases, even in large companies, using the Business Case to define the scope and reach of a project is sufficient to get the job done.

The Value of Communication

Monday, July 12, 2010 by Matt Warman

There are many skills needed as an application development person to be successful, but none more important than communication. In fact, that is point of our job, to be able to communicate to our peers, partners, and customers. I believe that most organizations make money in spite of the immense lack of communication. Most of the application development people I know complain more about the policies and procedures than about anything else (although it’s always something!). Aren’t policies and procedures communication? Certainly, but it’s the internal communication that enables and drives the external communication. Everything we do has an impact on our ability to communicate. Say the wrong thing to a journalist, and you will be removed. Miss that deadline, forget about the promotion. Governance is important for the security of communication, but when do these rules get reviewed? Ask any software development person or manager why, and the answer usually is “that’s how we do things here”. The real answer is that someone set that restriction to an event that happened long ago, and nobody is willing to change things. If communication is the life blood of an organization, why would we restrict the life blood arbitrarily? If this sounds like your organization, maybe you need to review how you are handling your communications. If you need help, STAR BASE Consulting has years of experience triaging your life blood, and making it flow easier, better, and stronger.

BA: Building Maturity one Building Block at a time!

Monday, June 28, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

What an exciting time to be a Business Analyst! Why do I say that? Because there is so much going on within and for the profession; within organizations worldwide as well as for the profession globally.

Those that follow the discussion forums on the Business Analysis groups (BA Forum, IIBA®, Modern Analyst) on LinkedIn, have seen me post and comment. I have seen conversations develop into two opposite points of view, usually between two individuals, and neither side is willing to change their view, nor consider the other view. When conversation degrade to name calling, you just know that if these two individuals were in the same room that they would be putting on the boxing gloves and it would be a knock-down, drag-out fight to the end. What I think these people are missing…or seem to forget…is history.

Whether you wish to admit it or not, the profession of Business Analysis is still very much in its infancy. It is growing dramatically all over the world. Look at the IIBA membership and chapter start-ups over the past few months. This leaves very widely spread opinions as to what the job of a Business Analyst is. Business Analysis or the IIBA does not enjoy the history and recognition that Project Management and the PMI® receive today. Someday it will, and the IIBA is growing maturity one building block at a time. Let’s take a look.

The PMI was incorporated in 1969, offers 5 certifications, has over 300,000 certified individuals and the PMBOK® is in its Fourth Edition. The IIBA was incorporated in 2006, offers one certification and is adding its second by end of the year, has less than 1,000 certified individuals and the BABOK® is in its Second Edition. Even ITIL® can be traced back to the British Government of the 1980’s. Six Sigma also got its beginnings in the 1980’s. So the IIBA and the Business Analysis profession does not get the recognition that these other professions, methodologies and/or approaches get at the C-level within organizations. It took some time for organizations to recognize these others, they want to see quantifiable results. Business Analysis is getting there; they are proving their value to organizations every day; and with time it too will get its due recognition.

So what is the International Institute of Business Analysis® (IIBA®) doing to help the cause? A few months ago they launch the Online Library, last month they release the second version of the BA Competency Model, and recently have announced their second certification level. Promised in coming months is the Agile extension to the BABOK. Make no mistake about it, the IIBA stands behind and for the Business Analysis profession. They are building maturity one building block at a time. As with all previous professions, methodologies and/or approaches organizations will be slow, but will eventually, adapt and recognize the value. BA Center of Competency and Center of Excellence are beginning to get recognized for the value they bring to the organization.

So why is it an exciting time to be a BA? Because we current practitioners are in on the ground floor. How often do you get an opportunity to define a profession for the world? Just as the framers of the PMI and PMBOK did 40 years ago, we forge a new area for the world to follow. Wouldn’t you grab the bull by the horns?

Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY)

Monday, June 21, 2010 by Mark Murphy

I have been programming/consulting for over 20 years now, mostly in Cincinnati, and it still astounds me how many coders do not update thier style as trends change. I have heard that if you want to see how things were ten years ago, then go to Cincinnati, but that is beside the point. I have recently been working on an application that was admittedly written some time ago, but in an environment that encourages sharing of code, fields, forms, etc. It seems that the developer only dabbled with code reuse. In form after form, agent after agent, I find the same code, or code that attempts to do the same things, and frequently in a brute force manner. Needless to say, maintenance of this application is a nightmare. Highly frustrating.

Coders - DO NOT REPEAT YOURSELVES. Put your code in reusable general purpose functions, and then reuse them. Refactor your work if you need to add a parameter. If you find yourself writing a bit of code (e.g. getting a configuration value) more than once, put that code in a function, and call it next time rather than writing the code again. The goal is not to reduce the amount of code you write, though sometimes that is a result of DRY coding. The goal is to improve the maintainability of the code. If at some point down the road you need to change the way you retrieve a configuration variable, you don't have to go change the code in a million places, you simply change it in the one function whose job it is to retrieve the value.

Business Analyst: The Most Important IT Role

Friday, June 11, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

Now didn’t I say that Business Analysis has far reaching impact on the organization? A new Forrester research report supports my claim as it ranks Business Analyst #1 of the 13 Most Important IT Roles.

The age of IT specialization has been replaced by an emphasis on skills that can translate across the enterprise. According to Forrester, this shift can be traced to a number of emerging trends:

* Maturing technologies such as software-as-a-service and business intelligence are changing IT skills requirements;

* The growing array of outsourcing options have altered in-house staffing priorities, with more specialized skills increasingly likely to be outsourced; and

* The continued search for cost-reduction opportunities has changed how IT decisions are made.

With those trends in mind, here is Forrester’s list of the 13 Most Important IT Roles, based on the percentage of IT executives who believe each role is growing in importance.

#1 – Business Analyst – 70%

Talk about holding all the cards: Not only do these IT pros know the business, they also have their fingers on all the insight. As the saying goes, knowledge is power.

#2 and #3 – Architecture and IT Strategy/Planning – 66%

As IT has evolved into an increasingly important part of business, both of these roles have become critical in ensuring that every department has the infrastructure and tools that it needs.

#4 – Project Management – 65%

What business doesn’t need people who can mange multiple personalities, master numerous business processes, understand different aspects of the business and make sure things get done?

#5 – Security – 62%

With the onslaught of breaches and identity theft that constantly filters through the headlines, not to mention the growing mandates for better access controls, is there really an explanation needed here?

#6 – Service Management – 60%

The whole thing about the customer applies here to, as managing IT from the customer’s perspective has become de rigueur.

#7 – Client Relationship Management – 56%

We’re in the age of customer service, and anyone who’s mastered the art of managing CRM environments is worth their weight in gold.

#8 and #9 – Business Continuity and IT Financial Management – 55%

With companies paranoid about their systems surviving natural and man-made disasters, and cost-effective IT spending more important that ever, it’s no wonder these roles are on the rise.

#10 – Portfolio Management – 50%

This is a growing area driven by the desire to demystify the measurement of the impact of IT investments.

#11 – Asset Management – 34%

Like other spin-offs from more general business roles, this is another specialized function better outsourced.

#12 – IT Research – 30%

Research? That’s what consultants are for.

#13 – Human Resources (within IT) – 20%

HR for IT is an increasingly unnecessary luxury in an increasingly self-service environment.

Take a closer look at that list and you will notice Business Analysis has been ranked #1, #2, #3 and #10.

Business Analysis has far reaching impact on the Organization

Friday, June 4, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

Keith Ellis compares the business analysis profession to an iceberg in his article on BA Times. He notes that it looks small on the surface but when you get into it how much of “the job” is not visible on the surface.

However, my take away from this article is about the impact of business analysts on the organization. “..not in little ways. In a big way!” Business analysis done properly can impact the organization unlike any other role within the organization. It literally changes the way the organization does business. It impacts every business unit within the organization and can affect project portfolio, financial performance, product offerings and speed to the market; all affecting competitive advantage.

