IT Optimization

One of the primary responsibilities of some Business Analysts (BA), or Enterprise Analysts (EA), is to justify projects that the organization should undertake. The BA does this by creating a Business Case for the project and this task falls under the BA knowledge area of Enterprise Analysis. 

Many Business Analysts miss the ball in the Business Case by making the justification for the project or IT business solution very subjective. Many Business Cases start off with what the IT business solution should be. To understand what should be in a Business Case and how to develop one, we must first understand the purpose of the Business Case.

The Business Case is a formal written document to assist executive decision-makers in making the decision on whether to invest in a particular project or IT business solution investment. Knowing this purpose of the Business Case brings to light two important aspects of the Business Case: 1) it is for executive decision-makers and 2) it is to assist in their decision to invest. This means that two very important sections of the Business Case need special attention: 1) the Executive Summary and 2) the money section.

I have personally seen that executive decision-makers look at these two sections only.  Executives want to know 1) what is this about and 2) what is the cost and cost-justification. The Executive Summary should summarize the rest of the business case in a very concise and complete way for quick consumption by executives. The long, detailed version will be used by Managers, the Project Manager and other application software development team members. The second important section of the Business Case is the money. Notice, I not only said “what is the cost” but also “and cost justification”. The cost justification is what is usually left out of the Business Case; most Business Cases, even today, contain no ROI or cost justification analysis. The money section should contain not only the cost of proceeding with this project but it should contain a cost justification for undertaking the project. Projects can be justified by either a cost-benefit analysis, average rate of return, return on investment, internal rate of return or some other method of financial analysis.

Organizations may gain great benefits from engaging the Business Analyst in creating the Business Case including more informed decisions, project mix more strategically aligned and greater business understanding.

We will discuss the other sections of a Business Case and the process that the development of a Business Case should go through as this “The Value of a BA” series continues. Rich Larson of Watermark Learning presented a session on “Creating Bullet-Proof Business Cases” last spring at the Southwest Ohio Business Analysis Development Conference here in Cincinnati for Cincinnati, Dayton and other business analysis professionals in the region. Rich’s presentation, the BABOK® and other BA resources will be used to justify the concepts presented. I hope you continue to read and enjoy the series.

One of the strategic roles that the Business Analyst (BA); Enterprise Analyst (EA) or Enterprise Architect (EA), can perform for the organization is the maintenance of an internal knowledge base, often called an internal Business Analysis Body of Knowledge.  This would be a centralized, electronic repository of artifacts concerning the organization and the environment in which it operates.  This is not a task defined in the IIBA® BABOK®, however would fall under the knowledge area of Enterprise Analysis.

This repository should describe not only the organization but the environment in which it operates. It should include an Enterprise Architecture; divided into Business Architecture, Information Architecture, Application Architecture, Technology Architecture and Security Architecture.  Along with that it should include BA training and information material to quickly ramp up newly hired Business Analysts.  Also, some type of mechanism to ensure you are capturing the business knowledge of Business Analysts who are leaving the organization, so that valuable business knowledge does not walk out the door.

When a Cincinnati, Dayton or other community business has a BA community that is actively maintaining a centralized, electronic internal body of knowledge; that organization is well on a maturity path from a BA Practice to a Business Analysis Center of Excellence (BACoE).

By maintaining this body of knowledge within the organization, the Cincinnati, Dayton or organizations across the country and globe can help deliver business analysis services across the organization at the same level of service, move its business analysts among the business lines and business units within the organization with ease and little ramp-up time, make better business decisions based on an enterprise-wide knowledge base, enable business management consulting within the organization.  These business decisions can have significant impact on the company’s bottom line.

Does your organization have an internal business analysis body of knowledge?

Another area that many Cincinnati, Dayton and other organizations across the country and internationally miss is utilizing the Business Analyst (BA) role in Enterprise Analysis, in particularly in giving assistance in “Project Portfolio Management”.

The goal of the BA in this role is to ensure that the proper mix of projects get approved through the organizational project governance body that best helps the organization achieve its short-term and long-term strategic objectives.  In addition the BA should ensure that there are no conflicting requirements or objectives of the projects being approved.

