The complete picture of how to achieve an extraordinary

business analysis career..

Esta Lessing (CBAP)

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 2

Contents

Acknowledgements 6

Preface: What to expect from How to have an extraordinary

Business Analysis career - 7

Introduction - 9

Chapter 1: How to guarantee career success - 11

Chapter 2: Being the unstoppable Business Analyst - 20

Chapter 3: What every Business Analyst must know - 57

Chapter 4: Secrets of strong stakeholder relationships - 84

Chapter 5: The road to achieve Business Analysis mastery -

104

Chapter 6: Closing Reflections - 119

About the Author - 121

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 3

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind

Copyright 2013/Esta Lessing. All rights reserved. This book

may not be reproduced in whole or part, or transmitted in any

form, used as educational or teaching material without the

written permission from the author, except by a reviewer, who

may quote brief passages in a review; nor may any part of this

book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted in any form or by any means electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written

permission from the author.

Esta Lessing can be contacted via www.business-analysis-

excellence.com or [email protected]

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 4

If you do what youve always done youll get what youve

always gotten! Anthony Robbins.

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 5

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Tim, my partner and the most

dedicated Business Analyst I know. He is also my greatest

supporter in everything I do.

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 6

Acknowledgements

I hereby acknowledge the many business analysts and other

wonderful people who I have learned from in so many different

ways during my career as a Business Analyst. It is all these

people who motivated and inspired me to start this book.

There have been others who challenged my will about who I

am and what I want that has helped me to continue to write

this book and finally, the one person who made sure I finish

this book. You know who you are. Thank you to all.

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 7

Preface: What to expect from Success Secrets

for the Business Analysts Mind

This book shows you the path to follow to reach all you

Business Analysis career goals with great success. It is even

more than that; it covers the steps from when you decided to

become a Business Analyst right through to achieving

extraordinary Business Analysis career results.

It is a must read for all Business Analysts because it enables

you to be a dynamic and high achieving Business Analyst

regardless of your experience level. It focuses on your

individual Business Analysis career and guides you step by

step in how you can reach the next level of your career quickly

and effectively.

To be a Business Analyst takes someone with a great sense of

adventure for challenges and personal development. We are all

on a journey to achieve our dreams and our highest career

aspirations and ultimately want to be happy and fulfilled.

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 8
The journey you are about to embark on when you read this

book is one of learning how you can optimize your Business

Analysis career by following these career success principles.

This book enables you to define your career goals and learn

how to implement the Business Analysis success strategies to

reach them. As part of your journey you will also learn the

foundation concepts of Business Analysis and receive practical

advice on how to find that next great Business Analysis role!

You are guided on which courses and certifications will be

most appropriate for you to work towards to reach Business

Analysis mastery.

LESSON LEARNED

A secret I learned about Business Analysis many years ago is

that this profession may have a lot of tools and techniques

associated with it but it is very far from a cookie cutter type

of profession.

What I mean with this is that Business Analysis mastery is all

about learning the foundation skills and then to apply these

skills in a slightly different way every time. Every project we

work on will be slightly different and our stakeholders will be

different in what they need too. We must be flexible and

comfortable with change to be successful as Business

Analysts. Dont look for a right way and a wrong way when it

comes to Business Analysis - simply embrace the gray scale

that comes with this job!

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 9

Introduction

There are really just three components of your career that you

need to pay attention to. If you do this you can be sure you

will achieve a successful outcome. Make sure you give all three

the key principles the attention it needs and you will be well

on your way to Business Analysis career success!

Principle 1: Think and feel goals

Do everything with the end goal in mind. It is imperative for

any successful business analyst or any business professional

to start their career with the end goal in mind. Where do you

want to get to? What would you love to achieve? If you havent

created your end goal yet, then today is a good day to do that!

Principle 2: The right knowledge

Building a Business Analysis knowledge foundation with every

opportunity you find would stand you in good stead. You

would have heard the saying that knowledge is power, this is

also very true in your role as a business analyst. Always learn

and be a sponge for more information and you will be

surprised how far that takes you.

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 10
Principle 3: Power of personal leadership

People around you determine your success. As an ambitious

business analyst you must always surround yourself with

individuals you can learn from. Make sure you find someone or

a few more experienced people in your organization who you

can model. All highly successful people models themselves on

someone that is even more successful.

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 11

1. How to guarantee career success

The importance of having a career vision

How to create your career goals for success

Why it is vital to reward your goal achievements

PATS STORY

Have you ever been on the freeway driving in the

Success
slow lane because you were not quite sure where
breeds
you are supposed to turn off? Well that is what
success By
happened to a young guy called Pat when he was
Mia Hamm
on his way to go fix a customers printer. He had a

rough idea of where he was going but he was not

too clear on the exact distance, turn off or name of

the company he needed to visit. After a while Pat

realized that he will probably never get there

unless he actually knows the exact address! He then decided

to find a safe place to stop next to the freeway and looked at

his map. He also found the appointment details and then

realized that he actually knew where this place was just by

taking the time to check.

What happened to Pat would have happened to all of us at

least once, right?

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 12

When you know exactly where you are going and you know the

details clearly you tend to drive in the fast lane until you know

it is time to turn off. This is the same with people who know

their goals and ultimate outcomes. They are focused and

driven to achieve that outcome because they know where they

are heading. They do not hesitate or reconsider or even stop

one moment to look around they are the ones who achieve

results efficiently and successfully!

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 13

Do everything with the end goal in mind

You know all those really successful people that we read

about, hear about and even see within our own organizations?

They all have got one important thing in common. They all

have an end goal they are working towards. They have a vision

of where they want to end up and what they want to achieve

along the way. They also have a clear plan of how they will

achieve that outcome or end goal.

To have a successful Business Analysis career you must do

what they do. So lets have a look at how you go about when

creating your vision or end goal and what other steps you

need to take to get there.

Creating a vision

Spend some time to formulate your vision or what I refer to as

you end goal. An end goal is a goal that you would just love to

achieve, it is an outcome that you will make your heart beat

faster, it is a vision of what you would like to see yourself one

day achieve. The key point with defining your end goal or

vision is that you can feel inside of you how it stirs your heart

if you think of achieving it!

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 14

So how do you create a vision?

Simply start thinking about what you want to achieve by the

end of your career or ultimately your life.

Start writing down vision or end goals for yourself as you think

of them. Once you have a vision written down (or a few

potentially) you have to ensure you phrase it to be a statement

that will mean something on a deep level to you. You do this

by using a technique called: chunking up. Chunking up

simply means you read your vision statement to yourself and

then ask yourself this question: So what?. This question will

prompt you to rephrase your vision to something that has real

meaning to you and it will help you write your statement so

that it resembles how you feel about this vision. You write

down the meaning this vision has to you if you achieve it.

An example

I might say that my end goal is to be a Business Analysis

Practice Manager with 100 Business Analysts in the Practice.

This in itself is not something I can feel inside my heart and

therefore not my vision or end goal for my career. However, if I

reformulate my end goal by asking myself the question: So

what?, I might rewrite it as: I am helping business analysts

achieve their career goals and this makes my heart feel full of

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 15

love and contentment because I am making a difference in

peoples lives. This is an end goal.

The reason you want your end goal to be a feeling inside of

your heart is because this is ultimately what motivates all of

us. We are all made up of emotions and we live by our

emotions and that is precisely why it is imperative for you to

define your end goal or life vision based on how achieving it

will make you feel.

If you dont set an end goal that stirs your heart, you will not

be motivated to reach that goal.

So now that you have set your end goal or your vision for your

life, lets look at the next steps we need to take to reach your

end goal!

Your career goals

Your goals are the map for reaching your outcome or vision.

It lays out the milestones or cities you need to get to on your

map to be moving closer to your vision or end goal.

You must set your goals with the end goal in mind. The goals

you define can be short term (next week, next month or in 3

months), medium term (6 months to 2 years) and longer term

goals (2 to 5 years). Also you must revisit your goals every

week initially and then every month when you are in the habit

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 16
of focused on your goals. Remember that your goals will

change and you must therefore revisit your goals very often,

re-evaluate them and redefine them. You will gain more

information as you progress and refine your direction as you

work on achieving them. This is why it is alright to also

update, refine or even rewrite goals periodically. The key here

is for you to revisit the goals often and to always keep them

aligned with your overall outcome or vision.

When you define your goals, you must ensure you define them

to be S-M-A-R-T goals.

What is an S-M-A-R-T Goal?

S-M-A-R-T is an acronym for your goals attributes. Each goal

definition must have these attributes to ensure that they are

clear and achievable. Have a look at the description of each

letter below and then apply it when you do your goal

definitions:

Example goal: I have completed reading this book in 7 days

from today.

S - Specific

An example of a Specific attribute would be that you are

specific about what it is that you want to achieve, i.e. finish

reading this book. You are not saying you want to have looked

at this book (that could mean anything from looking at the

cover to scanning the pages, who knows?). In this example we

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 17

use the word completed reading the book which is a very

specific statement describing what the goal is.

M - Measurable

If we continue with the example above, that goal is

measurable because you are saying you want to complete

reading the whole book. So you will be able to measure

whether you finished reading this book or not by simply

looking at which page you are up to in 7 days from today.

A As if its already happened

The goal definition must be written in a way that it sounds like

it has already been achieved; it is already a fact and

completed. In our example above it states the goal as if it has

already been completed.

R - Realistic

Also remember that you want to set goals that will stretch you

but at the same time you must be able to achieve your goals. It

must be feasible and realistic. For example, to finish reading

the book in 1 day is not feasible because you have many other

things you must do, but finish reading it in 7 days means you

stretch yourself in that you must commit a little time every day

in order to achieve this goal.

T - Time

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 18
The time attribute is important because you need to know by

when this goal should be met by you. In our example it says in

7 days from today. In your real life goal definition you will

include a date.

Finally, your action plan

You now know what your end goal as well as all your goals to

reach that end goal is. What you need to do next is to make a

list of all the actions and steps you need to take to achieve

each of your goals.

You simply take each goal individually and make a list of tasks

or actions you need to perform. You revisit this list every week

(or every day if it is a short term goal) and ensure you stay on

track for reaching your goal. As you progress through your

actions, you will progress through achieving your goals.

Remember that no goal will ever be reached without you

taking ACTION.

Rewarding yourself

A secret of achieving real and continuous success in your

career and also your life is this: Success breeds more success.

What does this actually mean? This means that every success

you recognize for yourself starts to build a habit for more

success. You are therefore by recognizing and celebrating

successes, instilling a new behaviour and inherent ability for

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 19

success for yourself. This is why it is imperative for you to

celebrate each success you achieve. So when you achieve one

of your goals, make it a celebration and before you know it

you will be celebrating your next success!

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 20

2. Being the unstoppable Business Analyst

PATS STORY...

Before we go any further, let me tell you more about You cant

our young friend Pat. He took the brave decision to cross a sea by

become a Business Analyst. merely staring

into the water

Pat was working as a customer services By

representative in a consulting company that supplied Rebindranath

printers to other companies right over the city. Pat Tagore

was often out of the office visiting clients to ensure

printers are still functioning as it should. This job was

alright but Pat didnt feel like he was really challenged

anymore and wanted to find a career where he can learn and

grow as an individual. He was also of course interested in

being paid more and ideally didnt want to travel from

company to company all day long!

