Blueprint 10 Career Crushers Slides

Welcome to Today’s Webinar
10 Career Crushers
That Threaten Every
Business Analyst
(And How To Prevent Them)
1 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Introduction
Your Speaker:
Tony Higgins, VP Product Marketing Blueprint
Career in Software & Systems development.

Specializing in Business Analysis /
Requirements for last nine years.
• Founded in 2004
• Focused on Requirements
• Over 30% of company developing product
• Mature solution – 8 Major releases
• Vibrant user group
• Strategic partnerships

Agenda
In The Next 60 Minutes...
• Hot Issues for BAs

• Top 10 Career Crushers
• Q&A

HOT ISSUES FOR BAs
HOT ISSUES FOR BAs
The Career Opportunities for BAs have never been better:
Indeed.com – CNN Money –

Most in-demand job titles Best Jobs for Fast Growth:
#5 Business Analyst #11 IT Business Analyst

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.


HOT ISSUES FOR BAs
POLL Let’s hear from you ….
What’s the most difficult challenge you face in

Requirements Definition?
• Time and Resource Constraints

• Collaboration and stakeholder engagement
• Executive/management support and buy-in
• Managing change, traceability, and scope
• Common understanding of requirements and getting agreement

TOP 10 CAREER CRUSHERS
Career Crusher #1
Settling into the role of the

‘custodian of the document’

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

Career Crusher #1
Settling into the role of the ‘custodian of the document’
It’s the 80/20 Principle… but BACKWARDS, so it’s working against you
• If the majority of your time, say 80%, is spent on ‘clerical’ work

like writing and revising the BRD, that leaves only 20% of your
time for making a strategic input.
• You’re spending 80% of your time on the stuff that DOESN’T add
strategic value. (It’s the 80/20 principle, but backwards!)
Solution: Find ways to reduce the 80% of time spent on clerical work,
so you have more capacity to make a STRATEGIC contribution.

Example:
Generate requirements documents automatically

Career Crusher #2
Using email by default to communicate

with busy, hard-to-reach people

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

Career Crusher #2
Using email by default to communicate with busy, hard to reach people
Why is email a problem?

• Email can be “exclusive” vs. “inclusive”
• Emails compete for attention in inboxes
• If you have 10 recipients, you’ve just created 10 versions
• Email is passé as a collaboration tool.
Solution: Break your attachment to email as your ‘comfort zone’

communication tool. Social collaboration in real time is where you
want to be.

Example:
Communicate within the Requirements Application

Career Crusher #3
Being left in the dark when key

discussions are going on

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!

Career Crusher #3
Being left in the dark when key discussions are going on
Discussions, developments and decisions happen all the time

without you knowing. Some have major implications
• Without a system for ‘alerts’, you find out too late when a new
development throws your requirements out of whack
• It would be more helpful to be made aware of the details of
conversations taking place as early as possible, so you can plan
accordingly
Solution: An automated way to be alerted of conversations and

decisions from other stakeholders as they happen. BUT… in a smart
way, so that you can easily identify the big emerging issues from
the small ones

Blueprint:
Being kept aware

Career Crusher #4
Falling victim to the

Blind Approvals nightmare

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??

Career Crusher #4
Falling victim to the ‘blind approvals’ nightmare

It’s because they gave ‘blind approval’. They approved the BRD – without
reading and/or understanding it in it’s entirety - just to get the process
moving to the next stage.
Why didn’t they read or understand your BRD? Because it was just too
long, and too complicated. They simply didn't have the time or the mental
stamina to read, absorb and understand it all.
This is a big problem for BAs… people may assume your ‘mistake-filled’
BRD was the root cause of all the change requests and rework.
Solution: Make it easier to understand by more people, earlier in the

requirements cycle, with visual models and simulation – not just text.
Make the review experience more collaborative, more interactive, more
engaging. Do this, and understanding will go up. Approvals will actually
mean something. And changes and rework will go down.

Example:

Career Crusher #5
Relying on Track Changes to

Manage feedback and revisions

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

Career Crusher #5
Using “Track Changes” to manage feedback and revisions
Forces reviewers to formulate questions with no easy, immediate way to get
answers. Open loops that take days or weeks for answers – if ever. This
forces reviewers to make assumptions just to keep moving through the
document.
As a BA you have no idea what is going to come back, so you can’t plan
workload. Multiply by 5, 8, 10 reviewers using ‘Track Changes’ and soon
you’ve got a tidal wave of work flowing back at you
When you rely on Track Changes,

• You essentially give people permission to disengage from a collaborative
process.
• You have no traceability or auditability.
So let’s call “Track Changes” what it is… a bunch of people sitting alone in
front of their computer making assumptions and typing in one-way feedback
Solution: Remove the need for Track Changes... another reason to explore
social collaboration in real time.

Example:

Career Crushers
POLL Let’s hear from you ….
What tools do you use

to define & manage your requirements?
• Office Automation tools (Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.)

• User Interface Mockup/Prototyping tool (Balsamiq, Axure, etc.)
• Requirements Management tool (RequisitePro, DOORS, etc.)
• Requirements Management in ALM tools (HP ALM, MS TFS, Rally, etc.)
• Requirements Definition & Management (Blueprint, etc.)

Career Crusher #6
Settling for text to communicate ideas

Career Crusher #6
BRDs are full of text.
People don’t think in text.

