Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Why Business analysts work better in a team than as a Lone Ranger
To start with, the business analyst function works much better in a team environment rather than as a solitary effort. Business processes combine many disciplines, skills, talents, experience; the successful solution will also be a combination of factors and applications. Business analysts should not work in isolation. They must synthesize information garnered from a large number of people within the business, such as business constituents, the solution team and other technicians, and upper-level management, as well as those who interface with the organization such as customers, vendors, government agencies, and business partners.
A compelling reason to work in teams is the synergy obtained by working with business analysts who have other business experience. There is also the enhanced view of the bigger picture obtained through the input of various different business analysts representing different business elements that assists in determining the impact of any new solution.
As Christopher Koch says, “Being social animals we identify with our own group – whether it is our families, friends, colleagues, or our ethnic or national group. These loyalties are strong and deeply embedded in our evolutionary background…The reasoning is simple: left alone in the jungle, a chimp will die. The group bond is more important to their [monkeys’] survival than the individual bond. It is hardwired in us.”
It is not only the social aspect and the natural tendency for working in groups that should drive business analysts to work together. A business analyst requires a wide range of skills to be successful, and not everyone has this vocabulary of technical and business knowledge. Combining two or more business analysts with different backgrounds, knowledge, skills, and temperaments fills all the holes and creates a powerful combination. This does not imply that every project needs to have several business analysts assigned to it. Each project may only have one business analyst. The business analysts, however, work together behind the scenes to increase each other’s performance on every project. Whether informally, a weekly get-together as a New England insurance company does, or formally through a Center of Excellence or some other organization-sponsored entity, a group of business analysts tends to be stronger than the sum of its members.
A compelling reason to work in teams is the synergy obtained by working with business analysts who have other business experience. There is also the enhanced view of the bigger picture obtained through the input of various different business analysts representing different business elements that assists in determining the impact of any new solution.
As Christopher Koch says, “Being social animals we identify with our own group – whether it is our families, friends, colleagues, or our ethnic or national group. These loyalties are strong and deeply embedded in our evolutionary background…The reasoning is simple: left alone in the jungle, a chimp will die. The group bond is more important to their [monkeys’] survival than the individual bond. It is hardwired in us.”
It is not only the social aspect and the natural tendency for working in groups that should drive business analysts to work together. A business analyst requires a wide range of skills to be successful, and not everyone has this vocabulary of technical and business knowledge. Combining two or more business analysts with different backgrounds, knowledge, skills, and temperaments fills all the holes and creates a powerful combination. This does not imply that every project needs to have several business analysts assigned to it. Each project may only have one business analyst. The business analysts, however, work together behind the scenes to increase each other’s performance on every project. Whether informally, a weekly get-together as a New England insurance company does, or formally through a Center of Excellence or some other organization-sponsored entity, a group of business analysts tends to be stronger than the sum of its members.
Labels: business analyst, teams
¶ 12:25 PM