One day Pat was busy with one of the printers when he

overheard a conversation between two people. He couldnt

help hearing the man say to the woman he was speaking to

that the company really dont have enough good business

analysts. He was talking something about a project and about

requirements that needed to be collected urgently for the

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 21

project. He also said that they should consider getting some of

their existing people converted to become business analysts.

Pat wasnt sure what a business analyst was all about but it

sounded good and what really excited him was that it sounded

like something you can convert to or learn how to become.

Pat rushed off that night when he got home and started to

google the term Business Analyst....

To be continued

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing

Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 22

So what does a Business Analyst actually do?

Lets start right at the beginning...what does Business Analysis

mean?

There are many different meanings attached to what Business

Analysis really is in the corporate world and very often even

project managers are not quite clear on the scope of what they

are actually there to do.

So what is it a Business Analyst does?

In a very simplified definition a business analyst translates

business needs into business solutions.

We can also compare ourselves with bricks and mortar

builders, architects or even sales people. We meet the person

or family who wants to build something. We then determine

they need somewhere to live because they have been set up in

a hotel for the last 3 months, it is too expensive, small and the

family is under huge stress. After talking to them further we

understand it is a house they need (not a flat, tent or farm!)

and after more discussion we gather it is a 4 bedroom place

with 2 stories and should be painted yellow. In between they

decide they also need a bungalow outside for grandparents

and if we are lucky we hear they want to change the house

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 23

colour to be blue before the painting starts! We put our

builders hats on and know this is our job in a nutshell.

The role of the Business Analyst in the workplace

The role of the Business Analyst is best described in terms of

the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

The SDLC is a process or methodology that is widely applied to

all projects. It is a series of phases that each project will go

through and everything about that project is planned for in

terms of this methodology. It can also be compared to

anything we do which has a start, do the work and an end

phase with a key difference that the SDLC has predefined

phases. The SDLC consists of a set of specific activities that

must be performed during each of the phases. The SDLC is

applied more or less in the same way where ever you go.

As a business analyst you will always (if you are in a project

environment) be doing your role as part of the SDLC. Your role

changes as the SDLC goes through the life cycle. Lets have a

look here at what you will typically be doing in each phase.

TASK

It is a great idea for you to look up some further information

around the SDLC so that you can have a good understanding

of what this is all about. It is a fundamental concept to

understand to fully grasp the role of the Business Analyst.

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 24

Planning for the SDLC

Strictly speaking Planning for the SDLC is not a phase of the

SDLC, however this is a crucial activity that is always done. The

Project Manager will typically create a project plan for the

overall project and the Business Analyst will contribute by

planning requirements activities for each of the SDLC phases.

You will get involved with the following activities in this

planning stage:

Plan for the requirements management approach

Plan the Business Analysis roles & responsibilities

Identify who will be involved, who will be your

stakeholders

Plan for the requirements activities that need to be

done to achieve the completion of all requirements

deliverables. Examples include a business

requirements document or traceability matrix.

Evaluation phase

This phase is sometimes called the Initiation Stage but

essentially, this is where the cycle starts. An idea or concept is

evaluated and a proposal is put forward.

The more senior business analysts tend to get involved during

this stage where the business need or business problem is

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 25

evaluated at a high level. Your role as a Business Analyst here

can include:

Developing a concept statement

Perform a feasibility study

Prepare options analysis

Prepare an impact analysis

Prepare a cost benefit analysis

Analysis phase

During the analysis phase most of the typical business analysis

requirements related activities take place. You will be heavily

involved in:

Requirements gathering - workshop facilitation,

interviews, observation, research

Requirements documentation business

requirements document, requirements traceability

document, functional & non functional requirements

documents.

This is where you will also use your modelling skills

to document business requirements.

Requirements validation & prioritization activities

Start the stakeholder engagement. You will use a lot

of your Business Analysis soft skills during this

phase!

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 26
Design phase

The Design phase is when your requirements are being

interpreted by the solution design teams / evaluated by the

software vendors.

You role here is typically to:

Review the solution documents

Work closely with solution designer and architects to

ensure requirements are clear

Keep the stakeholders engaged to reassure them

their requirements are implemented as specified in

the business requirement artefacts. In some projects,

such as agile projects, this part of the iteration will

have close involvement of stakeholders right

through the SDLC.

Manage the changes to requirements both from the

business and from your solution designers point of

view through a change control process. It is a great

time to actively start using the requirements

traceability matrix!

Implementation phase

The term implementation can be slightly confusing but in

terms of what it means here is that this is the build phase of

the project. The requirements have been designed into a

solution which is now being implemented. In some case this is

via a packaged software solution and in some cases it is built

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 27

from scratch. The Business Analyst doesnt have much to do in

this phase.

In small teams it can happen that the Business Analyst is

asked to clarify requirements or in Agile projects the Business

Analyst will be asked to review prototypes. Take note that in

Agile projects, there are basically many short SDLCs in one

larger project which makes the role of the BA condensed doing

all the different tasks in smaller chunks but parallel with each

other. Very action packed!

Testing phase

During the testing phase the Business Analyst can assist with

reviewing test scripts to ensure all functional requirements are

being tested. The Business Analyst can assist with

requirements clarifications if required but the role of a

Business Analyst is not to actually execute the testing! The

testers do all test executions.

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 28

PATS STORY...

Pat found a lot of good information on the Internet about

Business Analysis and after a lot of reading and researching he

felt comfortable that this sounded like the type of job for him!

Now he faced the challenge of becoming a Business Analyst.

That isnt clearly described in some book about exactly what

to do or how to go about it. So he decided to jump in at the

deep end and start looking for Business Analyst jobs! He

thought, he might get lucky and find a junior entry level no

experience required role. He was unfortunately wrong! Pat

realised that a Business Analysis role is not going to fall into

his lap and he will need to work on some other strategies to

pull this off!

Pat was determined and started reading job descriptions on

the job websites to get a feeling for what skills they were

asking for when Business Analyst roles were advertised. He

made a point of learning what these terms meant and he

discovered that some of his printer testing skills is

transferable! For example, he realised that he has to talk to

lots of clients every single day to diagnose the problems they

are experiencing with their printers and try to understand

what it is they need to fix their printers! Doing requirements

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 29

elicitation sounds like pretty much the same skill! It was like a

whole new option burst open to Pat, he was so glad about this

small achievement! He went out and celebrated that he is

making such great progress! He felt great again and ready for

this Business Analysis challenge of finding his first role!

To be continued

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 30
Starting out as a Business Analyst

Lots of people are now thinking of becoming Business

Analysts and you may be one of them. The great news for new

Business Analysts is it is completely achievable! Most

corporate careers can be transferred into becoming a Business

Analysis career with relative ease. This is possible because

Business Analysts can work within any subject matter area

using their pure Business Analysis skills.

How do you change career?

It is important that you realize that although changing your

career to become a Business Analyst is very achievable you

should also keep in mind that as with everything new, there

will be some effort and learning required. You will find some

ideas on what you should start doing to get the career change

ball rolling!

Get the foundation business analysis concepts understood

You should start reading up on Business Analysis (yes, this

book is a great place to start!) and get yourself familiar with

the overall role and purpose of the Business Analyst.

If you are able to sign up for a classroom based, digital or

online course in one of the foundation type course, then that

is a great next step. It is sometimes better to get some

exposure to business analysis in the workplace before going

for course, but it is not that important.

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 31

Attend Business Analysis networking events, mingle with the

right people!

Go to local and international Business Analysis

seminars and conferences.

Get some practical experience in perform business

analysis tasks.

There are various avenues for you to follow to get yourself into

a situation where you can get some practical business analysis

experience.

Some people use their existing career subject matter expertise

to go onto projects as a subject matter expert who will work

closely with a business analyst. This is a great way to get into

it hands-on because you are effectively job shadowing

someone.

There are opportunities out there for Business Analysts who

have a strong knowledge in a specific subject area. Once you

have done some courses and research you could try apply for

a junior BA role where your subject matter expertise is in high

demand.

Start telling people around you that this is what you would like

to do with your career the word will spread and an

opportunity might come up.

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 32

If you are lucky enough to be on a project already, start

volunteering to partake in business requirements gathering

and documentation activities. This is a great way to get your

hands dirty and gaining credible practical experience.

Finding that perfect Business Analysis role

In the previous section we covered how you should set up your

career success plan with a vision, goals and actions. In this

chapter we are looking at how you would go about finding a

great Business Analysis role! This might be one of your goals

and this section will provide great information on how you can

go about putting your goal into action!

Your Business Analysis resume

All successful business analysts have an up to date resume.

They keep it ready and relevant so that should an opportunity

come their way which fits in well with the career goals, they

can act fast. Another good reason to keep your resume

relevant and up to date is because you dont run the risk of

forgetting about some really key important achievements and

skills you are gaining in your current role.

Making your Business Analysis Resume work for you...

You get only one opportunity to impress someone with your

business analyst resume, so try your best to make that count.

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 33

Remember that when your potential future employer or

recruiter sees your resume or CV, they only see the piece of

paper. They don't meet you at the same time (most of the time

they don't!) and therefore they must 'judge' whether it is worth

meeting you based on that document.

It's true what they say about first impressions...

You would realize that first impressions are crucial in any

situation but even more so with your business analyst resume.

You are probably one in a couple of hundred people applying

for a particular BA job and this makes first impressions even

more important. Pay attention to these tips!

You only need to set up your resume once from scratch, so do

it properly! It pays in the long run over and over again. Follow

these handy tips and look at the sample Business Analyst

resume to make this even easier. One last reason why you

should pay attention to building an awesome resume is that

you will most probably half the number of Business Analysis

jobs you need to apply for in the first place!

Tips for a great Business Analyst resume...

The first half of your first page is crucial. Make sure you

capture the message of professionally 'who you are' on the

first half. If you like a sample resume, fill out the form below

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 34
and this will help a lot with ideas on how to do this. It's

completely FREE.

Don't make spelling or grammar mistakes. It is an obvious

thing to many but I have reviewed my fair share of resumes

with some careless mistakes. This doesnt reflect well on the

reviewers opinion of what your work output might look like!

Terminology is very important. Use the terms used by the job

advertisement. If this means you need to tweak your resume a

little to suit this, then do it. It is important and makes it easier

for the recruiter.

Make it easy for the recruiter to pick your resume! Again, use

the same terms and provide all the information in summary on

your first page. Many recruiters never get to the 2nd page, so

make that first page count!

You must have a good cover letter. It is easy, effective and can

save you a lot of time!

While you create your resume remember to put yourself in the

recruiter's shoes. Will you actually hire this person? Will the

first page of this resume attack you enough to read further?

Ask these questions and you will be amazed at how much it

helps you increase the quality of your resume.

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 35

Also keep in mind that if you don't mention a particular

project, skill or technique you have used before, then the

recruiter will not know this. It sounds simple, but again we

assume things sometimes without being explicit enough! You

know you well, but they don't know you at all!

Your Business Analysis cover letter

Are you applying for a lot more jobs than you actually need to?

People dont realize how important the cover letter or cover

email is to your job application. They dont really even realize

how important the whole resume is! I have looked through

many resumes and have read many resume cover letters and

have been astounded at how people throw away great

opportunities by not presenting themselves well on paper.

