Whats a BA lead and who needs one?

By Alessandra Zardo, Marie-Chantal Ct and Sonia Ruffolo In the last few years, the Business Analyst role and the Business Analyst lead role have both grown and gained in popularity. While there is a lot of literature on the BA role, we have not seen the same amount of formal documentation on the BA lead role. For example, the BABOK version 1.6 makes a few references to tasks that the BA lead could handle while version 2.0 does not make any real reference to that role. Other published articles often refer to tasks that are commonly assigned to a lead role but rarely speak specifically about the role itself. In our experience, we have found that the BA lead role is one that can add a lot of value to a project and can add significant depth to the BA phase and deliverables. It is also a role that can help with the development of BAs within an organization. Based on our experience, we will attempt to define from an Information Technology (IT) perspective: o the specific skills and knowledge required for the BA lead role; o the accountabilities of the BA lead; o the value brought to a project by the BA lead and o some of the key differences between a BA lead and a Project Manager. What are the specific skills and knowledge required for the BA lead role? In general, we believe that intermediate to senior level BAs, who have demonstrated strong abilities in the following 4 areas of knowledge, are better candidates for the BA lead role. 1. In-depth BA skills It is critical that the BA lead have very strong BA soft and technical skills. Those are demonstrated through a high level of success in the BABOK knowledge areas i : Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring, Requirements Management and Communication, Enterprise Analysis, Elicitation, Requirements Analysis and Solution Assessment and Validation. 2. General leadership skills Because the BA lead has overall accountability for all BA-related activities, tasks and deliverables within the project, it is essential that BA leads be strong leaders. A good candidate for the BA lead role is a person who is able

to obtain consensus within a team but who also has a vision and is able to drive it forward. 3. High level Project Management skills Although the two complement each other very well, the BA lead role is very different from the PM role within a project. It is however very useful for the BA lead to have a good understanding of some of the key Project Management concepts. Some of these concepts include ii : o Project scope management ensuring that the requirements that are delivered cover only the scope of the project but all of the scope of the project; o Project time management including activity sequencing and activity estimating. Activity sequencing is used to identify and document interdependencies between tasks while activity estimating is used to determine durations for each planned activity; o Project quality management including activities that help ensure that all of the deliverables of the project (including BA deliverables), and the project itself, will meet the relevant quality standards; o Project risk management including processes to identify, quantify and respond to project-related risks. 4. Development, Design and SQA methodologies Because the BA lead partners with the technical team, it is important for that person to have a basic understanding of the methodologies and concepts used by developers, technical analysts and designers. In addition, the BA lead works very closely with the testing team and directs the entire BA team who often provide input into testing-related deliverables, it is therefore of essential importance for the BA lead to have a good understanding of the methodologies and concepts used by the SQA team.

What accountabilities does the BA lead have? Weve broken down the numerous accountabilities of a BA lead into three main categories: Project, Team and Requirements. Project Some of the project accountabilities of the BA lead consist of having an overall understanding of the business, its strategy and objectives. The lead is expected to negotiate the needs and expectations of multiple project participants. The BA lead assists the PM in determining the BA accountabilities, as well as assists the PM in consulting with other IT departments to integrate strategies and

possible solutions relating to the project. The lead participates in the completion of the project risk assessment and in the change management request process. The lead also provides periodic BA team status reports, as well as, advises on any issues/roadblocks to the PM. The BA lead may also be called upon to participate in Steering Committee meeting when issues have been escalated to project stakeholders.

The BA lead is required to liaise with the technical team and the testing team to ensure there is an understanding of all the project requirements and provide input and direction into the testing strategy and in the development of the system architecture design.

Team The BA lead has a responsibility to ensure that the BA team is set up for success. This includes motivating, coaching, and mentoring the BA team. The lead must communicate all project information to the BA team, such as schedules, decisions, business contacts and IT contacts. They must also ensure that any new BA joining the team has a seamless transition. The lead ensures that all BAs have the appropriate system access and project time reporting codes. The BA lead will co-ordinate and participate in periodic BA meetings. They will also provide guidance and advice to clients in the use and implications of business analysis templates and processes.

Requirements The BA lead is responsible for managing the business requirements process for the project and ultimately has overall accountability for all requirements. This includes formulating and defining requirements scope (or options) and objectives based on the business needs and understanding of the business process.

The BA lead, in support of the BA project team, will develop and maintain BA work plans, schedules, project estimates, resource plans and BA status reports. They are responsible for providing requirement templates and instructions to the BA team to ensure that there is a consistent approach to requirements being completed on a project. The BA lead will facilitate some requirement workshops and JAD sessions, drive for consensus between stakeholders and remove any requirement roadblocks. They will also assist in the resolution of issues and communication of decisions that impact requirements. The lead will also participate in all business requirements review meetings, as well as, review and

comment on all business requirements documents in order to identify and communicate interdependencies between components. Other aspects of the BA lead accountabilities may include participation in the vendor selection process by identifying evaluation criteria and assisting in the completion of the technology acquisition review process.