You must also realize the negative impact that BAs can have on the organization when business analysis activities are not performed correctly, or not at all. It can also have a negative impact on competitive advantage. As Keith says “This is not an IT thing, it’s a business success thing.”

We practitioners often get bogged down in the day-to-day activities of the job and loose site of the impact we have, or can have, on the organization. Sometimes it is necessary to stop, take a deep breath and re-visit our own impact on the organization. Implementing a BA Center of Excellence for the organization can go a long way in ensuring the business analysts’ impact on the organization is positive.

What is the BA impact in your organization?

Youtube Versus Viacom

Wednesday, June 2, 2010 by Matt Warman

For those of you not following geek things, there is a lawsuit going on between Youtube (owned by Google), and Viacom (CBS, Daily Show, Colbert Report). Viacom is angry that some of their content was posted on Youtube. Apparently, there was 63,000 separate items on Youtube that were copyrighted by Viacom. Viacom has been supported with a “Friend of the Court” brief by NBC, BMI, and ASCAP (Basically the RIAA). Google has similar briefs by EBay, Facebook, Amazon, and Yahoo. How does this court case affect me as an application development person? Well, it could determine your web application development. There are many interesting issues here: fair use, piracy, site owner responsibility. The key issue here is for the very soul of the Internet. As you probably know, the Internet was created to share information amongst researchers around the globe. This communications device allows us to share voice, text, audio, and video. This makes it easy to share ideas, even if those ideas weren’t ours. A part of that communication is the same kind “water cooler” talk that everybody has done for years. “Did you see what that talk show guy said last night”? The only difference is now you can post it. This song expresses how I feel, and I have added some pictures to show how it has affected my life.
The media outlets want the site owners to control the content on their site. They claim that Youtube is a content provider, and thus are “stealing” their content for gain. This would be analogous to suing the U.S. mail for getting a threatening letter. We have fair use, so any signal sent through the airwaves is free for anyone take and use. This meant that anyone who broadcasted, the content could be consumed by anyone. The content providers made money by placing advertisements in the content. Since that time, content providers have been using congress to side step these boundaries by changing the length of copyright, putting "digital" rights on formerly analog content, and pushing for laws that allow content to be controlled by the provider. The large media companies ignored the Internet because there wasn’t any correlation to their business. When companies like Google started to compete for the same advertising dollars, the large media outlets saw the Internet as a threat to their business model, and are now looking to destroy it.
No one is trying to deny content providers money. It was agreed long ago that your work was yours, but eventually it would be owned by the public. That changed when media companies are entirely built upon their own content (just look Mickey Mouse at Disney). Do people take content that doesn’t belong to them? Yes. Are people just posting items broadcasted to make their point, or to inform? Yes. We have to decide as a society whether the Internet is place to allow copyrighted material as a form of communication. NBC found it distasteful that their shows were on Youtube. That’s why they created Hulu.

What do you want the Internet to be, a free (as in liberty) communication device, or a pay-per-view broadcast medium?

Know Your Role

Thursday, May 20, 2010 by Matt Warman

I am finding out things at my current client that everyone, including application development people knows; having a process is only half the battle. I have been to organizations where business workflow processes were not in place, and the productivity gains were huge when implemented. But over time, those processes stop getting followed. There are many reasons for this; the IT culture rejects the change, the processes don’t get reviewed in a timely basis and become a burden, and the players forget their role.
My client has a decent development workflow in place. Analyst get requirements from the business units, architects turn the business requirements into technical requirements, and application development people execute the requirements. Managers should manage the process, making sure that the resources are available when needed. I always wondered why top technical guys get passed over for management in favor of PHB (Pointy Haired Bosses), and now I know. It’s that PHBs know their role. Managers are managing the PROCESS, not the solution. Often, technically savvy managers want to work the issue. Software development is a very fluid process, and what works now, may not work three years from now. If you are manager for more than six months, you probably don’t know the correct solution. Regardless, your role is to make sure application development staff are available for the solution designed by the architects. Managers have a right to review the design during the design phase, but once finalized, let the architects and application development people do their jobs.
The same is true for consultants. Yes, they are using older technology, and yes it’s a pain to use, and yes it needs to be updated. Your job is to help resolve those issues within the framework of their organization. Unless you are brought in as a CIO consultant, the choice is probably not yours to make. It may be that the business has urgent needs that supersede modernization. They may not have the technical people to maintain the new code. The organization could be planning to replace the system with a prepackaged application like SAP. Or it could be that the technical staff knows their role, and is waiting patiently for their opportunity to upgrade.