Spend a little, save a lot!

If you spend a little time to write a proper cover letter for each

job application, you will most likely end up saving a lot of time

by applying for a lot less jobs. Follow these very simple but

powerful cover letter writing tips and you are set for a much

more fruitful and productive job hunting experience.

Tip 1: Tailor your cover letter to each job

Dont complain or discard this one! It is important that you

write or tweak your cover letter to be read for that specific job

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 36
you are applying for. This means you will address the person

who is advertising the role by name (if you know it), you will

use the same terminology as what is being used in the job

advertisement and you will mention the specific job title and

reference exactly as it appears on the job advertisement.

Tip 2: Make it as easy as possible for the recruiter

Write the specific role title (as advertised) with its reference

number and the date you saw the advertisement in the title of

your cover letter or cover letter email. Do the exact same thing

in the first sentence of your cover letter; see the cover letter

sample for an idea of how to do this. Doing these two simple

things will already make it easy for the recruiter because they

will know exactly which role you are writing about.

Tip 3: Keep it short, sharp and focused

You should not write more than one paragraph which

summarizes your profile and relevant experience to the

recruiter. Again, use the same terminology as what is being

used in the job advertisement, this is what is familiar to the

recruiter and therefore you meet his needs to understand your

skills. Remember, a recruiter advertises thousands of jobs and

writes lots of job role ads and often they dont know all the

relevant terminology for each profession. In the case of

Business Analysis, this is no exception. To them a systems

analyst, business systems analyst, IT analyst or business

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Success Secrets for the Business Analysts Mind 37

analyst are interchangeable. So if they choose to describe the

role as for a business systems analyst, then you phrase you

response using the term business systems analyst too. Get it?

Tip 4: Start your profile from the top

This simply means that you need to write your professional

profile in a way which tells the recruiter the most important

things about you first and then you drill down to the detail.

You will therefore state in your profile paragraph what

qualification you have, how many years experience in that type

of role and which industries you have worked in. See the

sample resume cover letter to see how this is done all in one

sentence. Now the recruiter knows whether you would

potentially be suitable by just reading the first sentence of

your profile paragraph. Cool hey?

Tip 5: Drilling down more

After that powerful first sentence you need to keep the

recruiter interested. So he / she are searching for key words

that matches the job advertisement. Use the keywords in the

next sentence. If they are looking for a business analyst with

requirements gathering and workshop facilitation experience,

then you say that next. Again, look at my example resume

cover letter to see how this could be done. The most

important tip here is to use as many of the job advertisements

key words in the next 2-4 sentences.

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Tip 6: Close on a positive, confident note

You have managed to get the recruiter to read this far which

means they would most likely be interested to talk to you. You

start the closing sentence with saying that you have attached

or included your resume for their reference. You can then

perhaps add a line something saying along the lines of that

you believe this opportunity sounds like it matches your skills

and experience very well. This last closing paragraph should

be 1 or 2 lines tops!

Tip 7: Make it really easy for the recruiter

Ensure you include your contact phone number and email

address in the signature of your resume cover letter. Again,

your focus is to make it as easy as possible for the recruiter to

know who you are, why your skills and experience match (by

making it match in words!) and how to get hold of you.

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PATS STORY...

Pat was a man on a mission. He has now spent a lot of time

reading about Business Analysis and finding similarities

between what he is doing in his current job and how he can

transfer these skills to Business Analysis.

Pat even went to see a Recruitment agent called Jennie. He

went to talk to her about the best way he can approach finding

a Business Analyst job and she gave him some great resume

and cover letter tips to use for his applications. She said that

she wished all Business Analysts would follow these basic

resume and cover letter guidelines because they will all benefit

from it and spend half as much time looking for new roles! She

also promised to keep an ear out for any junior Business

Analyst roles that she might hear of.

It was a rainy day and a cold morning when Pat got a call from

Jennie. It has been about 3 months since he started this quest

to become a Business Analyst and finally there was a company

looking for an entry level Business Analyst!

Now Pat needed to get polished and ready for the job

interview! He was very nervous and because Jennie thought

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that he was a really determined and keen guy, she offered to

help prepare him for his job interview.

To be continued

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Preparing for the job interview

So you have now applied for some roles with your great

looking resume and specifically tailored cover letter and the

job interviews are starting to flow in! Congratulations, you

have reached the next step towards reaching your goal of

landing the next great job in your career!

With job interviews, it is important to realize there is an

established format to the interview and the better you are able

to respond to the format, the more quickly youll be

successful. This is true in most cases and therefore it is a very

good idea to conform.

You can compare the format of an interview invitation a little

to a dinner invitation. You know there is a format to the dinner

invitation and we all conform quite automatically to it. You

dress nicely, you follow the etiquette of the house hold or

restaurant by eating things in a specific order (entree, main,

dessert) and you converse with the host or hostess in a certain

way. A job interview works like this too. You are expected to

know some basic things in relation to the interview and the

better you know these things the more comfortable you will be

once you are in the interview.

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Before we start talking about the job interview format more, I

would like to explain to you how you should answer each

interview question that comes your way. I am explaining to

you here how to use the knife and fork at the dinner table!

Perfecting answering interview questions

Apart from having a great open body language beaming out of

you, you should also structure your answers back to the

interviewer. This job interview questions and answers format

applies mostly when you are asked to elaborate on specific

experiences you have in doing a particular type of task.

So lets say someone asks you to tell them about a project you

worked on where you had to arrange a requirements

workshop.

Be a STAR interviewee

Use the S-T-A-R format for answering job interview questions.

For each question you are asked you simply answer it by

starting with the situation, describe your task, which actions

you took and finally what the results were. Have a closer look

at each step below:

S - Situation

You use a few sentences to describe the situation and brief

background (if relevant) of the specific project. So you start by

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setting the scene briefly. I literally mean you only use 3-4

sentences to state what the situation was.

T- Task

You then describe to the interviewer what the task was that

was given to you to execute. Again, be specific and clear about

what it was you had to do. Remember to stay relevant to what

the question was when you answer the question. Dont get

distracted from that with unnecessary detail which may be

irrelevant to the question.

A - Actions

This part of the answer is all about what and how you

performed the execution of the assigned task. Focus on your

specific actions (and not the group's actions) and describe it

using good, positive adjectives. This is your most important

part of the answer and you should therefore spend the most

time on this part of your answer.

R-Result

Always remember to have an outcome or result associated

with what you specifically did. Again, you are able to mention

the group's result here too but put all the focus on the part of

the outcome or result that you were specifically responsible

for.

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If you practice this S-T-A-R format with answering a few

questions prior to walking into the interview, you will be much

more comfortable to answer questions and you wouldnt be

too worried about remembering the format. It becomes second

nature quite quickly, so make sure you practice!

Another example of how to implement the S-T-A-R for your

job interview questions and answers follows below.

Sample job interview question: Tell us about a project where

you had to plan for the requirement activities on a project.

S - Situation

"I was working on an Asia Pacific Project for Company XYZ to

implement a new payroll system."

T - Task

"I was responsible to prepare a requirements plan for the

entire project and had to ensure all business analysts across

Asia were included."

A - Actions

"The way I went about preparing this plan was to start by

understanding the number of stakeholders who would be

involved in each country and the timeframes I needed to work

within. This enabled me to define requirements gathering

approach based on a geographically dispersed stakeholder

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group. Requirements gathering were done via requirements

validation sessions via country-by-country conference calls.

Other parts of my plan included describing roles and

responsibilities and requirements documentation approach."

R - Results

"I presented the requirements management plan to the project

management board and obtained sign off right away. My

requirements management plan has since been re-used as a

baseline on other Asia Pacific initiatives."

Take note of these points

Note how brief I was in answering the first two aspects of the

question, situation and task. This information is very

important to set the scene but essentially not what the

interviewer is really after. The actions part of the question is

framed in terms of what I did specifically. Although it gives

some detail, I am focusing on answering the most important

aspects of this part of the question. I am saying enough to

cover off the answer well without going on and on about it.

Finally, in the results part of the answer I focus on the main

outcome of my actions which is the re-use of my requirements

management plan. There may have been other outcomes too

but in this context this is the most important one.

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HANDY HINT

Dont give too much or too little detail during the job interview

questions and answers, try and strike that good balance. In

general, spend about 2-3 minutes on answering any question

unless it is a big question where the expectation is to

elaborate. Remember that the interviewer can ask further

questions if they want more detail about a particular aspect of

your answer.

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Sample Business Analysis job interview questions

It is a great idea to prepare for a job interview by walking

through some answers you might give in a business analysis

job interview! Remember to follow the S-T-A-R answering

model when you do rehearse answers to these questions!

Good luck!

Example theory / fact based questions below:

1. What is the purpose of the Business Analyst within an

organisation?

2. What do you believe are good attributes of a Business

Analyst?

3. What is the difference between a functional

requirement and a non-functional requirement?

4. What are the attributes of a good business

requirement?

5. What is the purpose of requirements traceability?

6. When do you use a RACI or RASCI model?

7. How do you ensure your business requirements are

of a high quality?

8. What is contained within a typical Requirements

Management Plan?

9. Describe the phases of the SDLC. Which phases have

you worked in?

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10. Describe the difference between a Waterfall based

methodology and an Agile methodology.

11. What is a user story in an Agile context and how is

it used?

12. What is a use case and when would you use it as a

Business Analyst?

13. What is the difference between a functional

specification and a business requirements document?

How are they related?

Most job interviews have straight theory based questions

which are simply fact based and a test to see that you know

the important key facts about the Business Analysis

profession. There are not many of these questions and you

dont need to use the S-T-A-R format with these types of

questions. Simply state the answer back in a clear and factual

fashion.

Behavioural based questions

The behavioural based questions are the most popular

questions in an interview and it is also the type of question

you will always use the S-T-A-R answering format for. Make

sure you practice some of these questions to ensure you feel

comfortable to relay the answers back on the day.

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Example behavioural based questions:

1. Describe a time when you had to deal with a stakeholder

that just didnt want to participate in one of your

requirements workshops and tried to sabotage it. What

did you do?

2. Describe a situation when you were unable to deliver

one of your requirements documents on time. What did

you do?

3. Describe a time when you had to win a difficult

stakeholder over to accept the project change that will

affect his/her department. How did you do it?

4. Describe a time when you were in a project where

change happened constantly without any change control

to requirements. How did you deal with this situation

and how did you overcome the associated challenges?

5. Describe a time when you had to deal with stakeholders

at all levels of the organisation. How was the message

different?

6. Tell us about a time when you needed to gain approval

for one of your business requirements documents but a

stakeholder kept on delaying or postponing meeting

with you. How did you go about obtaining sign off in

this type of scenario?

7. As a business analyst, describe your ideal project

environment. If you have a specific example, please

include that in your description.

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8. Describe a time when you introduced a new idea or

process into a project or department and how it

improved the process or situation.

9. Describe a situation where you had to mentor a

colleague on any tool or concept. How did you approach

this?

10. Describe a time when you had to facilitate a

requirements gathering activity where your stakeholders

were not located in the same city. If you havent done

this before, describe to us how you will deal with this

type of situation.

11. Describe a situation where you used business

analysis techniques to gather business requirements

from stakeholders. Which techniques did you use and

why did you choose those techniques?