I worked for an organization that had a formal IT Steering Committee that considered each and every enterprise application development project proposed.  This IT Steering Committee was made up of the business leadership from all business lines and regions of the business and the Senior IT manager responsible for application software development within the organization.  The members of this IT Steering Committee would then rank the projects that were before the committee to determine which projects would get approved; those receiving the lowest ranking would receive approval.  Many organizations may have similar processes, whether they actually take a vote or not; but this organization missed the point because there were no BAs involved in this process.  The projects were presented to the IT Steering Committee by the IT Manager.  The process would have achieved greater results if the Business Executive Sponsor presented the project to the IT Steering Committee as they are most passionate about the business need and that the project would benefit them.  The BA would sit in support of the project as they did the initial analysis that provided the business need and the solution idea for that business need.

However, in this role the Business Analyst, or Enterprise Analyst (EA), would work with the IT Steering Committee or governance body to ensure that the projects receiving approval are the optimal mix of projects and helps the organization best fulfill its strategic objectives.  This EA would present to the governing body the strategic alignment and conflicting issues of the set of projects before the governance body and make recommendations as to the projects that should receive approval based on those criteria.

With this additional information the governance body can make a more informed decision to ensure the portfolio of projects that receive approval are best aligned with the strategic objectives of the organization and reduce the conflicting interests, requirements, issues and scope between the project.  This will help ensure that the organization meets its strategic objectives from year to year.

Does your company utilize the BA role to assist the IT business solution governance body in approving enterprise application development projects?

Many people, and organizations, consider requirements elicitation as the only task that the Business Analyst (BA) performs.  That couldn’t be further from the truth, and those organizations are missing out on the benefits of all the other tasks that a BA is the optimal role within the organization to perform.  This is not limited to Cincinnati and Dayton area companies, it happens all over.

We have already discussed one task of a BA, Stakeholder Analysis and Management. By identifying all possible stakeholders for a particular solution, the BA helps ensure inclusion of all requirements for the solution in the project.  This leads right into today’s topic: Getting Requirements Right!

Getting requirements right means getting them right the first time, at the beginning of project work; before the project gets into the development stage of the Project Life Cycle (PLC).  This reduces re-work and frees up project team members to move on to other projects.  This can lead to reduced headcount and increased project success rates within the organization.  This can also lead to fewer projects within the organization as getting all requirements included in a project and getting those requirements right can mean that follow-up projects to remove a solution feature because it interferes with another system that was not considered during the initial project will not be necessary.  Also, a follow-up project to add a solution feature that was missed in the initial project can be avoided.

Getting requirements right the first time affects an organization’s bottom line, and that can be a considerable effect.  Many consider this the primary role of the BA and their main purpose for being.  As for the tactical role of a BA that is correct. So Get the Requirements Right the first time!

I have been asked from time to time what a Business Analyst (BA) does, or what is the value of a BA to the organization? That is question is not limited to Cincinnati and Dayton Companies, so let’s explore further. Not just to dictate all the many tasks or ways a BA serves their organization, but make note of the role within the organization and how an organization may get value add from that role. Many people know of the work of a BA within projects, the tactical role, but aren’t as aware of the work of a BA in preparing for projects and their Enterprise Analysis role, the strategic role. So we will start with some of the more known and common duties of the BA and progress to the less common roles.

It is common knowledge that approximately two-thirds of all projects fail. The most common cause of this issue has been attributed to incorrect or incomplete requirements. However, in some cases, the cause can be traced back further to incorrect or incomplete stakeholder identification. Sometimes requirements are not included because the stakeholder that would benefit from that feature or aspect of the solution, or has the business need, is not included in the project scheme of stakeholders. So identifying all the stakeholders of a particular solution proposal or business need can significantly increase project success.

Take the example of a manufacturer who is implementing a new Order Entry system. They may identify Order Entry, Customer Service, Manufacturing, Shipping and Accounts Receivables as all stakeholders for the project. However, if you miss the Customer Complaint, assuming shipping and Receiving departments as stakeholders then you do not have a full picture of the impact of a new Order Entry system on the organization. Data can be made available to the customer complaint system, but if that is not identified at the origination of the implementation project then it would have to implemented at a later date on another project; and the original implementation project may make a decision that would make the availability of data to the customer complaint system more difficult and add cost to that implementation.

So identifying all stakeholders for a project, and thereby identifying all requirements for a project is one role of a BA within an organization. This reduces the number of projects, follow-up work and re-work necessary on projects. This not only frees up the BA, but other project team members as well, to move on to more important projects.