Use Cases with UI and Details

Monday, May 17, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

How many times have you developed Use Cases for a project, gone over them with the stakeholder, reviewed the functional requirements of the system, developed and delivered your IT business solution to have the stakeholder want to make changes to it immediately? Is this a symptom that the stakeholder did not understand the Use Case?

More then likely what the stakeholder did not understand is what the user interface (UI) would look like or how it would act. So then we as Business Analysts (BA) turn to Microsoft Visio, PowerPoint or some other tool to create a mockup or prototype of the UI. We share that with the stakeholder, but he/she is still left without the whole picture.

So now we as BAs turn to Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or some other tool to put some details behind the Use Cases and UI. We share that with the stakeholder and get their approval to build the solution. So back to Microsoft Word we go and write a high-level and eventually a detail design to give to the developers to build what we have laid out to the stakeholder. Now all of sudden you three to six documents that you must track and keep in synch; a change to one document may mean a change to another.

Masayuki Otoshi gives a solution to this dilemma in a BA Times article as storyboarding; a way to put Use Case, UI and detail specifications in one document. The article shows an example of user login webpage. It gives examples of the main stream, providing a correct user name and password and an exception stream, providing an incorrect user name and password.

On the surface storyboarding to provide UI and detail information to the stakeholder sounds like a good idea. The simplicity of the example falls short to show the usefulness of this tool. I deal mainly with complete Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and eCommerce website interfaces to the back-end order fulfillment system. Using storyboards to show the stakeholder(s) what the eCommerce webpages or the ERP desktop screens will look like before they are built allows the stakeholders to make changes to the look and feel of the system before development dollars are spent to build it. Giving the stakeholder(s) a more complete picture of the proposed system look and functionality during analysis and design phase of the project should reduce the amount of rework requested.

Storyboarding has been used in the Agile system development methodology for awhile. It has not caught favor in the SDLC or Waterfall methodology as of yet; but the need to draw a more complete picture to the stakeholder(s) of a proposed IT business solution as early as possible in the project cycle may give storyboarding the light of day.

I do see the usefulness of storyboarding for the SDLC as well as the Agile methodology. I look back on past projects where I could have used storyboarding, if nothing else, to decrease the project schedule.

I do raise one word of caution…remember your audience. All too often I have seen IT business solutions project teams try to combine multiple documents to serve several purposes. Giving the stakeholder(s) the level of detail that developers need to develop the solution may cause confusion with the stakeholder. So do not try to combine everything into one document. Even your wording should be different for stakeholder documents and technical documents. So try storyboarding if appropriate to the project. Someday we just may find it as mainstream as requirements documents and Use Cases are today.