12. Describe a time when you were responsible to

plan and facilitate a requirements workshop. How did

you go about it?

Another type of behavioural based questions is hypothetical

scenarios that the interviewer would sketch and request a

response to. These scenarios are normally based on real life

scenarios within their company and they are testing whether

you would fit or respond a way that would work in that

environment. Dont hesitate to request more details or ask

questions of them to clarify what exactly they mean in case the

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scenario sounds vague. The more you can understand the real

scenario, the better placed you would be to answer this type of

question.

Example hypothetical scenario based questions:

1. Consider this scenario: You are faced with requirements

set which was not clearly defined and not signed off.

You are expected to get these requirements into an

acceptable state and get it signed off. How would you

tackle this problem?

2. You have 5 business analysts to manage on a large

business program. They are all new to the project.

Describe what you will do as a business analysis lead to

get them up to speed and working productively quickly.

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During the job interview

You have got the job interview appointment all set up and now

you should get yourself well prepared. The good news is, most

interviews follow the format described below and if you follow

a few basic guidelines you will do very well!

Be ready, before the interview!

You would have received the location, time and interviewer(s)

names before the job interview day. Remember to take all your

contact information, including the recruiters phone number

with you.

Make sure you pretend the interview started even before you

walk into the interview room. Be professional, neat and ready

from the moment you step into the company offices where you

will be having the interview. First impressions are (almost) all

youve got!

What to expect during the interview...

Once you are called into the job interview room you will be

facing the interviewers. In general there are 2-3 people

interviewing, but seldom more than that. Make sure you shake

everyones hand, make eye contact and give each interviewer a

friendly smile while you are being introduced. It is important

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that you give each interviewer equal attention when you start

answering their questions.

They will normally have a little bit of chit chat with you. They

typically asked whether you found them OK. Even if you got

lost, you answer - Yes, thanks. It was easy to find. You sound

competent! Whatever they say in this first initial engagement,

you must be positive and confident in your response - do not

sound doubtful or unsure of yourself even if something

horrible happened to you on the way to the interview! This is

part of your first impressions and it only takes a minute or two

- make the most of it!

Some warm up topics are introduced

Then the lead interviewer will explain the format of the

session. They will typically say that the job interview will last

approximately 40 minutes, they will provide you with company

background and then they will normally tell you what types of

interview questions are coming up. In a formal interview they

will tell you who will be asking what types of questions.

They tend to ask you at this point whether you know much

about the company. The expectation here is that you just give

a few high level points to show you do know what it is all

about and you can mention a few general statistics you may

know. The idea is just to show interest without necessarily

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knowing it all. No one expects you to know it all. They are

expecting to be the ones to give you more detail. They will

then give a company overview and typically end up with where

the role you are interviewing for fits into the organization. This

part of the interview sometimes happens at the end of the

questions too.

The 'meaty' part of the interview

Typically before the actual questions start you will be asked to

tell the panel a little about your professional background.

(They may refer to your resume or your cover letter at this

point). They would like to know where you have been and what

you have done. You should keep this brief, succinct and

sequential. Before you start this, you should tell the panel

which sequence you will follow. You can say something like:

My career started in 1997 in Johannesburg when I worked for

the Stock Exchange. Thereafter I moved to a role at Andersen

Consulting who transferred me to London in 2000........ Keep

your early experience very brief and say a bit more about your

relevant experience and your more recent experience.

Now the questions start! With each question you should follow

the S-T-A-R format when you answer. Make eye contact with

the person asking first and then engage with the other

interviewers while providing your answer. Remember that

most of an interview is people deciding whether they like you

and whether they think you can fit into their culture. The

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content of answers are also important of course, but you

manner and ability to build rapport counts for a lot! Be

prepared for the questions about where you see your career

going as well.

Closing of the interview

At the end of the questions part of the interview, you will be

asked whether you have any questions. It is good to ask one or

at most two questions about the role you are interviewing for.

Another suggestion is to ask them to tell you about the team

you might be joining. These questions should be short and

sweet but nevertheless indicate an enthusiasm for joining the

team. Don't start talking salaries unless the interviewer brings

it up and be vague and let them start the specifics!

Finally, remember to thank every interviewer for giving you the

opportunity to discuss the opportunity with them.

Who should you work for?

Choices, choices!

It is great to be a Business Analyst with a Business Analysis

career! We have so much variety and choice when it comes to

the industry or subject matter we choose to work in. As a true

Business Analyst we can really work within any industry, any

project based on any subject matter at any given time of our

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careers. There is hardly any reason why a Business Analyst

cannot do this. Do you feel that you can do this? If your

answer is no, I would say that you are standing in your own

way, definitely not your chosen career path.

Reality however is that we will at best work within a few

industries during our business analysis career. A combination

of human nature and comfort zone causes us to choose our

business analysis jobs within an industry we have worked in

before or which is fairly similar to previous industry. I am

talking for the general population of Business Analysts here,

not for YOU of course! You are reading this book because you

are passionate about your Business Analysis career and this

means you are not afraid to challenge yourself! My advice,

make the most of your Business Analysis career and chop and

change industry every now and again. Ask me, it enhances

your business analysis skills and is so much more interesting

than becoming a subject matter expert in just one area.

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3. What every Business Analyst must know

Key Business Analysis concepts

Requirements elicitation and analysis knowledge

awareness

Project management skills for Business Analysts

PATS STORY...

No, Pat was unfortunately not successful with that first

interview but he found a Business Analyst role about 4 weeks

later. The role was with a small company looking for a

Business Analyst with some printing background because it

was a publishing house doing projects where this prior

knowledge Pat has will be very useful to them.

Pat was over the moon to be in a real Business Analyst job

after all his efforts and learning but he did realise that he will

need to work on his pure Business Analysis knowledge

foundations now if he ever wanted to progress to another

more senior Business Analysis role.

Pat was absolutely determined to make his new career a great

success and vowed to learn a new Business Analysis skill every

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day by spending at least 20 minutes reading up on a new tool

or technique! Pat kept doing this every day and he was gaining

more and more confidence in this ever-growing new career

path.

One day Pat bumped into one of the other I look back on

Business Analysts, Cathy, in the kitchen area of my life like a

his new company. She was talking to their Project good days

Manager about things he didnt have a clue work; it is

about. It sounded like he should know what this done and I am

stuff was all about but he suddenly felt quite satisfied with

uninformed and everything sounded much it. Grandma

Moses, an
harder and involved than anything he has

learned so far. American folk

artist.

Instead of allowing the feeling of despair to take

hold of Pat, he and walked up to Cathy and asked her whether

she would please explain to him what traceability meant. She

was delighted to and in the process Pat found himself his first

ever mentor!

To be continued

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Building a Business Analysis knowledge foundation

As a new or experienced Business Analyst it is very important

that you lay a solid foundation of Business Analysis

knowledge. The reason this is important is because if you have

a good foundation in Business Analysis you can simply add

more specific skills and tools to it as you gain more

experience. Although the Business Analysis profession is very

accessible to people who want to make a career change, it

does require Business Analysis specific skills and knowledge.

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Business Analysis foundation knowledge

Systems development life cycle

You have learned in the previous pages of this book the basics

of what the SDLC is all about. It is worth me saying again here

that you must understand the role of the SDLC and how your

Business Analysis role slots into this methodology. Everything

you will work on will be in the context of the SDLC, even if you

work on agile projects.

Problem solving

An integral part of being a business analyst is to be faced with

problem solving in some shape or form. Most commonly it is

the scenario where a problem or current situation is described

to you and most often than not the business will give you an

idea of how they believe the problem should be solved. So you

might wonder what I am doing here then. The business poses

the problem and they provide the solution too, so what is the

purpose of the Business Analyst then?

Good question. This is what makes our jobs interesting and

challenging and also multifaceted. We have to analyse the

problem the business states further to understand the root

cause of the problem. We then formulate their problem back

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to them in a more structured fashion and this often changes

the solution they came up with in the first instance.

A great methodology to use is the Soft Systems Methodology

(SSM). This is a problem solving methodology that helps

tremendously in identifying the root cause of the problem and

also in coming up with a structured problem statement which

can be taken forward to determine the real options to consider

for the project or program of work.

What is requirement engineering?

Requirements engineering is a collective term which describes

the activities included in requirements gathering (or

elicitation), requirements analysis, documentation,

prioritization and validation.

Requirements tools & techniques

Are you doing your Business Requirements the right way?

During all my years of doing business requirements

engineering and analysis on a wide variety of projects I have

always managed to find a new challenge and a fresh new topic

to learn more of. You may look at my Business Analysis

education and think I follow lots of specific methodologies and

must be doing business analysis strictly according to the book

- after all in many Business Analyst courses that is what you

get taught to do! It is however quite the opposite with me.

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Sure, in the earlier years of being a business analyst I have

wondered about which tools to use for which purpose when

doing business requirements work and often had doubts

about whether I was doing it right! These days I only apply

what is required and often it is only a fraction of what is

prescribed by a tool or technique in a book.

One of the aims of the business requirements game is to learn

when to apply a particular methodology (such as Agile) or

technique more based on professional intuition than any

specific prescribed process. It is important to remain very

flexible in your working style but at the same time stay

focused on using the most appropriate tool or technique for

any particular situation. As much as we tend to think each

project is different, they are all also very much the same. With

gaining more experience you will learn how to be flexible in

your approach to meet the needs of the stakeholders but also

remain very effective. This is what makes this profession

highly rewarding and diverse.

Understanding the business need

Before we jump into too much detail around specific tasks for

us as Business Analysts lets discuss the wider purpose of what

we are here to do. Lets sketch a scenario where you are

placed on a large program of work which has just kicked off...

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As a first step, we identify and engage with the key

stakeholders. Have a talk with someone, a formal stakeholder

interview or even a problem definition workshop, but it is

essential to start the hunt for more information on the

business need. Find the people or person who raised this

need, talk to them first. The key stakeholders are those groups

or individuals in the organization that is affected by the

current business problem and who will be affected by us

introducing a solution to this need or problem. We will use

various requirements gathering techniques and review many

types of materials in a quest to understand their need or

problem. Example stakeholders often include: department

heads, business area managers, operations staff and of course

your own project team members who may have information

too!

Typical other sources of information of the business need or

problem to find during this activity can include business cases,

process documents, existing systems and artefacts such as

invoices, application forms and so on. There are many

different ways that we go about trying to understand what the

business need is. A lot of collateral (more specifically referring

to the Soft System Methodology as an example) will refer to

this activity as the process of gathering information to

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understand the unstructured version of the business

problem we are aiming to fix.

Translate the business need into an objective, clear and

specific language.

Once we have gained a grasp on what the business need is, we

start to translate and interpret that need into a more

structured problem, need or description of our scope. Very

importantly at this stage we document the business need into

a language (business requirements, software requirements or

functional requirements), which can be understood by the

business. We dont dive into any technical modelling or

analysis speak but where appropriate we will use techniques

to illustrate the problem.

By now you would have used a decision making model to

choose between methodologies and decided which one will

best fit your business requirements management on the

project.

This key step of clarifying and drafting the business need can

include diagrams such as use case diagrams, activity flows or

process models to express the problem. These are great tools

to use to demonstrate an understanding of a business

problems current state and assists you in ensuring there is

clarity around what the business need is that is being

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addressed. This step is iterative and involves a lot of

discussion, rewriting, redrawing and finalizing of what it is we

are trying to solve.

