November 6, 2013

Business Analysis in Outsourcing Company

Experience Report

page 2

About Us

C.T.Co Ltd. is a Europe-oriented IT solutions and services provider C.T.Co Ltd. has extensive experience serving large companies in

the financial services industry: Insurance and Reinsurance Banking

C.T.Co Ltd. is a project-oriented organization

Kate Alighieri Pyramid © – A Journey from Inferno to Paradiso

page 3

Paradiso: a project setup when Company BSAs work directly with clients

Purgatorio: a project setup when Company BSAs work with BAs on customer side

Inferno: BSA efforts and body are sold, but the purpose is vague. Good sample would be reverse engineering for a maintained/legacy project

Protean Wheel of Fortune: set of factors that impact your location within Pyramid

Protean Wheel Drivers

Reasonable FactorsCompany Strategic PlansAnalyst’s (BSA) Skills and TechniquesUnderlying Competences

TrustworthinessLeadershipCommunications Skills

Real FactorsAll the factors above may fail due to various reasons, so you may find yourself in Inferno or Paradiso one day

page 4

Not on top of the Alighieri? So what?

Keep calm…Locate yourself on a pyramid

Stakeholder AnalysisForce Field Analysis

If at first you don’t succeed try, try and try it again

Keep repeating useful consoling Proverbs…

It’s better to light a candle than curse the darknessWho has never tasted bitter, knows not what is sweet

page 5

Project Setup: ParadisoBusiness Analysis Planning and Monitoring

page 6

Some Advantages

Possibility to create more refined Plans for analytical activities

Reducing the lack of clarity in the scope

Some Challenges

Status Reports for various stakeholders (Company, Customers)

Risk Mitigation Hint – agree and include into Requirement Management Plan, reduce the formalities where feasible

Advanced spectrum of responsibilities for Lead BA

Risk Mitigation Hint – delegate, create guidelines, establish rapport and trust with PM

page 7

Project Setup: ParadisoRequirements Elicitation

Analysis in Outsourcing Company - Case Studies

Some Advantages:

No multiple intermediaries, less room for misinterpretation, garbled visions, ability to have early involvement of business stakeholders

Advanced spectrum of Elicitation Techniques

Some Challenges:

Every technique could be more efficient, but more sophisticated/demanding to apply

Risk Mitigation Hint => careful selection of Elicitation Techniques

Number/count of stakeholders increased, risk of getting too many requirements (often controversial ones), Business do not know precisely what they want

Risk Mitigation Hint => attention on Stakeholder Analysis, identify Gate Keepers, create and agree on conceptual/vision documents

Project Setup: ParadisoRequirements Analysis

page 8

Some Advantages

Proximity to Product Owners enables to produce low fidelity requirements model in a reasonable time

Some Challenges

High fidelity model – detailed and refined specifications are expected to be produced as a result of analysis (expectations from IT personnel) prior to project stage despite the fact that the projects are supposed to function in Agile mode

Risk Mitigation – manage expectations, define “the doneness” of the specifications – what is considered “enough to start development and design tests”, work on iterative basis and work to promote iterative approach on requirements analysis/give a big friendly hand to prioritization

page 9

Project Setup: Paradiso

Analysis in Outsourcing Company - Case Studies

Requirements Management and Communication: artifacts storage/traceability might be the challenges at earlier elaboration stages. Once solved become a bliss and salvation for the ongoing work. Strong synchronization with IT stakeholders required (QA, Software Architecture, Development), working in triage mode

Enterprise Analysis: more clear understanding the place for the future application, business processes not fully hidden from Analyst

Solution Assessment and Validation: less risk to develop what is not required due to possibility to demonstrate to business/conduct FATs and UATs

page 10

Artifacts

Analysis in Outsourcing Company - Case Studies

Agreement on artifacts:

Surprise! Some artifacts could be provided/developed by customer for document analysis

Typical project artifacts that could be maintained solely by customer business expert or together with BSA:

Glossary

Data Dictionary

Business Processes

Reference Data Values

High-level business requirements/Conceptual documents

Data Dictionary/Data CatalogueSample

page 11

Reference Value/Common Codes sample

page 12

Business Requirements Sample

page 13

page 14

Project Setup: PurgatorioBusiness Analysis Planning and Monitoring

Some Advantages:

Possibility to have some initial analysis plans (high-level plans) Possibility to do stakeholder analysis from both sides (BSA and customer BA)

