Calling All BA Practice Leads!

by Kitty Hass and Lori Lindbergh, PhD

Yikes!  What have you gotten yourself into?  Your organization has entrusted you to ensure it has appropriately skilled BAs possessing the capabilities needed to successfully deliver complex new business solutions that meet 21^st century business needs. Don’t you wish there was a BA Practice Lead Handbook?

Help is on the way.  To manage and capitalize on complexity for competitive advantage, project leadership capabilities are quickly transitioning (see table below).  When it used to be enough to possess technical project management and business analysis competencies, success in the 21^st century requires much more: leadership prowess, complexity management, a holistic, systems thinking approach, and creativity.

BA and PM Competencies are Transitioning

It’s not just about competency (what you think you can do or your score on a multiple-choice knowledge assessment), because that information is not actionable;

• It’s ALL about capability - examining your BA workforce competency level against your current and future project assignments and the performance and project outcomes you achieve within your organizational context.  

It’s not enough to know your BA team has achieved a certain level of competency in BA practices,

• It’s about how capable they are in applying them and actually bringing about value to your customers and wealth to your organization.

How Proficient does your BA Workforce Need to be? The Answer:  It Depends.

So, if you are a BA Practice Lead or BA Manager, how can you determine the characteristics of your BA workforce capabilities, identify your gaps, and put a plan in place to close the gaps? Check this out: the first and only BA Workforce Capability Assessment, to give you a snapshot of your BA Workforce benchmarked against global teams of BAs. 

BA Workforce Capability Model

When performing an assessment of any kind, it is essential to use a validated reference model.  The model we use to assess an organization’s BA workforce (see below) is based on the latest industry research and is in alignment with the IIBA^® BABOK^® Version 2 and the IIBA^® BA Competency Model Version 3. But it goes way beyond BA competencies and techniques, and incorporates the element of project complexity.  

Our BA Workforce Capability Model was derived from an in-depth, comprehensive study of the business analysis and complex project management professions (yes, complex project management is emerging as a new profession). The model identifies the roles, areas of expertise, and foundational capabilities for BAs (and PMs) when working on projects of:

·       low complexity,

·       moderate complexity,

·       high complexity, and

·       mega-complexity when breaking new ground.  

Why Complexity?

Why introduce the element of complexity? Obviously, more complex projects require more sophisticated capabilities. Recent studies revealed that capabilities are inadequate for the level of complexity BAs are asked to manage as depicted in the graph below.

In the graph, project complexity is on the vertical axis and project assignments are on the horizontal axis. The gold line represents the organization’s BA practice maturity (1.7 on a 4.0 scale). You can see that a number of projects of higher complexity, which require capabilities beyond the organizations practice maturity level, are challenged for budget, schedule, or scope. Based on the findings here, not only are the organization's BA practices immature, BAs may lack many critical capabilities to achieve success on projects.

So how proficient are your BAs, and how proficient do they need to be? Without a thorough BA workforce capability assessment, you may never know for sure!