About the Researchers
Kathleen Hass is a prominent presenter at industry conferences, author and facilitator in strategic areas of project management and business analysis. Kitty specializes in complex project management, BA and PM assessments, executing strategy through portfolio management, Project Office and BA Center of Excellence creation and management, IT applications development and technology deployment, project management and business analysis workshops, seminars, mentoring, and requirements engineering.
Lori Lindbergh, Ph.D. is the Principal Researcher at LORIUS, a firm offering a unique approach to applied organizational research, workforce evaluation, surveys, assessments, and analytics to transform data into actionable business intelligence to drive and improve an organization's business outcomes.
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Participate in a Ground-Breaking Business Analysis Research Study
Is Your Business Analysis Practice Mature Enough?
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Leaders in organizations in multiple industries have already learned the answer to this question by participating in this ground-breaking research study. The purpose of the study, which began late last year, is to evaluate and benchmark the current state of Business Analysis Practices in organizations and contribute to the advancement of the body of knowledge and research in the field of business analysis. Participants receive a BA Practice Snapshot Report and Web briefing describing:
- The current state of your BA practices
- The maturity level needed for you to be successful based on the complexity of your typical projects
- The gaps in specific BA practices
- Recommendations to close the gaps in the form of a 2-year BA Practice Maturity Roadmap and 12-month Action Plan.
Click here for more information on how your organization can participate. |
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| Preliminary Findings are In! |
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Finding #1
BA Practices are Mostly Tactical
For most organizations today, BA practices focus on the ability to manage requirements at the project level to meet the immediate business need. An enterprise more strategic focus is emerging, but is not yet commonly accepted practice.
The organizations that have participated in the study thus far represent four industries: Insurance, Financial Services, Information Systems , and Nonprofit. It is interesting to note that the maturity of BA practices appears to be consistent across industries. All of the organizations have begun to implement BA practices and are approaching level-2 maturity. Level-2 organizations mainly focus their BA efforts at the project level to ensure business requirements are managed. The emphasis is on:
- BA Planning and Monitoring,
- Requirements Elicitation,
- Requirements Management and Communication, and
- Requirements Analysis.
These organizations should continue to build maturity and consistency in these practice areas, and begin to transition to an enterprise focus to ensure business needs are met and strategies are executed. |
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Finding #2
Complexity Matters
Organizations with more complex projects reported more challenges for meeting delivery commitments of full scope, on schedule, and/or budget. Fifty one percent (51%) of the projects in the study were missing commitments by at least 10% for schedule, budget or scope; and 29%-33% of the projects were challenged by 20% or more. Furthermore, significant correlations were found between scope and budget challenges and projects with the following complexity dimensions
- Unclear business objectives, ambiguous business problems, difficult to define solutions
- Poorly understood, volatile, or undefined requirements, inadequate customer support, complex business functionality
- Impacts to the core mission, major political implications, mixed or inadequate executive support, multiple stakeholder groups with conflicting expectations.
Mature BA practices and a competent BA workforce will help organizations better manage the complexity dimensions that impact project success.
Finding #3
Mature Business Analysis Practices Deliver Business Benefits
More mature practices for Requirements Management & Communication and Solution Assessment & Validation were significantly correlated with improved business benefits:
- Organizations that indicated more mature processes for managing and expressing requirements to a broad and diverse audience reported projects that were more on track to achieve reduced cost and improved efficiency.
- Organizations that indicated more mature processes for ensuring the solutions met the business need and facilitating their successful implementation reported projects that were more on track to achieve increased revenue and improved efficiency.
Finding #4
Proficient Business Analysts Lead to Project Success
Organizations need a competent, valued BA workforce that takes a deliberate approach to business analysis using effective planning, stakeholder management, change management, and flexible business analysis approaches. Significant correlations were found between organizations with more projects on track for scope, schedule, and/or budget and:
- More mature BA training programs with a focus on building BA competency, BA professional development programs, and BA career advancement opportunities
- Stronger focus on customer involvement and satisfaction at the start and throughout the project
- Use of a more systematic approach to dealing with change at both the project level and organizational level
Download the new, free white paper, Business Analyst Proficiency – How Capable Do I Need to Be?
Contact Kitty directly at kittyhass@comcast.net. Visit us online at www.kathleenhass.com. |
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