How the relationship with a BUsiness Analyst is important in all phases of a project and how a Project Manager can use this relationship to be successful

1. Presented by Mark Troncone MBA, PMP®, CSM ®

2.  PMP® Certified – Project Management Institute
 CRM Certified SCRUM Master® – SCRUM Alliance
 Certified IT Business Analyst – State of Connecticut
 Active career transition mentor
 MBA – Management, BS – Marketing, AS – Accounting
 Work Experience:
* TransAct Technologies (Current)
* Starwood Hotels
* Affinion Group
* Hewitt Associates
* Wachovia Bank
* Bayer Pharmaceuticals
* Reader’s Digest
* James River Corporation

3.  Early IT Years – Pre-Structured Methodologies
• You wore most of the hats
• You gathered requirements, designed, developed, tested,
implemented and ran your Team (if there was one)
 Recent IT Years – Structured Methodologies
• SDLC Life Cycle introduced for structure
• RAD, RUP, AGILE, SCRUM - to streamline the process
• Defined Roles - (PM, BA, SA, DBA, QA, Web Designers,
etc.)
• Many IT certifications and Recognized Institutions available

4.  You just got assigned a Project
 You Identified your Stakeholders
 You assembled your Project Team
 You created the Project Charter
What is the next activity
you should do?

5. COLLECT
REQUIREMENTS

6.  This activity is extremely important, but usually taken lightly.
 Sets the foundation for your project being successful or not.
 This is why this task occurs so early in the SDLC, as a task
in the project schedule, and noted in the PMBOK®
 It is imperative, that as a Project Manager, you take a
concerted effort to partner with the Business Analyst
 If one is not assigned to the project – Demand One!
 The following slides are the steps you need to take as a
Project Manager in each Phase of the project to ensure that
this partnership is a successful one.

7.  Companies with poor business analysis capability will have three
times as many project failures as successes.
 68% of companies are more likely to have a marginal project or
outright failure than a success due to the way they approach business
analysis
 Companies pay a premium of as much as 60% on time and budget
when they use poor requirements practices on their projects.
 Over 41% of the IT development budget for software, staff and external
professional services will be consumed by poor requirements at the
average company using average analysts versus the optimal
organization.
 The vast majority of projects surveyed did not utilize sufficient business
analysis skill to consistently bring projects in on time and budget. The
level of competency required is higher than that employed within
projects for 70% of the companies surveyed.
Key findings from the report, The Impact of Business Requirements on the Success of Technology Projects
from IAG Consulting,

8.  The world recognized organization for Business Analyst Professionals
 Formed October 29, 2003
 27,344+ members
 109 Chapters on 6 Continents
 CBAP Certification – Certified Business Analyst Professional
 BABOK - version 2.0 - soon moving to version 3.0
 The world recognized organization for Project Management Professionals
 Formed 1969
 552,977+ members
 269 Chapters in 193 Countries
 PMP Certification – Project Management Professional
 PMBOK - version 5.0

9.  Initially both organizations recognized each other
 According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics the number of
Business Analyst jobs is predicted to increase by 19% by 2022
 PMI has recently created a new certification program:
PMI Professional in Business Analyst (PMI-PBA)sm

10.  Business analysis is the set of tasks and techniques used to work
as a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the
structure, policies, and operations of an organization, and to
recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its
goals
 Business analysis involves understanding how organizations
function to accomplish their purposes, and defining the capabilities
an organization requires to provide products and services to
external stakeholders. It includes the definition of organizational
goals, how those goals connect to specific objectives, determining
the courses of action that an organization has to undertake to
achieve those goals and objectives, and defining how the various
organizational units and stakeholders within and outside of that
organization interact.

11. A Business Analyst is any person who performs business analysis
activities, no matter what their job title or organizational role may be.
Business analysis practitioners include not only people with the job
title of Business Analyst, but may also include business systems
analysts, systems analysts, requirements engineers, process
analysts, product managers, product owners, enterprise analysts,
business architects, management consultants, or any other person
who performs the tasks described in the BABOK® Guide, including
those who also perform related disciplines such as project
management, software development, quality assurance, and
interaction design.

13. Throughout All Phases of a projects Life Cycle
 Initialization
 Planning
 Executing
 Monitoring and Control
 Closing

14.  It is necessary to involve the BA early in the
process – BEFORE the first Project Team Meeting
 Schedule a one on one meeting with your
Business Analyst to discuss:
• How you two will work together
• How you will both communicate - including status
• Planning of the Requirements Process
• Documentation to produce and where will it be saved
• Talk about the Business Case for the Project, the High
Level Scope, and expected deliverables

15. • Identify and work with Stakeholders – ensuring
expectations are met
• Key people for the Business Analyst to work with (Project
Team, Business Users, 3rd Party Vendors, Stakeholders)
• Talk about how the BA will approach and plan their
activities to achieve the goals
• Identify tasks to be included in the Project Plan
• Estimation of delivery of tasks
• How you will insure Quality of Requirements
• How you will monitor and address Risks

16.  Business Analyst involvement is crucial here
 If requirements are not gathered and completed
accurately and of Quality it may cause disaster in
your project – down the line at Implementation
 It is necessary to ask the Business Analyst to map
out their anticipated tasks and to convey a more
precise time estimate to complete for each.
• Do not take this task lightly – make sure that the
Business Analyst is honest in their tasks and timelines.
This should not be glanced over – Give the BA the time
they need to gather Requirements

17.  As a Project Manager hold weekly one on one meetings
with the Business Analyst to discuss:
• Progress of Requirements Gathering
• Only Requirements having impact on direct functionality should
be incorporated into the agreed requirements as 70% of all
application functionality delivered is NEVER used – this will
increase time / costs if Not done – negotiate these out!
• Any potential Problems, Risks, Issues
• Tasks are being completed to the time line
• Help that the BA may need from you with Stakeholders, IT
resources, and Subject Matter Experts, Business Users, Project
team Members

18.  The Business Analyst must plan to do the following
activities in the Planning Phase:
• Plan the Business Analyst Approach
• Gather Requirements
• Analyze Current Process and Future Design / Requirements
• Process, Data, Entity, System Flow Diagrams
• Interviewing Business Users to Elicit Requirements
• Write a Business Requirement Document Consisting of:
 Scope and purpose statements
 “As Is” vs. “To Be”
 Stakeholder Register
 Glossary of Terms
 Business Requirements

19. • Business Requirement Document Cont:
 Mapping out Screen Designs, Web Pages or Design flows
 Functional Requirements
 Non-Functional Requirements
 Scenarios
 Assumptions and Constraints
 Business Rules
• Use Cases and Actors (Pre and Post Conditions)
• Test Cases (For UAT Testing)
• Traceability Matrix
 Obtain Stakeholder and Business User Sign Off

20.  Requirements Must Be:
• Unambiguous
• Clear
• Concise
• Testable
 Project Plan should have requirement walk throughs
with the Stakeholders / Subject Matter Experts, IT
Development Team, QA Team and address any
modifications before base-lining the document
 Then put into a central repository (SharePoint) as a
versioned document –all changes to this document Must
be noted in the Document History section with a X-Ref to
the area in the document that was Changed/Updated

21.  The Business Analyst has to be involved here with
the Development and QA teams in order to:
• Review IT Design Documents
• Review development of Screens, Web-Pages, Processes
etc.
• Review formulas, business rules, requirements
• Answer any questions concerning the requirements as
written
• Monitor and help with IT Development issues
• Update documentation as needed for Change Control

22. • To ensure that the Development Team is addressing the
requirements as written.
• To ensure Unit testing addresses all requirements
• Review the Traceability Matrix to ensure all test conditions
are covered and traced back to Requirements
• All of the questions answered or problems found here will
save time and costs later
• You as the Project Manager should ensure these tasks are
put into the Project Plan and have a plan to initiate Change
Control if problems are found or changes are requested by
Stakeholders / Business Users / Development

23.  The Business Analyst must be involved here to:
• Review the QA Test Plan to ensure all requirements and
scenarios have been accounted for.
• Answer any questions concerning the requirements as
written during testing.
• Monitor QA testing results and issues – offer answers to
problems found (and note in Clear Quest or other tool)
• Update documentation as needed for Change Control
• Create or Review the UAT Test Plan to ensure all
requirements and Use Cases have been accounted for.
• Aid in UAT testing with the End Users

24. • Monitor UAT testing results and issues – offer answers to
problems found (and note in Clear Quest or other tool)
• Update documentation as needed for Change Control
 You as the Project Manager should ensure these
tasks are put into the Project Plan and have a plan to
initiate a Change Control if Problems / Issues are
found during testing:
• Changes Accepted
• Changes Rejected
• Changes viewed as Enhancements after Implementation

25.  The Business Analyst must be involved here to:
• Help with the implementation process as needed including
any final testing
• Answer any questions during this phase if necessary
• Update any and all remaining Business Analyst
documentation
• Ensuring documentation is loaded into the correct
repositories
• Contribute to Lessons Learned and Project Surveys
• Contribute to Organizational Process Assets Updates

26.  As wee see the function of the Business
Analyst during a project is an extremely
important one
 The partnership that you form as a Project
Manager with your Business Analyst affects all
facets of the Project Life Cycle
 When this partnership is formed form success
– it will have an positive affect on the outcome
of your project

27. QUESTIONS ?
Tell me what you think ???
mtroncone73@yahoo.com