The Secret to Good Performance

Tuesday, May 11, 2010 by Matt Warman

I am now in my second stint as a performance architect. There are many tools to measure performance. Usually there is some criteria like time or memory that is failing. I think most application development people know that the secret to good performance is good code. The problem is that good code is impossible to measure. There isn’t any metric you can show your boss that shows refactoring this class will make the code run faster, or at least will not remove that class from the performance list. Besides we have these new features that need to be added. So how do I make code perform at a high level?
Write unit tests. Make sure that the tests cover all of your method calls. Make sure that your test captures error situations, not just the "happy path". Write your test cases BEFORE you write your code so you can "code to the test". Of course, you need good use cases from your architect and business analyst to write the unit tests.
Comment your code. Make sure your method names describe the function it is performing. Most IDEs add the parameters and returns for you; all you have to do is describe the reason for the method. These are easy things to do. They are boring yes, but when it comes to adding that new feature, or changing a method call, it saves a lot of time when you can run a test to prove that your changes work.
Refactoring. All application development people should learn refactoring. The Java language has changed tremendously in the last 15 years, and your code hasn’t. I think that the Date object has been revamped twice since the 1.x days. New features like annotations and generics may not change the performance of the code, but it sure does affect the readability of the code. Readable, easy to understand code is also easy to maintain and update. It makes a six month project become a three month project. The business always has more projects, so they will be happy. Fewer errors happen, so your boss is happy. You get to solve more interesting problems so you are happy. When you are happy, both you and your code performs better.

IT Governance Needs to Change to Gain a Competitive Advantage

Friday, May 7, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

Futurists have been fore-telling the look of the business enterprise and the IT Department for years. The latest version from the Corporate Executive Board state that we are in for rapid, radical change. It fore-tells that the IT Department in 5 years will bear little resemblance to the IT Department of today. As business users become more tech savvy, the business units will absorb a lot of today’s IT functions. Along with continued IT outsourcing, they predict that only 25% of today's IT professionals will still be in IT in 5 years.

The CTO blog does not forecast such a dismal future for the IT professional, but it also acknowledges the need for better alignment with business strategic goals and faster IT solutions delivery.

Whereas, I will not completely buy in to the idea that 75% of today’s IT professionals will not be working in IT in 5 years or that change will be so rapid or radical. It is increasingly apparent that change in IT solution delivery is necessary, and that is where I suggest that business organizations start; in particular IT Governance.

I hope to see today’s IT Governance Committee, which approve and prioritize IT business solutions projects, replaced with a Business Improvement Project Review Board who approve and prioritize all business improvement projects. This new Governance Body will consider all business improvement projects; those with business solutions and those with IT solutions. As I mentioned a few weeks ago this new board needs to better track all projects and continue to give its support to all projects at every stage of the project. Once the cost of the project outweigh the benefits, or other external forces make continuance of the project unwise, the project can be stopped and decrease the expense to the organization.

Along with that we will see the idea of a Project Management Office (PMO) replaced with a Business Improvement Office (BIO). The BIO will be staffed with people with business backgrounds and those with IT backgrounds; however, cross-training and best practices will require all members of the BIO to look for the best solution, considering both business and IT solutions, to meet the needs of the business. The BIO will take over the project management, business analysis and quality assurance aspects of a project.

Continued competitive pressures will force the BIO to change its practices in order to achieve faster solution delivery. Some will embrace the Agile methodology; others will develop some hybrid methodology taking parts from both the Agile and Waterfall methodologies. However they achieve it, continued pressures for competitive advantage will require continual improvement in the methodology to push for faster and faster delivery while not sacrificing quality.

Many references now forecast a change to IT Departments and IT staffing as we know it today. It will be interesting to see the changes as they come about and see which forecast was most correct.

Making the Business Case for an Internal BABOK

Friday, April 30, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

As I move from client to client, IT shop to IT shop, the one think I notice is that most organizations do not have an internal BA Body of Knowledge. There are several reasons that I can think of as to why organizations have not taken on the task of developing an internal BABOK:

    1. Companies are slow to embrace the idea and value of a BA Center of Excellence.
    2. Companies do not understand what an internal BABOK is and what should be in it.
    3. Companies have not realized the value of an internal BABOK.
    4. Not enough time, not enough resources.

So let’s take a look at these reasons. First, creating a BA Center of Excellence would allow the organization to use their BA talent in a more strategic role within the organization. It would allow them to move their BAs among the business units within the organization with a much less learning curve. BAs leaving the organization don’t take valuable business knowledge out the door with them and just as important, new BAs have a much shorter ramp up time to become effective to the organization. I believe once organizations realize the value that developing a BA Center of Excellence can have on the organization, they would all want one.