Some Challenges:

Insensitivity of sample size (drawing of faulty conclusions based on small samples)

Coordinating the analysis plansDistributed teams, cultural diversities, mental models

Risk Mitigation

Constantly communicate and work on common plansContribute to creation and maintenance of a non-judgemental environmentObtain project management support, understand the place of analysis plansin overall project plans

Project Setup: PurgatorioRequirements Elicitation

page 15

Some Advantages:

Major/significant part of activities are often done by Business Analysts on customer side

Some Challenges:

Conflicting requirements from different stakeholders

Unspoken or assumed requirements

Difficulty gaining access to the right stakeholders

Risk Mitigation

Continually motivate BSA and external BAs to communicate and cooperate with each other.

Project Setup: PurgatorioRequirements Analysis

page 16

Some Advantages:

Having business requirements ready, some business specifications may beready for detailed/system analysis

Some Challenges:

Balancing with Software Architecture to be in line with requirements Managing Expectations with QA/Testing Team Coordinating the analysis plans Distributed teams, cultural diversities, mental models

Risk Mitigation

Communicate and constantly synchronize with Architects, work on your communication skills - be polite and assertive

Make Use Case/Feature meetings with involved personnel (triage BADEVQA)Contribute to creation and maintenance of a non-judgemental and friendly

environment Work with Terminology – have a common Glossary in the project

Project Setup: PurgatorioRequirements Management and Communication

page 17

Some Advantages

Already existing collaboration tools on customer side

Some Challenges

Multiple tools to store documentation artifacts (requirements package) Vague traceability structure Requirements’ package review on client side – time constraints/too complex models A lot of change requests and it is more challenging to elicit the real need behind the CRdue to intermediaries

Risk Mitigation Hints

Revise/check the traceability – is it possible to go from business requirement till more detailed/system specifications

Conduct requirements presentations instead of sending lengthy documents Explain the necessity of sign-off (at least partial)

Project Setup: Purgatorio: Enterprise Analysis & Solution Assessment and Validation

page 18

Some Advantages

Typically done on customer side/not required from our company

Some Challenges

Option #1: “Big picture” is not visible, almost hidden Option #2: Not totally hidden, but still vague

Risk Mitigation Hint

No explicit hints, skillful elicitation & underlying competencies are required to get more information on business processes when required

More attention to review and sign-off should be paid

Project Setup: Purgatorio: Solution Assessment and Validation

page 19

Some Advantages

Having a hidden force - great QA team within company finding a lot of tricky test scenarios and identifying gaps

Participate in a demo sessions with business (upon agreement with business people)

Some Challenges

QA teams are very productive - bombarding BSAs with test scenarios/review/document tasks

Risk Mitigation Hint

Establishing cooperation mode with QA team – agree on review cycles /overall cooperation to function in efficient mode

BSA’s participation in FAT/UAT as a person who communicates and clarifies requirements, contribution of BSAs to acceptance criteria in the form of testing primers

Explaining the notion of “business case” – prioritization aspects/what actually happens from business side

Project Setup: Inferno

page 20

Some Advantages:

Could be less stressful in a very beginning of assignment Status updates do not attract much attention (management seems uninterested in the results

of BSA’s work – often due to high load on other projects/tasks)Some Challenges:

No clear view on the reasons why BSAs are assigned to the project or opinions highly differ No counterparty is assigned on customer’s side/no direct connection with the customerKey stakeholders are not available to share the knowledge

Risk Mitigation hints

Work closely with Project Managers on both sides, start with internal PM to define initial scope of activities and their purpose. Ask for help/resources to organize short interviews with key people

Interview key stakeholders identifying gaps in existing requirements/systemsDo not rush immediately into elicitation and analysis activities once the first target is identifiedPay attention to analysis plans firstPay attention to the skill set – be not afraid to ask for additional resources and if those cannot be

provided report it as a riskGet out of Inferno – either the Protean Wheel will lift the project to Purgatorio or Paradiso or consider changing the project

Recommended Reading

page 21

Agile Extension to the Babok

T. P. Wise Trust in Virtual Teams

M. Scannel, M. Abrams et al. The Big Book of Virtual Team Building Games

N. M. Setle-Murphy Leading Effective Virtual Teams

Business Analysis & Leadership. Influencing Change ed. by P. Pullan , J. Archer

page 22