Comments on: BAs are Difficult People (And So Is Everyone Else)

By: Laura Brandenburg

Laura Brandenburg — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:58:21 +0000

In reply to Michelle Swoboda. Michelle, From our conversations, I would hardly classify you as a difficult person! You seem to be very engaged with your stakeholders and able to look at things from their perspective. Yet, as you point out, we can always find ways to improve, especially when it comes to communication. It's interesting how our desire to do our best and have our best recognized does sometimes come in conflict with creating the most successful project for the company, isn't it?

By: Michelle Swoboda

Michelle Swoboda — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:29:39 +0000

Laura, it was great to read this article and ouch – it hit a sore spot 🙂
Which only means that I have more work to do to understand myself and how I communicate with others.
It is a challenge when you are in the trees and the others are not and they are unwilling to even step into the trees.
Bottom line – I want the project to be successful and the company. I want to leave each project with everyone saying – yes I want to work with Michelle again!

By: Richard Lynn Paul

Richard Lynn Paul — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:48:37 +0000

Yup! The self-analysis isn’t pretty, despite having “the best interest of… that person at heart”.

I guess the way we got around this, is that our three Business Analysts were also three of the four people who really worked on a lot of our parties and potlucks. So it is a lot easier to be forgiving towards those who helped you have fun and a more fun-and-enjoyable job. It was easy to get along with those you spent non-work time with at said parties. The M&M’s and other candies on one BA’s desk didn’t hurt either. (BTW: Our monthly potluck was an idea or “Try This” that we came up with at the end of one interation meeting, though others might do this in some kind of retrospective meeting, depending on the “agile” methodology being used–ours was a hybrid.)

PS. Hope my numerous posts are not making me difficult for somebody out there, Laura included. Thanks for the blog!!

By: OnerousEthic

OnerousEthic — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:34:54 +0000

Brilliant, but as you said, just scratching the surface. My experience is full of poorly behaved individuals in dysfunctional organizations. Far too often, diplomacy is more important than insight. People naturally resist change, and presenting ideas can be dangerous, even self-destructive. Discretion is the better part of valor. Unfortunately, IMHO, much of the challenge of business analysis is understanding office politics and treading lightly. YMMV.

By: Laura Brandau

Laura Brandau — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:47:31 +0000

That is indeed an interesting way to create alignment between business and IT and a clear sign that ensuring technology solutions meet real business needs is not a simple or direct endeavor. I have not personally witnessed BAs actually becoming part of an operational organization to gain business knowledge, though there are cases where the BA/PM staff reports up through the business as opposed to the IT team. There is risk to be managed here in that best-in-class technology efforts require a mix of business acumen and technology excellence. Ability to understand the business without the technical expertise (or authority) to ensure you are building the best possible solution can create it’s own set of problems.

My personal experience has been to align with an operational leader who “gets it” and ensure I’m communicating with him/her regularly. Another strategy has been to job shadow, participate in business-user training, ask for demos…essentially anything I can do as a BA or technology leader to ensure I understand not just the ins and outs of the daily business processes, but why they are the way they are.

I’d be interested in hearing more about what about the SAP IT team in India: Did they take on operational responsibilities? How did they ensure IT excellence? And from a leadership perspective, did the mindset of their executive transform into a bit of a business-oriented CIO? I would think this might evolve naturally from being responsible for IT staff.

Best,
Laura