What value does the BA lead provide? The BA lead role is beneficial in the value it brings to other BAs on the team and to the project in general. Weve observed that some of the most valuable aspects of the role include: Coordination At the most basic level, the BA lead does a lot of the coordination between the members of the BA team in terms of communication, processes, practices and content. This helps to ensure that everyone is speaking the same language and understands the interdependencies. On-going coordination and communication is imperative to having a cohesive BA team, especially BA teams spread across multiple locations. The lead ensures that: all the work is completed in a consistent and efficient manner; all documents are formatted the same way and speak to same level of detail; requirement components interface properly and that there are no conflicting overlaps or gaps; and all participants receive the information they need. The BA lead also coordinates with other partners outside of the core team including business and IT partners and the project manager. This provides a central point of contact to funnel information in and out of the core team. Again, this ensures that everyone receives the same message. As projects move into the development and testing phases, more people get involved. Suddenly, BAs find themselves having to coordinate not only among themselves but between all the sub-teams as well. By having all information also pass through the lead, it ensures that its received, assessed and dispatched so that the right people have the information they need to do their work. It also allows for one person to have an overall perspective on BA activities. That person can then effectively represent the BA team in meetings and discussions. Having one point of contact who understands the end to end requirements and who can negotiate the needs and expectations of multiple project participants, from both the business and IT areas, will help ensure that the project is being built on a solid foundation.

Organization One of the key benefits of having a lead BA is the organization skills that this person brings to the team. As other BAs are buried deep in their tasks of defining, validating and documenting requirements, the lead can deal with the day-to-day administration of the team. This task is often taken for granted but essential on larger projects. For example, the lead will make sure that documents are signed off and filed appropriately so that in the case of an audit, all the paperwork is in order. By closely tracking activities against the plan, the lead helps to ensure that the BA deliverables are on time and on budget which helps secure the success of the initiative. Cost and time overruns in the requirements phase can sometimes never be recovered.

Focus On larger projects where the project manager is less available, the BA lead can step in to provide additional leadership needed to keep the project moving and focused from a requirements standpoint. The lead can assist with the requirements being developed within the current scope of the project and help manage the expectations of the business partners. In this way, the team is sure to define the right requirements that will be accepted by the business and ensure the projects acceptance in the end. Sometimes if the BA lead is experienced in the domain of the project, the expertise the lead has gathered will focus the efforts of the team members, especially those with less experience. For example, if an end-user is known to be a detractor, the lead can steer the BA towards other experts with whom they have consulted with in the past. Also, the lead can eliminate a lot of the noise during the requirements gathering and focus in on key issues that have had a make or break impact on past projects. At later stages of the project when development and testing are on-the-go, the lead can help to ensure that the right solution is being developed and that testing is focused on the requirements. This avoids some of the confusion and rework that sometimes sneak into projects and again, ensures the customers are satisfied in the end.

Why have a BA lead when we have a PM? Historically, the PM assumed many of the BA lead accountabilities previously described. In addition to the significant amount of literature recently published around the differences and similarities between the PM and BA role, we have observed the following main differences between the PM and BA lead roles: o The PM manages a project, the BA lead manages a set of BA-related activities; o The PM has accountability over the entire project (including all of the BArelated tasks), the BA lead only has accountability for the BA tasks; o The PM will sometimes focus on milestones in BA deliverables, the BA lead will want to know about granular BA tasks; o The BA lead almost always reports to the PM within the project. The BAs almost always report to the BA lead and then to the PM within the project; o The PM has full accountability for the scope, the budget, the timeline and the quality of the project. The BA lead has full accountability for delivering quality requirements that cover the agreed upon scope, are within the agreed upon budget and timeline.

In conclusion, our experience has shown that BA leads add significant value to projects with multiple BAs. The role, which is distinct from the PM role, helps to mitigate many risks and to add significant depth to the BA phase and BA deliverables. One could always argue that there is a possible increase in cost by assigning someone to the BA lead role, whether that be part-time or full-time, but our experience has always demonstrated that this increased cost is mitigated by the decrease in BA re-work, requirements defects, communication gaps, etc which themselves generate a decrease in cost in the later phases of the project life cycle.

Alessandra Zardo, Marie-Chantal Ct and Sonia Ruffolo have a combined 30 year experience as BAs within IT departments in financial organizations. They have obtained their CBAP designation, are IIBA members and are members of the Montreal, Canada chapter of the IIBA.
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BABOK knowledge areas are extracted from A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) Version 2.0 ii Information on the key PM concepts listed below is paraphrased from A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) 2000 Edition.