TIP

A handy tip here is for you to always get to the bottom of WHY

is something a problem.

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Determine where we are going

Once we clarified, expressed and agreed what the current

business need is, we start the process of brainstorming ideas

of how we can address this need (really start to gather

business requirements in earnest). What is the stakeholders

nirvana, what do they believe they need to address the

problem. Again, this process involves you engaging with all

the stakeholders and getting peoples views in the most

appropriate way. This can include more business requirement

workshops, stakeholder interviews or even doing market

research for relevant trends and products.

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IMPORTANT NOTE

You will find that the business stakeholders will start with the

solution and often start providing software requirements way

before stating and understanding the root of the problem of

business need. It is your job to get to the problem or business

need first!

Another very important point related to this is that you must

learn to steer the stakeholders away from how (solution) they

think problem should be solved and get them to articulate

what they need to improve or change to solve the business

need or problem.

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Manage change of business needs in our project

Another very important part of the role of business analysis on

any project is to manage the change of requirements right

from the very start of any business or technology project. It

doesnt matter whether you are on a waterfall based project,

or whether you are on a closely managed agile project the one

thing that you will be managing is change. Change happens to

business problems, change happens to requirements for a

solution and change happens just because. All projects consist

of a myriad of people and where there are people, there is

constant change. It is well worth your while to plan for how

you will manage change to your business scope, your

requirements and once you start implementing a solution, how

change will be managed then. If you dont manage the change

factor on your project, you may be swallowed whole now!

Build solid relationships with all stakeholders

Leaving this crucial point to last in this section is definitely not

because it is least important. It is in fact because it is most

important! If you dont have good relationships with the

business stakeholders, your project team stakeholders and the

supporting technical team stakeholders you will most likely

fail. You will not be able to do any of the above three

important tasks effectively and business requirements efforts

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will not be as good if you neglect building strong relationships

with everyone involved. This is a key factor know who all

your stakeholders are, engage with them often, build strong

rapport with primary stakeholders and keep communicating.

You will build trust this way and it will make your work easy,

rewarding and best of all you will deliver high quality output.

Requirements elicitation techniques

Requirements elicitation is one of the business analysts

biggest and most important tasks. The objective is to elicit the

needs and requirements from stakeholders. You will find that

you use a mix of the requirements elicitation techniques

described in this book and the mix will be different for every

project. Always consider what suits the project best before you

choose a technique to use. Below you will find a summary of

each of the main requirements elicitation techniques to

provide some context on what each is about and when you

should use it.

Technique 1: Requirement interviews

This requirement elicitation technique is probably the most

common way of eliciting requirements from your stakeholders.

When you perform a requirements interview keep these points

in mind:

Introduction to the interview or meeting

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Once you introduced yourself to the interviewee you should

first provide them with background on the project, the project

scope and timeframes. It is also often useful to tell them who

suggested you talk to them and why you would like to talk to

them. If you know they may feel threatened by the project's

objective, find something positive to say which can put them

at ease. Building rapport with your stakeholders here will

stand you in good stead during the rest of the project.

Format of the meeting or interview

Now that you have set the scene, you should also highlight the

scope of your requirements elicitation questions. Tell them for

example that you have some questions about the overall

purpose of their department, then you would like to talk about

their most important business processes and finally if they

could discuss their current system with you. You must also tell

them that you are more than happy to answer their questions

as you go. If they sound comfortable with your approach, they

will feel more at ease with you which means you will get great

results.

Questions

There is a skill in asking requirement gathering questions the

right way. A few tips here would include:

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Ask open ended type of questions. Try to avoid asking 'yes' or

'no' type questions. Example questions could start like: "Could

you please describe your daily tasks you perform to prepare

the salaries for month end?" If this question is too high level

for them you could try: "How do you know what each person's

salary will be each month?", "Where do you find that

information?", "How long does it take you to do everyone's

salary pay slips?", "Why does it take THAT long, what do you

have to do?"

Drill down to detail or pull up to higher level questions. In

general, some people tend to talk specifics and focuses on

exceptions. Other people talk contextually and in general and

hardly ever delve into specifics. Use questions such as: "So in

general terms, would you say the payroll system is

inadequate?" if they tend to focus on a specific small aspect of

the system which might not do what they need once a year!

This type of question will 'force' them to pull out of

divergence. The opposite also happens where you might need

someone to be more specific. An example question could be:

"Is it the report processing specifically that causes the system

to fail?" and so on.

Talk to the right stakeholder to get the right outcome.

Depending on the level of stakeholder you are talking to, you

will find that different people talk about a problem in different

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terms. If you need to understand the overall business process

from a high level, it is probably not a great idea to interview

the person performing a small part of that process.

It is a good idea to prepare more questions and plan your

requirement gathering interviews well. Be prepared for each

interview!

Technique 2: Requirement workshops

I personally love using workshops to elicit requirements but I

would never walk into a requirement gathering workshop

without some pre-written requirements or concepts at a

minimum! Why? There are several reasons why I would plan my

workshop carefully:

1. The more structure you can give a workshop the more

focused your session will be. If you don't have an

agenda or any pre-developed materials to run the

session with you will find that there might be a lot of

ideas and activity in the session but it will most likely be

of a poor quality.

2. Know who is coming to your workshop. This is

important because everyone who is coming will have

their own ideas of what they want to get out of it. If you

don't have a clue who they are, how will you be able to

plan for meeting their expectations or ensure their

objectives are met? In an ideal world, meet everyone

before the requirement gathering workshop for a short

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chat and understand their views of where they see the

project going!

You as the facilitator can control the flow of a workshop with

so much less effort if you are prepared and have planned the

session than if you walk in blind. You will also appear more

professional, in control and your stakeholders will trust you.

Benefits of a running a requirements workshop

People have to justify their views in front of a larger group of

stakeholders. This often helps with eliminating nonsense type

requirements you might get if you only do one on one

interviews.

Discussion of each topic refines and clarifies the requirement.

Your requirement quality is typically much higher at the end of

a workshop than a one on one interview.

Workshops are a great vehicle to strengthen stakeholder 'buy

in'. Involving people in a group set up to discuss a topic of

common interest does wonders for stakeholder support in the

project.

Disadvantages of a running a requirements workshop

It takes more effort to plan, co-ordinate and prepare for.

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You don't always manage to get all the right people in the

room at the same time. (Idea here: Schedule more workshops

and rerun the same session multiple times!)

You may need more time for requirements gathering activities

but the upside is that your requirement quality is typically

higher.

Technique 3: Research and observation

I put these two techniques together because they walk hand in

hand a lot of the time. As a business analyst, it is a great idea

to always include some of this technique into any requirement

gathering activity.

To job shadow or observe someone means that you need to go

sit with them for a few hours or days and observe how they

perform their jobs. There is nothing like experiencing the

practicality of someone's day-to-day job. It becomes 'real' to

you and you will translate and write your requirements with

the people doing the actual jobs in mind.

When you do choose to use 'observation' as a method of

requirements elicitation, keep these things in mind:

Build up a picture in your mind (or on paper) of the

end-to-end process a person follows to perform

their average day in their job.

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If they allow questions, be selective and careful not

to delve into too much detail with your questions or

digress into a path of an exceptional circumstance.

People will focus on what doesn't work naturally, so

you will get the picture fairly quickly once you spent

some time with someone performing a job function

or executing a business process.

Try and gather samples of forms, user training

manuals and documented procedures that they

follow to perform the role.

Very important aspect of observation is to see what

the system they are using is capable of, watch them

use it, which parts of the process is perform

manually and if possible try and understand the 'why'

it is done that way.

Always remember to thank people who spent time with you!

Build rapport when you are with them because you never know

when you might need to get back to them with more questions

or observation requirements.

Documenting requirements

Requirements should always be documented. However, the

method of documenting requirements is changing depending

on which type of project you are working on. Waterfall based

projects uses requirements documents (as it is described here)

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and agile (iterative) projects use user stories to drive

requirements. The requirements are still being fully

documented in both methodologies just using different

methods!

The requirements document is the primary traditional artefact

that a Business Analyst produces on a project. It is in some

companies being replaced with requirement management

software packages (or used in combination with a

requirements management software package). Agile projects

do not produce requirements documents in the way it is

described here, as they use user stories to manage all the

requirements on the project!

There are also still many organizations out there that use a

requirements document as their basis for capturing the

business requirements and hence it is still relevant and very

useful to master the skill of creating high quality requirements

documents.

The perfect requirements document

The requirements document can never be perfect

unfortunately. It is used in waterfall based projects and

therefore most requirements documents are out dated before

someone actually reads it! It is though a very valuable tool for

documenting requirements in a lot of organizations. It is also

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often pivotal to the project to both go to business case or

progress into an analysis and design phase, depending on

their company methodology. This page will give you tips for

how to manage your requirements document in terms of

feedback and approvals.

Who should review and approve the requirements document?

A good place to start when determining the readers (reviewers

and approvers) of your project requirements document will be

your stakeholder list. Focus here on both the requirements

specific stakeholders but also some other high priority

stakeholders for the project. Although it is important to

involve the correct people in providing feedback and

approvals, you should really try and keep this to a minimum

number of people.

How do you gather feedback from reviewers?

A quick way is to do a walkthrough session. Send your

requirements document out to all reviewers a week before (if

you have luxury of time) and schedule a couple of walkthrough

sessions. Ideally capture peoples feedback there and then and

update it online there and then! This is ideal. If you need to

send them an electronic copy, try and get them to use a

requirements feedback form instead of making direct updates.

Make it clear when you expect to have all feedback in and if

your stakeholders are tardy in responding (which they often

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are!) give them a call and ask whether you could schedule time

to walk them through or answer any questions.

Getting that approval!

First talk to your project manager and determine which

approvals are really critical for the project to be able to

progress. They normally have a sub set of key people that

really need to approve from a steering committee perspective.

There are sometimes people on the approvals list that is not

that crucial to get approvals from or you could accept

delegations. Once you know who the key people are, rope your

project manager in to help you chase approvals with more

senior people. I am of the strong belief that our requirements

document is a project deliverable and not technical our

responsibility to chase! I am sure some Project Managers will

disagree...you decide.

Sometimes you need a few senior stakeholders sign off too

and they may not have been very involved in the process of

gathering and reviewing requirements during the

documentation phase. You deal with this situation by offering

to provide them with a summary walkthrough of the

requirements document. You can present this summary in an

executive style presentation pack talking their language.

When you do the actual walk through session with them

always also have to complete requirements document handy.

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Ask whether they have any questions or concerns. If they cant

commit to approval as an outcome of that walkthrough, ask

them under which conditions would they be ready to provide

approval.

Requirements traceability

Why should you trace requirements?

There are a few reasons why it is necessary to trace

requirements through the system development life cycle

regardless of what methodology you follow however the two

key reasons are:

Keeping track to of progress of requirements in the

SDLC.

Helps you manage requirements change.

Lets look at each of these reasons a bit closer...

Keeping track of requirements during the SDLC

As a Business Analyst you are responsible for ensuring

requirements are being delivered as requested, it is important

to use a requirements management tool which will link your

individual requirement to agreed scope items and the

subsequent SDLC phases. This way you will always know

whether a requirement is on track to be successfully

implemented.

