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‘Best’ and ‘worst’ distinction entirely biased, subjective, meaningless and unfair on my part.
In my defence, the one I rate as the best was (and is) universally acknowledged by anyone she works with as being brilliant. And the one I rate as worst was universally acknowledged by anyone he worked with as being utterly and literally effing useless.
This forum could do with some UX…..
It's coming. Soon.
It’s coming. Soon.
You could be an Account Manager.
Or a developer.
I knew I'd be met with 'hilarious' cynicism when I posted that. I don't know why I bother sometimes.
I don't really think contract BA's are a great idea....unless they come with specialist knowledge of new domain or tech for the business (or you have no choice and capacity issues)
Contractor BAs tend to not have the depth of specific business knowledge needed to be really useful, nor the key working relationships with the right people.
If its something like replacing an ERP system which is a (hopefully) one off type investment, yes contractors work, but most of our stuff is quite unique and ongoing. Contractors won't have the knowledge, or worse letting them skill up, then bugger off taking all the knowledge with them.
Most of the contractor BA's (and PM's) I have had the pleasure of dealing with are mostly about the same as (motivated) perms but without the intimate business knowledge. Definitely the worse BA's and PM's I have worked with have been contractors who were complete con artists seeing how long they could spin a gig out before they were busted.
(in my experience of managing teams of BA's and PM's and spending a couple of years rebuilding a perm capability)
My understanding so far from this thread....
Good BA vs Bad BA:
Customer – I want a boat
Bad BA – What kind of boat?
Good BA – Why?
I can do that, where is my £40k a year?
add UX to BA title
Easy done, now where is my £80k?
Apply for a job then. Seriously - it's a low barrier for entry!
WANTS? FFS!
Customer is not always right, in IT. What they think they want isn't what they really need. See Brexit for an example (sorry).
Customer is not always right, in IT. What they think they want isn’t what they really need.
Someone please tell my colleagues this?
Customer is not always right, in IT. What they think they want isn’t what they really need.
There's a kernel of truth in that, however there's also an overriding culture of smug we-know-better-than-you-ness among software devs, which is very often misplaced - with the product sometimes being delivered in a form that simply makes their lives easier.
See the "tail wagging the dog" comment on a previous page.
What they think they want isn’t what they really need.
there’s also an overriding culture of smug we-know-better-than-you-ness among software devs, which is very often misplaced
If only there was someone who could bridge the gap between these two viewpoints...
I can do that, where is my £40k a year?
£40k. How sweet 😉
What IHN said!
Customer is not always right, devs are not always right. Although I would say that if you ignore protests from devs, you end up forcing requirements that can't be met on the team, which means you'll get corners cut, rushed jobs, mistakes, and then when you complain the devs will say 'we bloody tried to tell you and you wouldn't listen!'
Listen to the devs, respect the devs. They may not be able to express the problem clearly but they usually aren't lazy and they usually understand the problems. It's not a good idea to dictate terms on something you don't really understand...
and
Listen to the business, respect the business. They may not be able to express the problem clearly but they usually aren’t lazy and they usually understand the problems. It’s not a good idea to dictate terms on something you don’t really understand…
A good BA can talk both languages, business and dev, and gains the trust of both 'ends' to represent them and their concerns to the other. If I say to the business that something they want is really hard technically, so they may want to reconsider it, they know it's not 'IT' trying to fob them off. If I say to the devs that although something is hard technically, it is really important, then they know it's not the business asking for pointless bells and whistles.
As a BA, I want everyone to have a common understanding of what we’re trying to achieve so we can deliver the right stuff.
This is generally achieved by asking loads of questions, not necessarily caring about all the answers, but using those to ensure everyone has a common understanding. This typically involves business reps, software engineers, design folk (HCD, business architects etc) and testers all working together to solve problems. I’ll be involved right the way through a project, doing whatever I can to maximise the amount of work not done - why build the whizzy expensive system when you can get 80% of the value for 20% of the effort?