Each day I will be sharing more about the value of a BA.  If you have something that you want to share, please post your response.   Today's BA value proposition is: Identify Stakeholders. 

ESI International, a premiere education provider in the fields of Business Analysis and Project Management; and an Endorsed Education Provider (EEP) of the IIBA® held an educational webinar in which they laid out the “Top 10 Business Analysis Trends for 2011”. Presenting these top 10 trends was Glenn R Brule, CBAP, CSM, Executive Director of Global Client Solutions for ESI International. ESI’s Top 10 Trends for Business Analysis are:

1.      Business Architecture will be the primary focus of business analysts

2.      Business Analysis will guide the surge in cloud computing  

3.      Requirements management and development (RMD) will lead in delivering smart business perspective  

4.      Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) will solidify its reputation as the industry standard

5.      Agile success will go to those willing to break with tradition  

6.      BAs will be recognized as the critical change management proponent to avoid troubled projects  

7.      Resurgence of Centers of Excellence

8.      RMD will be essential to regaining market share

9.      RMD will continue to struggle to define itself

10. RMD will require better balanced competencies

These trends show a bright 2011 for the Business Analysis profession. As businesses strive to remain competitive, increase efficiencies and regain market share in the improving US and world markets Business Analysts will be critical in examining the inner workings of organizations, model those processes and help businesses resolve roadblocks to its strategic initiatives. I believe we shall see increased emphasis put on process modeling and other “hard” skills over the soft skills previously sought in BAs. I am not sure we will see a great resurgence of BA Centers of Excellence but BAs will be required to find a structured yet flexible approach to requirements management and development that help organizations find those increased efficiencies.

Those of you who follow my ramblings know that I have been a strong proponent for Enterprise Analysis and the strategic value of the Business Analyst within the organization.  My views can be ascertained from my previous articles:

BA: Business Alignment for the Organization

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

Business Analysis has far reaching impact on the Organization

IT Governance Needs to Change to Gain a Competitive Advantage

Making the Business Case for an Internal BABOK

Building the Business Case for the Business Case

Business Analysis: Building the Bridge

BA; The Architect

Yet, as the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA^®) grows in recognition, I find that many organizations, especially SMBs, do not utilize the BA role for strategic value.  Most organizations have BAs and use them in their traditional tactical role on projects in requirements gathering and solution validation; but very few organizations utilize the BA role for Enterprise Analysis.

As the framers of the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge^® (BABOK^®) sit down to write version 3.0 of the BABOK^® Guide and continue to work on the Enterprise Analysis extension to the BABOK^® Guide, I hope that they put particular emphasis on this very important BA role.  Perhaps companies will take note and start to utilize their BAs to help the organization achieve its strategic goals.

The BABOK^® Guide does mention tasks that a BA may perform under Enterprise Analysis, including but not limited to Capability Gap Analysis, Market Research and Feasibility Studies.  However, it falls short of describing how the BA should perform their strategic duties.  The BA having performed the Enterprise Analysis task(s) builds a business case, resulting in a Business Case document, for a solution to resolve a business need of the organization identified during the Enterprise Analysis activity.  This business case is presented by the Project Sponsor to the project review board (governance body) for approval to proceed with the project.  The Enterprise Analyst (EA), having performed the up-front analysis that resulted in the business case, should sit in support of the business case and the Project Sponsor.  He/she should be available at the presentation to answer any questions the governance body may have concerning the business case.

The EA also works with the governance body to ensure that every business case brought up for approval has traceability back to the organization’s strategic goals and objectives and that the most optimal mix of projects get approved that best contributes to the organization’s strategic goals.  This would be a portfolio of projects that do not conflict with each other and advances the organization the best in achieving its strategic goals.

When we see organizations utilize the EA role more effectively perhaps we will see better project success rates in the Standish Group’s CHAOS Report.
 

One of my fellow Techserve Alliance members sent out an article that I thought was pretty interesting.  You can view the original article here.  It reinforced the idea that local talent is important.  STAR BASE, Inc. has always focused on Cincinnati and Dayton IT talent, so I felt validated.  Some of you may think I’m crazy for talking about a Talent Battle while unemployment is still so high.  I don’t think so, because some IT talent is already hard to find.  Here are some key points from the article in winning the up coming Talent Battle.