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When you start having a lot of requirements, it becomes more

difficult to manage and track progress of each requirement,

and this is when linking a requirement to the other stages in

the SDLC becomes really important. The business stakeholders

love coming back to the team and they want to know what

happened to their requirement they wanted. If you have all

traced clearly, you can tell them exactly what is happening

with their requirement quite easily...

Helps you manage requirements change

The other reason for managing your requirements with a

requirements management tool for traceability is to manage

and trace the changes made to requirements. For example,

you will find that as the SDLC progresses there will be some

requirements that change. This could be due to many reasons

but often it is the business stakeholders changing their minds

and sometimes it is a project decision based on more technical

reasons. The bottom line is, you need to keep track of what

changes are made to each requirement. You do this via your

traceability management tool or a simple requirement

management matrix.

A few factors to consider when planning your requirements

traceability approach:

Which tool will you use to manage your requirement

traceability?

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Sometimes people simply use a MS Excel traceability

matrix template to capture the tracking information.

More sophisticated requirements management tools,

such as Calibre RM, could be used to manage this

too.

Who will be responsible to manage the requirements

traceability?

It needs a champion and central point. In some projects, you

may be long gone (i.e. reassigned to a different project) by the

time requirements are being tested and therefore you are not

there to update the traceability matrix You need to consider

who can you hand this over too if you are not around for the

full SDLC.

When do you start the traceability process?

Depending on your method of capturing the traceability

information, this could vary slightly. A general accepted

practice is for you to establish your traceability using the

signed off business requirements. Any changes post business

requirements sign off will be managed via the traceability

(and change request) process.

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PATS STORY...

Pat was spending about 2 hours a week with Cathy learning

new skills and just asking her to provide feedback on some of

the work he has been doing. It has been great since he met

Cathy because he has learned some great practical skills and

she is a wonderfully patient mentor.

One day Pat came up with this question to Cathy: Cathy, I am

still at a loss as to why you sometimes speak to the project

Manager in what at times sound like a complete different

language! What is that all about?

Cathy then tells Pat that it is simply her way of communicating

with the Project Manager in his language using her knowledge

of Project Management. She said to Pat not to worry, it isnt

strictly Business Analysis and therefore he can learn that one

day when he has time.

Pat told Cathy: I have time today! Please?

To be continued

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TASK

Find a buddy and create a mock project. Then practice these

three techniques together using your mock project topic. It is

great fun to do and once you did it, you will find yourself

using it on every project.

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4. Secrets of strong stakeholder

relationships

Your inner personal leadership skills

Mastering interpersonal communication

Stakeholder management

Workshop facilitation skills

PATS STORY...

Pat has been a Business Analyst now for almost a year and he

is currently working on the biggest project of his short

Business Analysis career thus far.

He has been working really hard and learning his tools and

techniques really well but some days he just feels like he is not

getting through to people! Pat feels like he just hits a brick

wall with some of the stakeholders and now that he is on this

bigger project he is really feeling it.

Pat went to Cathy recently (she has moved to another floor so

they cant catch up as often anymore) to ask her what else can

he do to improve his outcomes. He explained to Cathy that

some people are hard to understand or they seem to simply

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always be a stick in the mud when it comes to requirements

sign off time!

Cathy looked at Pat and said that it is time for Pat to move to

the next level of his Business Analysis career and work on his

soft skills. She explained that this is the invisible, intangible

skills that every Business Analyst must master. She told Pat

that when he masters these skills that he would have reached

the pinnacle of being a truly successful Business Analyst.

Pat looked at her slightly confused and said: Sure Cathy, I

dont really know what you mean exactly but I am all ears

To be continued

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The people around you determine your success

Truly extraordinary Business Analysts spend a lot of time

developing their Business Analysis soft skills. They work

alongside extraordinary people who have a mindset for

success. They work on leadership skills, behavioural

competencies and stakeholder relationship building to name a

few. Another term for behavioural competencies is really just

simply soft skills.

So what are soft skills?

Soft skills are simply the set of skills we use to communicate

with people in a variety of different types of situations. You

may need to present a slide show to a group of people or you

may need to discuss a stakeholders concerns around a

particular set of requirements. In both these cases, the soft

skills are the skills you use to communicate effectively in both

these scenarios. There are many levels of soft skills and also

an endless opportunity to keep on getting better at it. The

more you work on shaping and sharpening your soft skills, the

more you will notice fantastic results when you perform you

role.

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In order to really be the best you can be in both your soft skills

and also your more technical skills, you need to frame your

mindset to achieve the successful results.

Do you know how powerful your mindset is?

Most of us will say - yes I can imagine it is powerful but we

will not truly understand or consciously realize just how

powerful it is. My suggestion to you is to stop for a second,

think about this, it is something which can have a huge impact

and change your life for the better easily...

So what is a mindset anyway?

Your mindset is the angle or view point you choose to see the

world from. You will either be a person who sees the world

from a reactive state or a pro-active state. In essence this

means that you will either blame the world for what it is doing

to you or you will choose to learn from what ever happened

and take the best from it. Yes, it is a bit of glass half empty or

glass half full stuff.

Just hang in there and read these next few paragraphs, it is

really worth getting it.

Above the line or below the line living

Below the line or being in a re-active state

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To live below the line with your mindset means that you tend

to focus on the past and past events. You will often blame

something that happened in the past for the way you feel

towards the future. This means you will react to anything that

happens to you today in a way that blames the past. It also

means that you do not take responsibility for your actions or

feelings about things that happen. You are blaming the

outside world for the way you experience life. Lastly, you dont

take control of anything; you let the environment control you

and your feelings. An example of this could be: One of your

colleague business analysts believes that the reason they are

unhappy in their job is because the people they work with are

unfriendly and their deadlines are unachievable.

Above the line or being in a pro-active state

To live above the line with your mindset is to be proactive and

live in the present moment. You do not blame anything from

the past for how you experience your life today. You are

responsible for your own actions and feelings and are in

control of how you are feeling at any time. In general, people

who live above the line are much more light hearted and they

deal with harder things that happen much easier. They

manage to see things for what they are and pro-actively live

their life from that perspective. When you live above the line

you do not allow the environment or outside world predict to

you how you are going to react to a situation.

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An example of this could be: This same colleague business

analyst as above realizes that the reason that they cant meet

their deadlines is because they did not plan the requirements

activity properly in their requirements management plan.

Instead of becoming unhappy and experiencing everyone as

unfriendly, this person will address the issue with a discussion

with their project manager. This person takes full control and

responsibility for the situation and do not react and blame

other things. Instead of being unhappy for days, the situation

is rectified and the business analyst can move on.

We are just human!

No one person can live above the line all the time, but you can

learn to live above the line most of the time. The beautiful

thing of living above the line most of the time is that you will

soon find it more and more difficult to live (or allow yourself)

to go below the line. Take this page seriously and think about

it - your daily job as a business analyst can even be more

fulfilling if you start living above the line much for often.

Stakeholders

Who are they and why do you need them?

We use our soft skills constantly when we interact with our

stakeholders. It is therefore a great idea to develop your soft

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skills just as often as you do your more Business Analysis

specific knowledge. You will understand by now that if you

have really strong soft skills, the hard skills look after itself.

Stakeholders come in various shapes and sizes and they all

have a slightly different role to play on your project. As you

would know they are sometimes quite hard to love, but trust

me, it pays in the long run.

Follow these basic tips as a guideline when analysing your

project allies and enemies!

Identify your stakeholders

Always make a list of all your stakeholders on your project.

Anyone who is affected by the project outcome or directly

involved will be deemed a stakeholder. In some cases this

could mean people or companies outside your organization.

Example stakeholders are the business sponsor of your

project, business managers and anyone who will use the

system (if it is a system you are implementing). Government

bodies or suppliers can also be important stakeholders.

Prioritize your stakeholders

It sounds a bit bad saying you should prioritize stakeholders

but you need to understand which stakeholders will have a

high impact on your projects ability to succeed if they didnt

feel the love from the project. Other considerations when

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prioritizing is the number of stakeholders involved in a

particular stakeholder group. For example: If you were

building a banking product for consumers and you didnt

include the call centre who will be servicing that product in

your project, you may end up with a large number of

stakeholders not supporting the launch of the new product

because they have not been involved. This means the product

may fail in the market which will be disastrous to the project

outcome!

Determine your stakeholders mood

Most of the time we have a good idea about whether a

particular stakeholder or stakeholder group is supporting the

project or not. If we realize at this early stage that a

stakeholder might be difficult to manage and especially if they

have high impact priority, we give them more attention! Do

not avoid them. Involve them early on and make a point of

fully understanding the impact your project will have on them,

their role and their department. If you understand their point

of view fully you will be in a much stronger position to manage

the relationship with them.

Engage with stakeholders

You will need to work out (at least in terms of requirements

activities) how you will engage with your stakeholders. It is

imperative to your relationship with your stakeholders that you

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use effective communication. You find out who you should

approach to ensure you have the right stakeholder

representation within your requirements workshops and other

requirement gathering activities. Agree an engagement

approach with your project manager prior to going out to see

stakeholders. A single uniform message coming from A man is

the project is critical for the image of the project in literally what

the wider community of the business. he thinks By

James Allen

Understand your stakeholders.

Now that you have a list of prioritized stakeholders and

you know how you will engage with them, you need to

plan how to find out what makes them tick! Why? It is

the simple concept of making people feel as if they are

loved. You do this by demonstrating your soft skills in some

way with your understanding of their special interest on the

project or their view on a certain topic. If you know where they

are coming from and you show that it matters, you will go a

long way in gaining that stakeholders buy-in with your

requirements workshops, requirements document approvals or

simply just have some support in the business for your

project.

Building great relationships

This soft skill is the one that will make your job seem easy and

very enjoyable. Some people are more natural rapport

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builders than others but the good news is that everyone can

learn to be great at this! As a business analyst you will

communicate with a lot of stakeholders during your career and

this often involves getting their buy in into what you and

your project team are trying to achieve. So lets look at a great

way you can ensure you get your stakeholders buy in.

The three times affirmation

This technique is a very easy rapport building technique and

works a treat. What this one is all about is simply you asking

three consecutive questions which the stakeholder answers

yes to. You do this during your first few minutes of being

with the stakeholder because it is all about you setting up a

warm engagement session with them.

So how do you do this in real life?

OK, lets say you are about to do a stakeholder requirements

interview. You can do this when you walk in the door (and

some of it you do already anyway!). You ask the person

whether they are comfortable where they are sitting. You then

ask them whether they are ready for the interview session to

start and finally you ask them whether it would be alright for

you to ask him/her some questions about their work practices.

In all three these cases the stakeholder would have answered

yes and you would have a great start for great rapport! You

will now see you can ask other types of questions too, the

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bottom line being that you ask three different questions

consecutively where the answer is yes / good / well thanks

every time.

Finally it is a fantastic tool to use when you know a

stakeholder may be more resistant to discuss certain things.

By building rapport this way, you get them to agree with you

essentially three times before delving into the real topic for

discussion. This will make them much more likely to agree /

accept your suggestions or requirements questions in a

positive way.

Benefits of using this simple technique

You are able to use this technique with an individual or with a

group. This means it will work really well in a requirements

workshop set up too.