Secondly, there is reference material available that conceptually describes an internal BA Body of Knowledge, but you would have to dive deep into reading material to find it. So, let me spell out for all to see what we are talking about when we say an organization should develop an internal BA Body of Knowledge. This is a centralized, electronic copy of documents that define anything within the business. This is a wealth of knowledge that all your BAs can draw from to better perform their duties. This would allow a BA to learn a new area of the business quickly that they have not worked in before as they are assigned new tasks. This BABOK would define the business organization, the business units with it and the interrelationships between those business units. What did that sound like to you? If you said an Enterprise Architecture, you are absolutely correct. The first thing to include in your internal BABOK is the organization Enterprise Architecture, including all five parts of the architecture. Also include the BA Career Ladder, BA Competence Model, BA Job Descriptions, new BA training material, BA departure review and BA reference material pertinent to the organization.

Thirdly, now that you understand what wealth of knowledge is included in an internal BABOK, I think you can realize the value of it without me saying a word. Most organizations do not have an Enterprise Architecture, let alone an internal BABOK. Those organizations that somewhat have one; usually have it dispersed all over the company network, which makes finding material very difficult. Centralized, easy to access, electronic, included in the company’s backup and restore process adds tremendous value to the organization.

Lastly, this is always the reason that many good ideas do not take form. Realize, that if you had an internal BABOK that your BAs used on a daily basis that research tasks take a lot less time. This can decrease project schedules, freeing up more than just BA resource time.

That all sounds nice, but what does it mean to the organization? Well, there are many benefits to having an Enterprise Architecture and internal electronic BABOK to the organization:

Project portfolio in greater alignment with business strategic goals and initiatives
Realization of BA talent in a more strategic role
New BAs become more effective to the organization faster
Ensure enterprise knowledge stays within the organization when BAs leave the organization
Starting point for Enterprise Capability Gap Analysis
Reference material for new product feasibility studies
Reference material for competitive edge analysis
Required material for new enterprise software impact analysis

There are many benefits to the BA practice within the organization:

Reference material easily available without exhaustive searching
Understand BA Competencies important to the organization
Understand BA Competencies needed to achieve the next level on the BA Career Ladder
Move within the business units of the organization with greater ease and knowledge
Needed reference material for Enterprise Analysis activities

Now can your organization survive in these economic times without an internal BABOK?

Got Tools? Use Them!

Friday, April 30, 2010 by Matt Warman

I have a new client in Cincinnati. New clients are always interesting because you never know what issues and opportunities you will find. My client seems to have their act together. My application development friends will appreciate their setup; Maven 2 projects with built-in JUnit tests, a code coverage dashboard that show code complexity, code coverage, and Find Bugs reports. Things seem great, them why do they need a performance engineer?

The reason is common; who defines the duties of ITsets the rules. IT and the business need to be aligned to work on the common goals and increase productivity. If IT is too dominant, there is too much focus on technology and the business doesn’t get the tools they need to be productive. If the business unit is dominant, only projects that have a tangible return get done. In this case the business is more dominant, so projects like refactoring code, or cleaning up errors found by software like Find Bugs has a much lower priority. They do happen only if performance is an issue to the business. The performance team is set up like a clean up crew that comes in after the fact, to make things work better. There are coding style forms and best practices, but is up to the each developer to follow them. Since the focus is getting the project done on time, the developers are concerned on getting code that works,not what works best. The performance team is used to fix the worst performance offenders.To be fair, I have been at clients where IT treats the business units as a nuisance. The best tools are there, but little support for the business.
What’s the solution? IT needs select a technology that best suits the solving of business problems. The business should prioritize their issues, but work with IT to plan for fix releases. IT must utilize the tools that they have and encourage the usage of them. If you have the tools, use them!