1. Eliminate Past Biases.  Many companies don’t consider candidates who they have interviewed but declined previously. There is often a strong bias against them, as in, “We interviewed that guy in January, and he wasn’t any good …” Given that most companies don’t have highly refined selection processes; this is an error in strategy.  Most companies’ selection process is very subjective.  For companies to win, they will need to revisit local talent who they may have interviewed previously for other roles.
2. Don’t Overweight Experience and Technical Skills.  Most companies routinely overweight years of experience and technical skills through the interview process.  A question that needs to be asked is, “Is it possible for someone with five years of experience to outperform someone with ten years of experience? How is that possible?” Smart IT service providers will help their customers select on the portfolio of attributes that drive success in a job, being careful to not overweight less-predictive candidate attributes such as years of experience. Doing so will increase the candidate pool that is available locally.
3. Map your Internal Talent.  Now more than ever, developing internal talent is a smart strategy, as it also correlates to reduced attrition. So for those jobs that can be sourced internally, organizations will be well served by doing so, provided it supports the local search strategy.
4. Measure the Opportunity Cost of Key Vacancies.  Understand the business case for paying relocation. There could be a good argument for what jobs might warrant a rich pot of relocation dollars. This will put you ahead of the game.
5. Focus on the Local. Now would be a good time to look at your suppliers and choose ones that are local and focus on the local.  (I think I may know of one…)
6. Outsmart Your Competitors.  Smart companies will quickly recognize that improving the value package offered to employees to attract and keep more local talent carries far greater ROI than buying someone out of their underwater mortgage, or letting a key role in the organization sit vacant.
 7. Keep Your Best:  As always, the best local talent to attract and recruit are the strong performers who are already working for your company. But most companies have cut bonuses, reduced merit increases, and kept job promotions to a minimum in order to control costs during recent challenging economic times.

Now is a good time to think about your Talent Strategy.  Don’t get caught short in the up coming Talent Battle.

 

On of the big things all application development people know (and I guess business development people know as well), is how their department is treated by management. This battle has been raging since companies decided to have an IT department. The perfect company would have an IT department that supports the business goals and objectives, and can scale and change quickly. I can hear some application development folks laughter already. It can happen. Management needs to let the IT department make the decisions on the software, hardware and infrastructure. IT must understand the business needs, and managements' objectives. The business needs to articulate their needs, and help IT understand the business concerns. In balance, all departments fulfill their roles and the business grows. I have seen some companies that at least understand this principle, and try to implement it, but most companies have one side dominating the other. I will highlight the major factors for the Great IT Battle.

Management treats IT as a cost center – That is correct only if you are an accounting firm. IT brings great value to any organization by streamlining your business processes, which gives you your competitive advantage. I think that more than justifies the cost.

Business “owns” the IT department – This is very common where the business was mature before IT was around. Management came from the business, and doesn't understand that IT is a separate department. IT cannot scale and maintain their infrastructure, so once every 5 – 7 years there is a project like the Big Dig. If you like complex, over budget projects, continue in this manner.

IT “owns” the business - This is  common with organizations that see growth when they added IT. Usually this is caused by management thinking that IT solves all of the problems. IT supports the business. You still need a business plan and a vision.

Political battles between the three – This is the crux of the issue. Management usually comes from the business side, so when in a political battle, IT loses. Unless management views IT as the “magic bullet”, then IT wins. All political battles boil down to my next point:

Risk aversion - an executive at one of my clients pointed this out to me. All of the executives are the winners of many years of political battles. Any decision made is with the idea that they are near retirement, and will not make any drastic change that could hurt their position.

There are a lot of other factors that nuance these scenarios, so your view to the struggle is unique. We at STAR BASE would like to know where you are in this struggle by taking a brief (17 questions on 1 page) survey. STAR BASE can help your organization call a truce to the Great IT wars.