You can use this technique quite seamlessly when you are on a

conference call too. You dont need to see the person to build

rapport.

You can use this technique in everyday conversation with

anyone of your stakeholders. Next step - go try this! This is

just one of many great rapport building tips you can teach

yourself in minutes.

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Understanding why stakeholders do the things they do

A few pages ago I talked about the fact that all of us see the

world in a slightly different way. We have noticed this during

our lives in different scenarios of our lives and we tend to

probably notice people who have a more extreme variation

from our own view of the world. In any case, there is some

very interesting information available which explains why we

all see the world a bit differently.

Before I tell you more, can you imagine a reason why it will be

useful to know why your stakeholder sees something in a

different way? Or would it even just be useful to know that

they see it in a certain way? If you know someone sees things

in a certain way then you can tune into that and communicate

with them in a way that makes most sense to them.

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THOUGHT

Do you think that this might make a difference in the results

you get when talking to someone by sharing and

understanding their perspective?

Reasons why we are all seeing the world a bit differently

Each one of us has a variety of different filter we use to

absorb all the bits of information, which is streaming our way

every millisecond of our lives. Just out of interest, there are 20

million bits of information streaming towards you every

millisecond and you need a way of filtering and making sense

of all the information!

As human beings we can merely absorb about 7 chunks of

these millions of bits of information and this means that we

have to decide which bits of information are we seeing and

which bits are we discarding.

How do we filter all these bits?

We use a few different filters, which includes our beliefs

about life, our values, our 5 senses, our memory and our

experiences. Based on those filters we choose which chunks

to see, hear, feel, smell and taste. This means that if we dont

know what something means based on these filters we apply,

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we tend to not place it in our selected seven chunks and

therefore simply discard that information. Make sense?

So each of us have a different set of beliefs, values,

experiences and we also have different preferred senses for

absorbing information. Some people use their hearing much

more acutely than the next person and they respond really

well to hearing information.

Someone else tends to switch off when there is a lot of

information being spoken and they only really respond well

with pictures. They would probably not include a lot of noise

or sounds into their chunks of information they choose to

accept in and therefore rather focus on more visual pictures of

things.

Your beliefs

Another key filter we all use is your belief system. We all have

certain beliefs about everything. This chapter will only touch

on beliefs and what it means really briefly because it is a big

topic, which would be best suited for another day.

However, I will tell you in summary what a belief is. Beliefs are

what people believe is true and what is not true. For example:

If a stakeholder is always sceptical and hard to deal with, it

may be that something happened once in the past which

created a belief which he now believes is a true fact in general

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terms. Perhaps this stakeholder had an experience of a similar

project, which cost him his promotion. He may now believe

that every project is doomed and he will only loose if he

invests his time and effort in it. This might explain why he is

so hard to deal with? If you can uncover what a belief is

someone carries with them, you have a chance in indirectly

helping that person change that belief by demonstrating the

contrary is true. This may assist you in improving the

relationship with this stakeholder. Another example of a belief

could simply be that you believe you have a great memory.

That is a great belief to hang to!

Your experiences

Lets talk a bit more about how you use your experience to

filter chunks of information. Have you ever spoken to a

stakeholder about some requirements and all they ever refer

to is how they do something in their job or in their company?

They dont seem to see the bigger picture or seem to care

about anyone elses requirements? It is because they are

choosing to only filter in the chunks of information which

they have experience of. They are not including anyone elses

views or requirements because they simply dont have that

experience and therefore the only know what they have

experience of. Does this make sense?

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So coming back to why we all see the world a bit differently. It

is a combination of our filters and because we all have our

own unique beliefs, values, preferred senses and experiences

we will always see the world differently to the next person.

Your senses

Tips to know which of the 5 senses people prefer!

It is really only seeing, feeling, hearing and thinking that you

need to start taking notice of. If someone says: I see what you

mean - guess where their preference lays? Or if someone

tends to say: I hear you or That sounds great you will know

they have a strong sense of hearing. Thinkers would often use

the word think. They would say that we need to think that

through for example.

All of us use all our senses. We all relate to hearing, feeling

and seeing but most of us have a stronger preference for one

of these main senses!

You will now see how it is possible for us as Business Analysts

to develop a sense of what someone else prefers or where they

are coming from with their view points. This will help you

understand why someone is perhaps not responding to your

documents very well (they dont like reading lots of words,

they prefer pictures) or why someone is always just referring

to their relevant requirement scenarios. This will assist you to

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adapt your communication style with people and in this way

achieve must stronger relationships and better results with

your requirements.

Workshop facilitation secrets

All workshop facilitators should keep all these points in mind

when they do a workshop. It applies to all types of workshops,

not only requirement gathering workshops. Take these secrets

to heart and you will be surprised at your workshop attendees

positive responses.

We all want to be loved

Building rapport even before the requirements workshop with

each attendee will guarantee the workshop has the best

chance for success! Even before the requirement gathering

workshop takes place, make sure you as the facilitator meet or

at least phone each attendee! Have a chat to them about their

understanding of what the session is all about, try and

determine what is important to them, gage how they feel

about the content or simply about the fact that they are

expected to attend. You can even just simply call them to

confirm they can make it and whether they have any questions

prior to the session. By doing this first very basic step of

engaging with each attendee individually you would have build

good rapport that will take you a long way to being received

with an open engaging audience.

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We all want to belong

An easy way to make someone feel they belong is to recognize

each individual in front of everyone else during the workshop

facilitation session. We all love feeling special and especially

so if we are recognized for something positive in front of a

larger group. As part of your pre-workshop rapport building

you would know what is important to each individual. Make

sure you use this during the session the earlier in the session

you can do it, the better. Ideas for doing this would be to point

out something good or constructive about each attendees

input they may provide.

We all want to learn

Stretch people by choosing a format for the requirements

workshop, which will require them to participate in some way.

Use posters, small group tasks, report back to the group

even just let them get out of their seats to do something. If

people feel that they were contributing actively, they will also

feel they got value for their time spent! This will have a great

impact on how they feel about your requirements and it will

build confidence in them that all requirements were

considered thoroughly.

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It is not about you

You may be the one standing up and leading the workshop,

but guess what it is actually not about you for anyone in the

workshop. When you run the requirements gathering

workshop remember that it is about your attendees or

requirement stakeholders. It is not about you, your nerves or

what you can get out of it. It is all about the value you can

deliver for the people attending the workshop. Focus on

delivering as much value to the attendees by ensuring you are

very well prepared, the workshop is structured, you use

different tools to stimulate conversation and you keep on track

with your objectives for the session.

PATS STORY...

Pat came into work feeling a bit sad this morning. He has been

working hard on his personal leadership skills and also the

very key interpersonal communication skills that Cathy has

explained to him. He has seen great results and it has certainly

paid off for him especially lately. So he should really feel very

proud and excited because today is the day that Pat is moving

on to a new job.

The reason Pat is feeling a bit sad is because he has formed

such strong relationships in these last months at the

publishing company. He feels he must stay loyal to them

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because of all the opportunities they gave him but at the same

time he has fire of career passion burning which is now

leading him to a new place.

Not only did Pat get a new role as a Business Analyst in a large

corporation but they have offered to send him on formal

training courses with a view to get certified as a Professional

Business Analyst. It is a fantastic opportunity and he can

hardly believe he has come all this way in just 2 years.

Cathy is on her way up to his floor to come and say her

goodbye. It is going to be hard to say goodbye to his first

fantastic mentor but he is ready and open to meet his next

mentor. His only hope is that he or she is as wonderful and

patient as Cathy.

The End.

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5. The road to achieve Business Analysis

mastery

Business Analysis further education paths

Business Analysis professional certification routes

Which Business Analysis course is right for you?

Lots of people ask the question, which course is a good

business analysis course to get started with when learning

business analysis?

This seems to be a common question among new business

analysts or experienced business analysts who havent done a

lot of formal training before. It is a very good question

because it is not obvious. There are many Business Analysis

courses out in the market but only few courses covers the

overall foundation concepts of business analysis. If you are

looking for a good solid foundations course in business

analysis, I would suggest you look at the course content

before signing up.

The Foundation Business Analysis Course

The course content of a good Business Analysis foundation

course should include the following types of topics:

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Problem Analysis - the Soft Systems Methodology is a

foundation methodology for being able to recognize a

business need or problem, it guides you to break it into

'root cause' statements and builds a structured problem

to take to your next stage of your analysis.

Stakeholder Analysis - The course content must also

cover stakeholder analysis techniques. Ideally it will

cover how to identify and manage your stakeholders.

Business basics will be included, such as learning how to

formulate a mission statement, goals and key performance

indicators. This is a key factor for any business analyst to

understand because this sets context for any future analysis

work you will do. Other business tools you will learn about

include PESTLE and SWOT Analysis.

Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) - This forms the

backbone of a foundation business analysis course and is the

framework for explaining not only the SDLC itself but how

business analysis fits into this life cycle.

An overview of requirements elicitation and management

should be covered too but the focus of this course is not to

delve into too many of the details around requirements

elicitation and management.

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Finally, a good foundation Business Analysis course will also

touch on the main modelling techniques. These include data

modelling and process modelling primarily. Again, dont

expect to become an expert modeller at the end of this type of

course.

So you may notice that a good foundation course in Business

Analysis doesn't necessarily include much about requirements

or modelling techniques yet! It is important that this course

covers all the foundation concepts of Business Analysis and

touch on every major topic that you can expect to come across

in your career as a Business Analyst.

The Requirements Engineering Course

Other good courses to start with include Requirements

Engineering courses. These courses will teach you about

requirements elicitation techniques such as workshop

facilitation, requirement interviews and observation. It will

teach you about writing good requirements, managing all your

requirements, requirements traceability and managing change

to requirements. It is a great type of course to attend either

after you've done the foundation business analysis course or

you can do these two types of courses in close succession.

The Modelling courses - when do they become useful?

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Once you have started doing more requirements related tasks

on a project you will develop the need to learn some core

modelling techniques. You will start to find that your

stakeholders will need to see workflow, use case type

diagrams or data related diagrams when talking to you about

the finer details of their requirements. Having said this, as a

Business Analyst you need to keep in mind when presenting

stakeholders with diagrams that they will most likely not want

to see highly technical diagrams either! You will learn with

experience how to judge what level of diagram your

stakeholders feel comfortable with. Remember, although a

picture says a thousand words, there will be stakeholders who

doesnt want to look at any formal Business Analysis diagrams.

You do however need to master the skills around modelling to

ensure you are able to document your requirements in a way

that the more technical teams can understand too.

Unified modelling language or UML

A good place to start these days for a Business Analysis

modelling course topic is at the Unified Modelling Language or

more widely known as UML. It is important to note that this is

not a methodology but a unified language using different

models. The great thing about UML is that you can choose

what you learn about first because it consists of a suite of

different models with clearly defined purposes. There are

some very good business focused models to start with when

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you learn UML such as use case diagrams and activity

diagrams. In all my experience as a Business Analyst those are

probably the two most important UML diagrams from a

business analysis perspective to learn about when dealing with

your non-technical audience. The fantastic thing is that the

more technically minded architects and developers all

understand UML really well and can translate your diagrams

into their technical models seamlessly. Other good UML

modelling to understand is the object or class model and also

the sequence diagram.

Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN)

BPMN based courses are good to do if you are planning to

work on large business process transformation programs or if

you would like to specialize and become a Business Process

Analyst. This is the industry standard and an accepted

business process methodology to follow. Lots of companies

use this standard and therefore it is great course to put on

your resume.

Specialized Courses

You may be shouting - but what about agile? Yes, agile. That

is a great specialization to consider when you develop your

skills as a Business Analyst. Agile courses are in high demand

and lots of people are very interested to develop their skills in

this. That is absolutely fantastic and should be pursued.

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Something to keep in mind though is that at the moment (and

this might change in future) there are two camps of projects:

Those who are agile (or aspiring to be) and those who are

more traditionally waterfall based. If you like to work at highly

interactive and shorter bursts of activity on a project or

program, go with agile! It essentially uses the SDLC but

manages the cycles in a highly controlled but really short and

sharply fashion which allows very good response times with

business requirement change. People, who go onto true Agile

projects, will not easily return to other more traditional ones.

There is however still a huge market for more traditional

project which has lots of other highly rewarding attributes as

well.

Soft skills courses

As business analysts we really must remember to include soft

skill courses into our development plans. We depend heavily

on our relationship building skills to perform our jobs and the

better we can get our interpersonal communication skills, the

more rewarding our outcome will be. Consider doing a

presentation skills course, a rapport building course and it is

always a good idea to include a leadership skills course too.

The truth about face to face training

You dont need to be in a classroom based training course to

be able to do your required Business Analysis training. Dont

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get me wrong, it is great if you have the money or your

company is willing to pay for a classroom based training

course but these days there are many alternative ways to also

develop your Business Analysis knowledge.

So what else can you do for training then?

Well, I would like to start by saying that I have been lucky with

classroom based Business Analyst training. I had my university

degree and multiple ISEB and other classroom based courses

to attend and covered the whole classroom based training

thing from every possible angle. Now this enables me to tell

you that it is not strictly necessary for you to attend a

classroom training to be able to be trained as a Business

Analyst. It makes things easier because you are presented with

all the learning on a platter, but it not a requirement to be

successful when gaining your Business Analysis education.

Great, lets look at some alternatives to Business Analysis

classroom based training:

Reading books and online articles

Some really good books are available on Business Analysis

which can assist you in getting to grips with Business Analysis

or specific interest areas of Business Analysis.

Attend webinars and Business Analysis talks in your

city.

If your city doesnt have talks you can attend regularly then

there is always the online webinars to attend.

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Learn on the job from an experienced Business

Analyst

This is a great practical way to learn new skills. Start by

reviewing their documents and then have a go yourself to

either write the requirements or to draw the diagrams!

Ask questions in online forums

There are some really good BA forums out there. I recommend

LinkedIn; they have a very strong Business Analysis group

community! Find a group that suits your needs, and join them.

Make sure you follow the group etiquette when you start a

discussion!

Do online courses or buy How to DVDs on specific

topics.

There are some good online courses starting up which is also

a nice flexible way of being trained. These courses gives you

the flexibility to do them when you have time (unless it is real

time online course of course!) and you can be based anywhere

in the world! Again, as with everything, this may require some

research before you invest money in these courses.

Which Business Analysis certification is right for you?

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There are a few business analysis certifications in the industry

now which have developed during the last 10 years or so. It is

great for Business Analysts because it is developing

None of us
our profession in the industry and its bringing it up
can change our
to par with Project Management and other
yesterdays, but
professional careers. Every year that goes by, these
all of us can
certifications are becoming more prominent and
change our
better known. It is great idea to get certified as a
tomorrows
professional Business Analyst. Let me explain the
Colin Powell
main certifications out there and give you a clue as

to what they are, where they come from and what

they can mean to you in your market place. Just so

you know, I hold the CBAP certification and also

hold 5 ISEB Business Analysis certifications. I was also part of

the CCBA exam review committee, so have some insights

there too.

ISEB Business Analysis Certifications

These certifications are developed by the educational stream

of the British Computer Societys (BCS) ISEB. They have a good

variety of Business Analysis courses and you can roll it up into

a Diploma if you so choose or you simply do the individual

certifications if this is what you want. This Business Analysis

certification is well known in the United Kingdom (UK) and

hence a good solid path to follow in terms of certifications if

you live in the UK. A good idea is to search your local

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countrys job search websites and see whether they ask for

ISEB certifications and therefore know about the ISEB

certifications in your industry. I do know that there are other

countries that also support the ISEB stream of certifications

and therefore it is a good idea to do your research locally to

see whether your country is one of them. You should do this

local check for all the certifications described here because its

a good rule of thumb to get certified by a professional body

which is also recognized in your country.

Choose the ISEB Business Analysis certifications if:

You want to pick specific topics to learn about and

get certified in that topic individually.

You are new to business analysis or havent really

ever had any formal Business Analysis training

before.

You are based in the UK or a country that recognizes

the ISEB range of Business Analysis certifications in

the industry.

You are able to attend online or class room based

courses prior to sitting the certification exams. Make

sure you work through sample exam questions for

the ISEB certification exams.

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Disadvantages to keep in mind

With the ISEB certifications the content is not based

on one single source of business analysis reference

materials.

Most business analysts would need to attend an ISEB

endorsed class room based course prior to

attempting the exams. This potentially can become

quite costly, especially if you have to fund it yourself!

The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) Certified

Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) designation

This certification requires a lot of pure business analysis

experience and is heavily based on practical hands-on

experience in a wide variety of knowledge areas. It is like the

crme-de-la-crme of business analysis certifications

internationally. It was the first Business Analysis certification

developed by the International Institute of Business Analysis,

better known as the IIBA. This certification is best tackled as

part of a CBAP study group.

IIBA Certified Competent Business Analyst (CCBA)

designation

They have recently (in the last 2 years) launched a mid level

Business Analysis certification, called the Certified Competent

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Business Analyst (CCBA). Both of these IIBA certifications are

based on knowledge coming from the Business Analysis Body

of Knowledge (BABOK). These certifications are being

compared to the PMI project management certifications in

terms of level of professionalism and level of experience

required. They are both very good certifications to pursue if

you are based in the USA, Canada, Australia, Singapore and

some other predominantly English speaking countries. This

certification is also best tackled as part of a CCBA Study

Group.

Choose the IIBA CCBA or CBAP certifications if:

You want a dedicated international Business Analysis institute

to endorse your certification. The IIBA is becoming the most

recognized Business Analysis institute in the world and many

large corporations are starting to integrate the BABOK and

Competency models into their organizations.

You are a mid- to senior level business analyst (with a

minimum of 3.5 years experience) and want your career path

to develop into a Professional Business Analyst with a

recognized qualification to boot!

You want to be one of only a few in the world! There are still

less than 2000 CBAP certified business analysts in the world,

which makes it a very exclusive certification to have which

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gives you the competitive advantage when it comes to job

interviews! You dont need to attend special courses prior to

attempting one of these exams. You simply study the

BABOK.

Disadvantages to keep in mind

For both these certifications the Business Analyst have to learn

the BABOK in its entirety. This can be very daunting and time

intensive for some Business Analysts to do.

There is no suitable IIBA certification for entry level Business

Analysts. You need at a minimum 3.5 years of pure proven

Business Analysis experience to attempt the CCBA exam.

Other certifications exist too but the above 2 options are your

most prominent certifications for Business Analysts today!

The following few sections will discuss these certification

requirements in more detail. Read them, be aware of each

certifications requirement and decide whether this is

something you would like to attempt or aspire to in future

years if you dont already qualify.

ISEB Business Analysis Certifications

As mentioned earlier in the discussion around the ISEB

certifications, these certifications are great because it is

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modular and can be tailored to your specific career path as a

business analyst. Having completed many of these

certifications myself, I can confidently say that they are very

relevant and of a very high standard. They are certainly based

on industry best practice and practically applicable in your real

project life!

Some specific ISEB certification types are listed below:

Foundation based certifications

These are great internationally recognized certifications to

obtain before delving into anything too specialized. It provides

a great foundation for Business Analysts who are either just

starting their careers or experienced Business Analysts with

limited formal qualifications.

IT Enabled Business Change

Business Analysis

Commercial Awareness

Entry Requirements: No specific entry requirements to sit the

exams for foundation based certifications. Although it is

recommended to do an online, self help or classroom based

course, this is not mandatory.

Practitioner based certifications

The ISEB practitioner based business analysis certifications are

allowing you to choose which areas you would like to steer

your career path down.

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Certificate in Benefits and Business Acceptance

Certificate in Business Analysis Practice

Certificate in Data Management Essentials

Certificate in Modelling Business Processes

Certificate in Requirements Engineering

Entry Requirements: No specific entry requirements to sit the

exams for practitioner based certifications. Although it is

recommended to do an online, self help or classroom based

course, this is not mandatory.

Higher Qualification

If you wanted to obtain a higher formal Business Analysis

qualification, this is the ultimate outcome of all your ISEB

certifications. It has minimum requirements of certifications to

be completed and entails an oral exam with a designated ISEB

examiner. The oral exam is based on your ability to apply your

knowledge to your role as a Business Analyst in practice.

BCS International Diploma in Business Analysis

Entry Requirements: There are some entry requirements, which

you should research before embarking on this ISEB Business

Analysis career path development journey.

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6. Closing Reflections

I trust you have enjoyed reading this book and that you have

learned from my experiences. Business Analysis is a fantastic

career with great challenge and enormous scope for

professional development. My closing remarks are simply:

Embrace the opportunities this career provides, take pride in

your results and always be focused on your end goal.

With Sincerity

Esta Lessing

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Selected Bibliography

Canfield, Jack. The Success Principles. Harper Element

2005.

Blair, Lawrence. Rhythms of Vision: The Changing Patterns

of Belief. Schocken Books 1976.

International Institute of Business Analysis. Business

Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK Ver 2.0) 2011.

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About the Author

Esta Lessing is a Coach of Neuro-Linguistic Programming

(NLP) and Certified Business Analyst Professional (CBAP)

currently living in Melbourne, Australia.

Esta started her career out with the Johannesburg Stock

Exchange in South Africa where she worked as a Technical

Analyst on the trading floor 1997. She changed her career

shortly after that to take up her very first Business Analysis

role with Arthur Andersen in 1998. She was selected to work

on a variety of EMEIA based projects early on in her career

which allowed significant European travel and she gained

valuable global project experience. After a few very long trips

to London, Amsterdam and Germany she decided to move

across to England where she continued her role in the London

based head office. Esta spent a total of 6 years in London

working for both public sector and private sector companies

as a Business Analyst. She not only studied with the London

University during this time but completed 5 BCS ISEB Business

Analysis certifications. After all those long winters, she

decided to migrate to Melbourne Australia in 2006. Esta

certified as a CBAP shortly after arriving in Melbourne.

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Business Analysis career coaching, mentoring and

development programs have been an integral part of her

experience during the last 6 years. Esta remains in Melbourne

where she is now running her own Business Analysis

Consultancy company, Business Analysis Excellence, aspiring

to assist thousands of Business Analysts worldwide with her

skills and experiences gained as a Business Analyst and

Professional Career Specialist.

Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) 2006

BCom (Hon) Informatics 2001
Information Systems Development and Management, London
University, 2001
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Practitioner 2012

Copyright 2013 Esta Lessing