Saturday, July 04, 2009
Never Stop Learning
One of the common edicts one hears constantly is “never stop learning”. In the case of the business analyst that goes double.
First of all, you have to be current on technology to advise the business community and upper-level management about technology initiatives they are considering. You do not have to be a technological wizard. You simply have to know enough to explain why some things that appear feasible on a home computer cannot be done on the mainframe computer running most of the systems in use. You have to explain in understandable terms why building a system to take the information off a spreadsheet and make it accessible to everyone else in the department will take four months to do when the spreadsheet itself only took a few hours to create in the first place. You have to explain why infrastructure must be in place before that new wireless or interactive voice-response system can be built. You also have to know enough technology to understand what the technical people are telling you and know when they are trying to snow you.
Secondly, you must also be well versed in the organization: its products, its customers, its vendors, its business processes, its people, culture, and politics. Feasibility is not just technological. A significant overhaul of a system that is used by a large portion of the organization may not be feasible from an overall business or cultural perspective at this point in time. On the other hand, the business analyst can assist management by providing competitive market information that will enable decision-making at the strategic level.
Clearly, you cannot know everything. What you can do is know where everything is. Become particularly familiar with the information owned by the organization and the flow of that information, and where it resides, and you have the lifeblood of the organization. When you have the knowledge of the organization’s knowledge you are in a position to confidently facilitate decision making.
First of all, you have to be current on technology to advise the business community and upper-level management about technology initiatives they are considering. You do not have to be a technological wizard. You simply have to know enough to explain why some things that appear feasible on a home computer cannot be done on the mainframe computer running most of the systems in use. You have to explain in understandable terms why building a system to take the information off a spreadsheet and make it accessible to everyone else in the department will take four months to do when the spreadsheet itself only took a few hours to create in the first place. You have to explain why infrastructure must be in place before that new wireless or interactive voice-response system can be built. You also have to know enough technology to understand what the technical people are telling you and know when they are trying to snow you.
Secondly, you must also be well versed in the organization: its products, its customers, its vendors, its business processes, its people, culture, and politics. Feasibility is not just technological. A significant overhaul of a system that is used by a large portion of the organization may not be feasible from an overall business or cultural perspective at this point in time. On the other hand, the business analyst can assist management by providing competitive market information that will enable decision-making at the strategic level.
Clearly, you cannot know everything. What you can do is know where everything is. Become particularly familiar with the information owned by the organization and the flow of that information, and where it resides, and you have the lifeblood of the organization. When you have the knowledge of the organization’s knowledge you are in a position to confidently facilitate decision making.
Labels: business analyst, facilitation, feasibility
¶ 3:34 PM