I wrote in my last post about looking forward to using my phone in England. Well, I am back (It was wonderful) to tell all of my application development people and friends about my experience. It was a bit of a struggle to get my phone unlocked. I had just unlocked my G1, and when I purchased my new phone, my provider said that they only allow a phone number to be unlocked once every 90 days no exceptions. I understand that, as unlocked phones are very desirable on the open market, but I want to use my phone. After not taking "no" for an answer several times, a workaround was found. Once landing in England, finding a phone provider was easy. Unlike the US, you have to purchase your phone at full price, and then select a provider. Sure, you don’t get a cheap new phone, but you aren’t saddled with a poorly operating service provider either. My first stop was at an O2 store by my Tube (London underground) station. They were very helpful, even though they couldn’t provide me with a plan. They suggested I go to T-Mobile, and even gave me directions! I would like to know from my application development friends if they ever had helpful service from their phone provider. I went to T-Mobile, and got my SIM card. This is a pay as you go card. I got the card and put 5 pounds for use. Since my phone is not available in the UK yet, I got to show it off. I also got the free international rate of 5 pence (about 8 cents) a minute to the US. My roaming charges would have cost me $1.49 a minute. The data plan was 1 pound a day for unlimited surfing at about 10 MPS. That was much better than $15 per Megabyte usage. How difficult was it to switch networks? I just swapped out SIM cards and it was ready to go. I was able to use Google maps (with turn by turn walking directions), get tube updates, and find places on the Internet. It was the fastest my phone had ever worked. I had used up my initial 5 pounds, so I went to Tesco (like CVS or Walgreens) and added another 5 pounds there. Super easy! Now, if I go back, I have everything I need to use my phone. On my return trip I swapped my SIM card back to my original, and everything worked from home again. I wished the US had this as the competition was on consumer services, and better features and not trying to make it difficult to use your phone or change services.

In my recent post, I talked about my new phone for my upcoming trip to London. I am excited about my new phone, but not the cost. My carrier charges .35$ per outgoing SMS, .20$ per incoming SMS, and 15$ per MB for data. Since my phone is always “listening” on the Internet, it would cost a lot to actually use my phone in London. I can put my phone in “airplane” mode and use the camera, games, and music capabilities, but why have smartphone and not use its features? Fortunately, the solution is relatively simple. I can unlock my phone and use a pre-paid SIM card while in the UK. For my application development friends who are not phone savvy, let me explain. US phones are “locked” for US usage only. All carriers also make some phone features unavailable to the customer. In some cases, you are charged an additional fee for a feature your phone could perform for free! In this case however, I am unlocking my phone so I can use it on other networks. You may have heard of the term “Jail Breaked”.  This refers to a phone that has been hacked to allow all features on your phone to be used. Some phone manufacturers and carriers don’t like this, and can make your phone unusable, or “Brick” your phone. Unlocking through your carrier is perfectly fine though. Once your phone is unlocked, the second part is to get a SIM card in the country you are traveling to.The SIM card is how the network recognizes you. If you opened your phone and swapped your SIM card with a friend, you would get all of his calls, and he would get yours! You can pick up a prepaid SIM card with a data plan for about 10 pounds (approx. 15$) a week. That’s a hefty monthly bill for a local customer, but it is much cheaper than the roaming plan. Remember, your phone number is different with a different SIM card! I can use my phone features to post messages and images on Facebook, for example, like I was at home. I can communicate with people at home without paying hundreds! I will let you know how this works out when I return.

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:

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

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

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

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

 

In Part one, I introduced the idea of Test Data Management or TDM.  TDM is not something unique to IT Applications in Cincinnati, Dayton or to Ohio. It’s something that will need to be addressed nationwide.  With more and more government regulations and data privacy concerns, it will be more and more important to not only manage production data, but also test data used for quality assurance as well. 

One of the aspects of good TDM is for the obfuscation (sometimes referred to as de-identification or masking) of data values from a production database in order to make the test instances “safe”.   One of the challenges is preserving data distributions and referential integrity–even across distributed database systems.  This is particularly important in the healthcare and financial industries where PHI (Personal Health Information), social security numbers or banking information could get exposed.

Another aspect is the challenge of maintaining security around the test databases themselves.   Many companies have tight security around production data, but next to none around test and developer data.   Often this data is just a copy of production data that is not masked in any way.   According to a Ponemon Institute study, data breach incidents cost U.S. companies $202 per compromised customer record in 2008, that is compared to $197 in 2007.  With the cases studied a range of 4,200 to 113,000 records that were affected. 

Do any of you reading this have a little twinge in your stomach?  Can’t anything be easy anymore?  Maybe some RX is in order.  That was EASY!!!!