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The Strategic Business Analyst (Or, Who Me?)

The Strategic Business Analyst (Or, Who Me?). BADD Iowa May 2, 2008. Outline. Contest All I Want The BA’s Role The SLM Implementing the SLM Some Examples. Contest. Three volunteers. You could win a Major Award!. All I Want From Life Is.

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The Strategic Business Analyst (Or, Who Me?)

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  1. The Strategic Business Analyst (Or, Who Me?) BADD Iowa May 2, 2008

  2. Outline • Contest • All I Want • The BA’s Role • The SLM • Implementing the SLM • Some Examples

  3. Contest • Three volunteers. • You could win a Major Award!

  4. All I Want From Life Is • Everyone makes decisions that are aligned with strategy. • Everyone makes decisions that properly use resources. • We use these decisions to win in the marketplace. • A pill that gets me in shape and makes me eat healthier.

  5. Whither Strategy? • Strategy has different meanings to different people. • I prefer (actually demand) Michael Porter’s definition: Strategy = Sustainable Competitive Advantage

  6. The BA’s Role Business Analysis Planning Solution Assessment And Validation Requirements Analysis Enterprise Analysis Elicitation Requirements Management and Communication The Fundamentals

  7. How Can This Be Strategic? • Most companies cannot articulate their strategy. Therefore, how can a BA use strategy to improve decision making? • How best to utilize resources is subjective. • Sadly, BA’s are toast. • But wait . . .

  8. What If There Were . . . A simple to understand, Easily communicated, Immediately implementable, Way to articulate and use strategy to improve decision making?

  9. There Just Might Be . . . • The Purpose Alignment Model (or SLM). • This model views business processes, business rules, and, therefore, requirements in two dimensions: • The extent to which they differentiate us in the marketplace. • The extent to which they are mission critical.

  10. Purpose – The SLM High Differentiating Partnering Market Differentiating Who Cares? Parity Low High Low Mission Critical

  11. In Practice High Innovate, Create Do We Take This On? Market Differentiating Achieve and Maintain Parity, Mimic, Simplify Minimize / Eliminate Low High Low Mission Critical

  12. An Example – CPG • ERP project to replace legacy system. • Legacy sequence of data entry: Name, Telephone, Address • ERP sequence of data entry: Name, Address, Telephone • Business requirement was to customize ERP sequence to match legacy sequence

  13. Using Purpose Is data entry sequence here or here or even? High Partnering Differentiating Market Differentiating Who Cares? Parity Low High Low Mission Critical

  14. Project Example (Real Life) “Requirements” = 3000 function points • Result: Better product in half the time and 60% of the original cost. Anything here? What goes here? Most are usually here Anything here?

  15. Specifics • Differentiating was to improve the process for distributed document collaboration. • Product management, development, and business analysis worked together to create a unique, on-line method to create, review, and finalize documents. • For the other modules, the company benchmarked and mimicked market leaders.

  16. Graphically - Before Project Tracking Document Mgmt Document Edit Document Library Search EDGAR Integration High Market Differentiating Low High Low Mission Critical

  17. Graphically - After High Document Edit Portal Market Differentiating Project Tracking Document Mgmt Document Library Search EDGAR Integration Low High Low Mission Critical

  18. The Key to Using Purpose • What simple decision filters can we use to identify what is “Differentiating”? • These decision filters should link to strategy (in fact, are a good way to define and articulate strategy). • These decision filters are powerful tools in the hands of a BA.

  19. Linking BA Role and Purpose • Analyze the enterprise (articulate strategy). • Elicit meaningful requirements (self-filtering). • Analyze requirements (differentiating / parity?). • Assess and validate solutions (what makes us best at differentiating? How can we simplify and streamline parity?). • Manage and communicate requirements (simple question – differentiating or parity?). • Analyze business plans (gaps provide project roadmaps).

  20. Example – Custom Pricing Engine • Current business rules require multi-dimensional pricing. Imagine 6 dimensional space: To get to price, find the right combination:

  21. Pricing Engine • These business rules treated pricing as if it were “Differentiating”. • But, decision filters identified products (not pricing) as differentiating. • Pricing is “Parity”. Therefore, uniqueness is wasted. How to simplify and streamline? • Solution: Standard product pricing with standard discounts based on past year’s dollar volume and promotions. No customization.

  22. Example – Split Payments • eCommerce and catalog order management system supported split payments? • Split what? Pay with a combination of credit cards (as many as you want). • Required a significant customization. Are split payments differentiating or parity?

  23. Split Payments • Differentiating includes product selection and customer service. Therefore differentiating. • Not so fast, if differentiating, Let’s advertise! • Treat exceptions like exceptions. • Inelegantly handled with standard functionality.

  24. Fine, How Do I Start? Make better decisions Distill to simple questions Define the decision criteria Example Questions: Will this lower lifetime cost? Will this lock up long contracts? Present the model

  25. Lessons Learned • Emphasize (all the time) the mission critical nature of parity. • Purpose is not priority. • What is both differentiating and parity changes over time. • The more distributed the decision filters the better the results. • Purpose shifts the burden to behavior change.

  26. Did I Get What I Want? • Everyone makes decisions that are aligned with strategy – the decision filters. • Everyone makes decisions that properly use resources – designing around purpose improves resource use. • We use these decisions to win in the marketplace – by making the differentiating truly differentiating. • A pill that gets me in shape and makes me eat healthier – still waiting.

  27. One Last Example – Payroll BP LG One Payroll CP SLM: Payroll = Parity (15 minutes) Net result, one system, one set of rules, standard codes and process.

  28. Questions? nnick@accelinnova.com

  29. Shameless Plug Stand Back And Deliver New book by Pixton, Nickolaisen, Little, and McDonald Published by Addison Wesley in early 2009

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