An Official event of the South African Chapter of the IIBA

2007/8 Premiere Sponsor of the IIBA-SA

The Great BA / PM Debate

Presented by:

Cathy Banks

Professional Business Analysis from A-Z

www.analyze.co.za

27 August 2009, DVT, Cape Town

This event is sponsored by:

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Agenda Logistics

Catering for tonight will be light snacks and refreshments

Restrooms are located at past the kitchen

Copies of slideshow available on the web

6:30 Introduction and welcomeRobert D’Alton

6:30 – 7:30 The Great BA / PM Debate

Cathy Banks

7:30 – 8:00 Discussion

Closing Administration

PROGRAMME

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Guest Speaker Introduction The Great BA / PM Debate Cathy Banks Joint MD Analyze

Speaker photo here

Cathy is a senior BA. She is highly experienced and has many years of business and IT project experience across various roles including business analysis, project management, systems testing, change management, consulting and mentoring. She is equally comfortable working at a strategic, "blue sky" level and a detailed functional requirements level. She has a special interest in requirements analysis and mentoring business analysts.

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Agenda Introductions Positioning & acknowledgements Key focus of the

Business Analyst Project Manager What the BABOK has to say

Playing both roles on the same project? Criteria for success Get the balance right Tips Summary Discussion

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Introduction Background

15 plus years project experience Various roles Often multiple roles

Analyze Focused on business analysis Work with clients from problem definition through to solution

implementation Value proposition for clients and BAs is in a team who are passionate

about analysis – understanding the problem before finding a solution

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Positioning and Acknowledgements

Largely opinion based on personal experience and input from

peers in industry

Objective is to encourage discussion – please participate!

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The Great BA / PM Debate

Can a BA play both roles

simultaneously?

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Key focus of a BA Listener, investigator, communicator, collaborator, innovator,

organizer…

“A business analyst works as a liaison among stakeholders in order to elicit, analyze, communicate and validate requirements for changes to business processes, policies and systems. The business analyst understands business problems and opportunities in the context of the requirements and recommends solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.”

Source: https://www.theiiba.org

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Key focus of a PM Plan, organize, control, communicate, direct…

Manages all activities that are necessary to plan, execute, control and evaluate the project within the project management areas (integration, scope, time, cost, quality, communication, human resources, risk, and procurement) in order to meet or exceed stockholder's needs and expectations.

Source: https://www.pmi.org

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What the BABOK has to say… By definition, the business analyst is a stakeholder in all business

analysis activities. The BABOK® Guide is written with the presumption that the business analysis is responsible and accountable for the execution of these activities. In some cases, the business analyst may also be responsible for the performance of activities that fall under another stakeholder role. The most common roles to be assigned to business analysts, in addition to the business analysis role, are the Domain Subject Matter Expert, Implementation Subject Matter Expert, Project Manager, and Tester. Guidance on performing these additional roles falls outside the scope of the BABOK® Guide, as these roles are not part of the discipline of business analysis.

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Relationship between PM & BA responsibilities

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Playing both roles … on the same project

Often called for when In investigative stages of SDLC – define the problem Project is too small to justify a PM & BA Limited budget

Can work when the project is Small enough Starting up

Beware when Project is mission critical High level of risk

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Criteria for Success

Individuals playing a dual BA / PM role

Must be experienced in one of the disciplines Must have had exposure to both roles being done separately by

experienced users in a project Must have a good understanding of their strengths and

weaknesses and able to ask for help where needed Must be willing to work outside of their comfort zone Must be able to switch roles seamlessly but retain clear

boundaries between the roles.

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Get the balance rightYou’re doing too much BA work when…

Project team members are not fully utilised don’t know what tasks they should be working on the next milestone, deliverable is not known

The sponsor asks how the project is going You haven’t seen/spoken to the team recently Your research is coming across more interesting

information and nice to haves You have a temptation to increase the scope

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Get the balance right

You’re doing too much PM work when…

The objectives keep on changing Team members are still not clear on

what the real problem is what the end goal looks like (in some detail) the value of the project cannot be clearly articulated

The milestones achieved don’t seem to be that great You’ve been constantly busy but have not been

effective You’ve not had more than one hour quiet time to focus

on one thing

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Tips

Start and end every meeting as a PM – worth remembering even when you’re not playing the PM role

Explain to members what hat you’re wearing when Start with small projects or when the project team is small Understand that the weighting of each role changes during the

SDLC Get support when needed Educate yourself about the other role – a good PM understands

BA work and visa versa Know when to hand over one of the roles

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Summary

Being both BA and PM on a project

Can work, in some cases Must be actively managed Not a long term solution Not for the feint hearted

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Sources

With thanks to

Milton Sakalis, Debbie Bryson, Reyer Meihuizen

References

BABOK

Managing Information Technology projects – McLeod & Smith

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Discussion

Any questions? Share your stories

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Closing administration Tonight’s speaker was

Cathy Banks, cathy@analyze.co.za, www.analyze.co.za Tonight’s event was sponsored by

DVT Tonight’s event was organised by

Western Cape Event’s Committee Our next event is

Last Thursday in September Reminder

Change to membership rules IIBA Elections – paid up members eligible to vote