Tony Higgins' talk from the 13th of March on 10 Career Crushers That Threaten Every Business Analyst.

1. 10 Career Crushers
That Threaten Every
Business Analyst
1 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

2. Introduction
Your Speaker:
Tony Higgins
VP Product Management, Blueprint
Career in Software & Systems development.
Specializing in Business Analysis / Requirements for
last nine years.
2 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

3. HOT ISSUES FOR BAs
• lack of communication within the company.
• Its like pulling teeth to separate needs from wants.
• Getting the time of all needed
• Breaking through decades-old mentality: “I never had
requirements in the 70s so why do I need them now?”
• Change of Project Scope. SME's adding additional scope
• Articulating clearly & concisely so business and technical get it.
• Knowledge of the existing system. It’s complex and
undocumented.
• Line of Business people overwhelmed, minimal availability
• Playing catch up. This is a new role - finding its footing
• Simplifying complex requirements & fostering their understanding
• Understanding English sentences varies by requirements consumer
• The struggle between doing things effectively versus achieving the
requirements due date.
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3 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

4. TOP 10 CAREER CRUSHERS

5. Career Crusher #1
Settling into the role of the
‘custodian of the document’
5 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

6. Career Crusher #1
Settling into the role of the ‘custodian of the document’
… but most BAs are too busy
producing and revising the BRD
to focus on analysis and critical
thinking
6 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

7. Career Crusher #2
Using email by default to communicate
with busy, hard-to-reach people
7 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

8. Career Crusher #2
Using email by default to communicate with busy, hard to reach people
The average office worker
spends 41% of each workday
managing email
8 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

9. Career Crusher #3
Being left in the dark when key
discussions are going on
9 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

10. Career Crusher #3
Being left in the dark when key discussions are going on
… the impact of finding out
about changes too late can range
from mildly annoying to entirely
catastrophic!
10 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

11. Career Crusher #4
Falling victim to the
Blind Approvals nightmare
11 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

12. Career Crusher #4
Falling victim to the ‘blind approvals’ nightmare
Often times, the very same
people who “signed off” on the
BRD later ask for changes to the
very details they approved.
How can this be??
12 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

13. Career Crusher #5
Relying on Track Changes to
Manage feedback and revisions
13 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

14. Career Crusher #5
Using “Track Changes” to manage feedback and revisions
… but BAs frequently invite
stakeholders to deliver the
majority of their feedback in
complete isolation
14 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

15. Have you experienced these?
Custodian of the document
Email by default to communicate
Being left in the dark
Blind Approvals
Relying on track-changes for feedback
15 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

16. Career Crusher #6
Settling for text to communicate ideas
16 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

17. Career Crusher #6
Settling for text to communicate ideas
BRDs are full of text.
People don’t think in text.
17 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

18. Career Crusher #7
Using spreadsheets to manage
dependencies
18 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

19. Career Crusher #7
Using spreadsheets to manage dependencies
… this is a staggering number of
BAs who have placed the risk of
major requirements errors
squarely on their shoulders!
19 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

20. Career Crusher #8
Hand-assembling every
User Acceptance Test
20 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

21. Career Crusher #8
Hand-assembling every User Acceptance Tests
… trying to cover off all use case
scenarios manually is highly
error-prone process.
73% of BAs create User Acceptance Tests
manually.
21 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

22. Career Crusher #9
Losing most of your work
at the end of every project
22 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

23. Career Crusher #9
Losing most of your work at the end of every project
FACT: All the work that lead up
to the creation of the BRD has
TREMENDOUS reference and
repurpose value.
Where is it all?
23 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

24. Career Crusher #10
Using documents and spreadsheets as
your primary Business Analysis tools
24 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

25. Career Crusher #10
Using documents and spreadsheets as your primary Business Analysis tools
Job performance is SEVERLY
restricted by these rudimentary
office tools.
88% of BAs still use documents and
spreadsheets to some degree to perform
their job.
25 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

26. Have you experienced these?
Settling for text to communicate ideas
Using spreadsheets to manage dependencies
Hand-assembling every User Acceptance
Test
Losing most of your work at the end of
every project
Using documents and spreadsheets as your
primary Business Analysis tools
26 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

27. A major root cause: Poor Requirements …
• Poorly defined applications (requirements)
contribute to a 66% project failure rate [Forrester
Research]
• 31% of all software application defects originate
in the requirements, and they are the hardest to
both prevent and fix. [Capers-Jones 2012]
27 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

28. The Problem
Software Project Failure Continues …
• Ford Motor Co. purchasing system –
abandoned.
Spent: $400M
• New York City ‘CityTime’ payroll
system over budget.
Original: $63M Final: $760M
• IRS electronic fraud detection
system – abandoned.
Spent: $185Million
• UK Electronic Health Records
program – abandoned.
Spent: $12Billion
28 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

29. The Problem
Software Project Failure Continues …
• Ford Motor Co. purchasing sytem
– abandoned.
Spent: $400M
• New York City ‘CityTime’ payroll
system overbudget.
Original: $63M Final: $760M
• IRS electronic fraud detection • Estimated loss in fraudulent
system – abandoned. refunds because system not in
Spent: $185Million place: $894M
• UK Electronic Health Records
program – abandoned.
Spent: $12Billion Total loss .. $1.1B
29 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

30. Blueprint
• Founded in 2004
• Focused on Requirements
• Over 30% of company developing product
• Mature solution – 8 Major releases
• Vibrant user group
• Strategic partnerships (MS, HP)
30 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

31. Blueprint Helps Remove the Career Crushers
Career Crusher Blueprint Solution
custodian of the document Generate Documents Automatically
Using email by default Inherent Social Features
Being left in the dark Activity Center
Blind Approvals Lightweight, online review
Relying on Track Changes Inline discussions with states
Communicating ideas with text Visual requirements and Simulation
Spreadsheets for Dependencies Automatic Trace Matrix
Hand-crafting user acceptance tests Automatically Generated Tests
Losing your work at project end Repository with history and discussions
Using MSOffice as primary BA tool Integrated Business Analyst “Workbench”
31 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

32. Example:
Purpose-built application for Business Analysis
32 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

33. Return on Investment
‘Measurable’ Benefits
• BA Time saving (25-40%)
• *Rework reduction (50-75%)
• Automated Test scenario creation (70-90%)
*Notes:
• 25-50% of project budgets are wasted on rework
• 70-85% of rework attributable to requirements issues
33 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

34. Thank you !
34 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

35. Example:
Generate requirements documents automatically
35 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

36. Example:
Communicate within the Requirements Application
36 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

37. Blueprint:
Being kept aware
37 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

38. Example:
Communicate within the Requirements Application
38 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

39. Example:
Communicate within the Requirements Application
39 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

40. Example:
Visualize your requirements
40 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

41. Example:
Managed Dependencies
41 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

42. Example:
Automatically generated tests
42 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

43. Example:
Requirements ‘rationale’ stored and accessible.
Requirements Mapped to original Business Need
Discussions that lead to decisions are
‘attached’ to individual requirements artifacts
Requirements Traced to source
documents and materials
43 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary