Originally published by Business Analyst Times.
Most organizations have an understanding of the value of business analysis and what requirements mean to a project. At the same time, conditions are emerging that have the potential to undermine the position of the business analyst to the point of extinction. In this first part of a two-part article, we’ll take a closer look at what has brought these circumstances about in order to provide a clear understanding of why BAs need to balance their technical and business skills and demonstrate proof of their value to the organization.
Some historical perspective on the evolution of information technology draws interesting parallels to the story of David and Goliath. IT essentially began with the Goliath that was the big old, clunky IBM 3480 mainframe. The David to IBM’s mainframe came along as the new Windows operating system and networks. David won the day and the mainframe went the way of the dinosaur. New opportunities continued to expand the world of technology with network computer systems and the major emergence of the Internet. With that, the Internet, desktop computers and local area networks became the new Goliath. The new David was the software developer who was desperately trying to crank out products that could work on networks and the Internet. As Goliath’s world of technology grew out of control, yet another David in the form of the project manager was introduced in order to gain control over the world of software development.
Up until that point in time, success was measured with clarity and precision. To the technology world and software developers, to measure meant answering the questions, “Is it working well and are the lines of code being executed?” So the project manager was brought in to gain control over what wasn’t working. The result was a clearer definition of success in terms of time, budget and quality. However, Goliath continued to rage on in the software development vs. project management battle, as failure reports from the Standish Group and other research bears out.
The project manager began to partner with the business analyst. David now took on the dual roles of the project manager/business analyst and he understood the secret weapon to defeating Goliath was requirements. Prior to that partnership, the PM was responsible for what could be called requirements activities. When the additional role of the BA was introduced, there were two disciplines aiming to subdue the mighty Goliath.
During the time before the BA was introduced, measurements of success and progress were relatively easy. The introduction of the complementary BA role was as a strong communicator and facilitator, acting as the catalyst to project success. The overarching problem is that BAs are now selling themselves short in promoting their business skills when they should actually be promoting a balanced portfolio of technical and business skills. While facilitation and communication are critical, they are difficult to quantify. As a result, BAs risk extinction because by putting all their eggs in the business skills basket, they aren’t exercising their technical skills that demonstrate quantifiable impact.
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