Career Crusher #6
People mentally conceive ideas using imagery and pictures – the more
vibrant and alive the pictures, the more clearly people understand an idea
Multi-hundred page BRDs force people to translate their vibrant ideas into
flat text. When confusion happens, more text is added in an attempt to
clarify. As page count goes up, clarity and readability goes down!
Most BAs do recognize the value of visual modelling… but the same old ‘job
conditions’ come into play: most BAs are so consumed by the gargantuan
task of writing the BRD that there is no time for thorough visual modelling.
Solution: Bring the BRD to life. Make it easier to understand by more

people, earlier in the requirements cycle, with visualization and
simulation – not just text and pictures.

Example:
Visualize your requirements

Career Crusher #7
Using spreadsheets to manage

dependencies

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!

Career Crusher #7
Using spreadsheets to manage dependencies
Dependencies are CRITICAL for good requirements.
You can’t truly understand requirements unless you understand all

the dependencies.
Managing dependencies in a spreadsheet makes this highly critical

job entire MANUAL and puts all the risk on the BA to CONSTANTLY
ensure 100% accuracy of thousands of moving parts.
Solution: Automate this as soon as possible! Available tools make

trace creation fast and easy, ease the maintenance burden, and
allow users to visualize the relationships in ways that provide the
answers people need. Assuming the risks of ‘broken traceability’ is
something you don’t need to do.

Example:
Managed Dependencies

Career Crusher #8
Hand-assembling every
User Acceptance Test
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.

Career Crusher #8
Hand-assembling every User Acceptance Tests
The sheer amount of time and effort it takes to manually create

tests is massive
• Manually creating tests is HIGHLY risky. The volume, and the

tedious nature of this tasks virtually guarantees mistakes
• Tests could be written incorrectly, OR, they may not map 100%
to the requirements – meaning things will be missed, tested
twice, tested incorrectly, etc.
• This causes others to lose confidence in YOUR tests… not good!
• Solution: Look for a way to generate tests AUTOMATICALLY,

which creates an ‘air tight’ way of capturing all requirements
exactly as they are written. Nothing gets missed.

Example:
Automatically generated tests

Career Crusher #9
Losing most of your work

at the end of every project
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?

Career Crusher #9
Losing most of your work at the end of every project
How easily can you trace or access a key conversation or decision

from 5 months ago, so that you don’t rehash the same old debates
later in the process?
If that information isn’t easily retrievable in a matter of seconds or

minutes… it’s a good as lost.
Solution: Drive discussions, debates, and decision rationale’s to

happen in a single, recorded, auditable environment, along with
supporting documentation and materials. Ideally the resulting
requirements themselves should be directly accessible, or within,
the same environment.

Example:
Requirements ‘rationale’ stored and accessible.
Requirements Mapped to original Business
Need
Discussions that lead to decisions are

‘attached’ to individual requirements
Requirements Traced to source artifacts
documents and materials

Career Crusher #10
Using documents and spreadsheets as

your primary Business Analysis tools
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.

Career Crusher #10
Using documents and spreadsheets as your primary Business Analysis tools
The scary truth is… those using documents and spreadsheets

they’ve pretty much hit the ceiling on job performance.
Because these BAs, no matter how much their knowledge or

capabilities increase, the actual performance on the job will be
limited by the degree to which they rely on these antiquated tools
that force them to do everything manually

Career Crusher #10
Using documents and spreadsheets as your primary tool for doing

Business Analysis
But the tide is turning…
37% now use some kind of purpose-built tool…
SOLUTION: BE in the 37%! … or be left behind.

Example:
Purpose-built application for Business Analysis

Blueprint Software Solution
ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary Page 51

Blueprint Software Solution
ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary Page 56

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Page 57 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

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Welcome to Today’s Webinar

(And How To Prevent Them)

1 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Career in Software & Systems development.

2 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

In The Next 60 Minutes...

• Hot Issues for BAs

3 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

The Career Opportunities for BAs have never been better:

Indeed.com – CNN Money –

5 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

• lack of communication within the company.

6 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

POLL Let’s hear from you ….

What’s the most difficult challenge you face in

• Time and Resource Constraints

7 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Settling into the role of the

9 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Settling into the role of the ‘custodian of the document’

… but most BAs are too busy

10 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Settling into the role of the ‘custodian of the document’

• If the majority of your time, say 80%, is spent on ‘clerical’ work

11 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

12 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Using email by default to communicate

13 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Using email by default to communicate with busy, hard to reach people

The average office worker

14 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Using email by default to communicate with busy, hard to reach people

Why is email a problem?

Solution: Break your attachment to email as your ‘comfort zone’

15 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

16 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Being left in the dark when key

17 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Being left in the dark when key discussions are going on

… the impact of finding out

18 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Being left in the dark when key discussions are going on

Discussions, developments and decisions happen all the time

Solution: An automated way to be alerted of conversations and

19 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

20 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Falling victim to the

21 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Falling victim to the ‘blind approvals’ nightmare

Often times, the very same

How can this be??

22 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Falling victim to the ‘blind approvals’ nightmare

Solution: Make it easier to understand by more people, earlier in the

23 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

24 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Relying on Track Changes to

25 ⓒ 2012 Blueprint Systems Inc. - Confidential & Proprietary

Using “Track Changes” to manage feedback and revisions