Experience of the subject matter is important, but sometimes too much experience can be a bad thing, as bad BAs can rely on that instead of getting the answers from others.
add UX to BA title
Easy done, now where is my £80k?
80K? How sweet.
Love the idea of rocking up and saying you're a "BA-UX". Come to think of it, there's one agency I know of in particular that would snap you up.
Apparently.
add UX to BA title
Easy done, now where is my £80k?
80K? How sweet.
Wait till IR35 comes in..
£35k, how sweet.
Of course, any BA worth their day rate will already have reimagined themselves as a full stack (obvs) Product Manager.
What do BAs do? They pity the fool
What don’t they do? Get on no damn plane fool
Is there a particular reason the BA's seem to be referred to here exclusively in the IT project domain?
By me, it's cos I work in IT so those are the only kind I know 🙂
I thought it was the typical STW stereotype?
In my place we used to have ‘business’ BAs, and IT BAs, but now the lines are blurred somewhat as we move towards Agile delivery - albeit at a glacial pace overall.
Is there a particular reason the BA’s seem to be referred to here exclusively in the IT project domain?
Because it is mainly an IT role. The old waterfall model for software development had four phases - requirements, design, build, test. The BAs we responsible for the requirements bit. It's often a bit more complicated than that these days, but it's still a BA's job to figure out what a business really needs, as opposed to what they are asking for.
It tends to pay a bit better than testing, but less well than development or design and architecture.
As a BA, I want everyone to have a common understanding of what we’re trying to achieve so we can deliver the right stuff.
I see what you did there! 😃
I thought you might be interested in a conversation I had with one of our BAs yesterday:
Me: Hello, I've been talking to Colin...
BA: You shouldn't talk to Colin. He's not technical, you should ask me technical questions .
Me: Normally I'd ask the Technical Lead technical questions.
BA: No, you should ask me
Me: OK. Anyway Colin says...
BA: Colin doesn't speak for the business.
Me: He is the Director of Strategy
BA: I'm the senior BA, I represent the business, I'm responsible.
Me: OK. The Board passed resolutions in April and September saying we are doing X.
BA: We don't have budget
Me: But didn't the Board allocate budget in April?
BA: Well that's above my level.
Me: but didn't you just say you are responsible?
To be fair, anyone that actually says the "senior" in their job title is a raving nob-trumpet more than anything.
anyone that actually says the “senior” in their job title
In our place it means you have been around a while but not yet ready for the next level. Like when kids count themselves as 4 and a half 😉
To be fair, anyone that actually says the “senior” in their job title is a raving nob-trumpet more than anything.
This.
At a certain woods-proximal building society in Swindon, they used to have junior BAs, BAs, senior BAs, lead BAs and principal BAs, and by God they'd make sure they told you which one they were.
another reason for those job titles is because the head of the area has to play the game with HR to be able to pay decent salaries to attract and retain.
otherwise some external firm will bench mark your generic BA job title to £36k and you would not be able to hire anyone.
(past experience of introducing role title 'pre-fixes' to get round said silly HR salary benchmarking and pay closer to market rates)
Of course, any BA worth their day rate will already have reimagined themselves as a full stack (obvs) Product Manager.
Eh? There have been some strange views in this thread of what Businesses Analysis is, but that's particularly left field.
Senior BA, who cares what they think? They just make the tea for Principal BAs. I'd want to speak to at least a Senior Vice President if I wanted to know what's going on...
At a certain woods-proximal building society
… you can mostly tell which of us has done/is doing time there from their posts on this thread 🙂
Some companies are perfecting an awful lot of terribly bad practice at huge expense as they struggle to keep up.
I used to say to people considering a major project:
"A) Establish where you are, B) decide where you want to be, C) work out how to get there.
The hardest bit is establishing where you are.
Huh well I just gave my missus a brief summary of this thread and she thinks that's what she should be doing. She's more STW than I am...