Chapter 7
Carving Out Your Leadership Role
In This Chapter:
Leadership Development for the Business Analyst
The Business-Savvy and Technically Savvy Business Analyst
Business Analyst Leadership Opportunities
Getting There
The global marketplace has significant impact on professionals working to build and sustain careers in the ever-changing modern work environment. To succeed in today’s workforce, it’s important to welcome change, develop strong leadership skills, and embrace lifelong learning. Careers are very different than they were in the twentieth century. Successful careers in today’s environment are more dynamic than in the past, when people tended to move up rather narrow functional hierarchies, performing essentially the same job function for most of their careers.
Many of today’s professionals cling to the twentieth-century career model that says if you are a good employee, you will succeed and grow within one organization and within a single job category. Many of us don’t think in terms of developing our leadership potential and helping our organizations cope with the transformation process from functional hierarchies to team-based work. Clearly, organizations are beginning to value business analysis leadership skills, realizing that they are essential not only to manage critical projects but also to deal with organizational change.
Leadership Development for the Business Analyst
Many strategies promote lifelong learning and exploration of personal leadership potential, including:
Joining professional associations. Participate in professional organizations, conferences, and workshops, especially those associated with the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA).1
Training. Acquire business analysis knowledge and skills through formal courses.
Networking. Build a strong network and continually seek feedback from peers and subordinates.
Mentoring. Seek out a trustworthy person to serve as a personal mentor. Likewise, provide coaching and mentoring to new business analysts.
Gaining experience. Voluntarily participate in initiatives and projects beyond your current assignments.
Volunteering. Become involved as a volunteer and leader in community and nonprofit organizations to test personal leadership capabilities. Trying to produce results through people without having a position of authority is one of the best opportunities to test personal leadership skills.
Reading. Do extensive professional reading, not only to deepen personal expertise in leadership, project management, business analysis, information technology, and in a certain business domain, but also to acquire familiarity with associated fields.
The Business-Savvy and Technically Savvy Business Analyst
Senior business analysts are an invaluable asset to organizations that are constantly undergoing change. Focus on the following topics to become a business-savvy leader:
Industry expertise
Business domain (e.g., finance, human resources, engineering, supply chain)
Organizational structures, culture, power, and politics
Strategic thinking
Process paths across functional areas
General management
Interpersonal skills; influencing skills
Senior business analysts function seamlessly as they traverse the boundaries from the business to the technical communities. Focus on the following topics to become a technically savvy leader:
The role of IT in achieving strategic vision
Business application knowledge, standards, and regulations
The project environment
The project management body of knowledge
The business analysis body of knowledge
Business analysts who are valued as strategic assets seize opportunities to make themselves visible and to influence executives. Opportunities abound for those who have business analysis expertise.
Business Analyst Leadership Opportunities
It is an exciting time for business analysts, since the profession of business analysis is just now emerging. Senior business analysts carve out their own leadership role. As they begin to acquire leadership skills, they create opportunities to influence executives, gaining experience while making themselves visible to senior members of the organization. Opportunities include participation in or leading the following activities:
Studies. Conduct competitive and benchmarks studies, generate results, and write implications reports.
New business opportunities. Identify and define new business opportunities.
Business case development. Prepare decision packets for new project proposals.
Stage-gate reviews. Prepare for and facilitate control gate reviews.
Stakeholder management. Identify stakeholder management problems, symptoms, and strategies.
Customer relationship management. Identify customer management problems, symptoms, and strategies.
Leadership opportunities also exist to develop and promote the business analysis profession. The business analysis center of excellence (BACoE) is becoming an important vehicle for advancing the maturity of business analysis practices within an organization (Chapter 8 discusses BACoEs at length.) In addition, local IIBA chapters are actively seeking volunteers to assume leadership positions. Volunteer positions are an effective way to acquire and test leadership skills and techniques.
Getting There
Staffing surveys reveal an increasing demand for senior project managers and business analysts. As these project leaders are assigned to complex projects, it is essential that they be prepared for the challenge.
Project Leader Knowledge and Skill Requirements
Considerable knowledge and skills are required to manage complex projects. Table 7-1 presents the array of competencies required to lead complex projects.2
Table 7-1—Skill Requirements for Senior Project Manager and Business Analyst
Project Leader Career Path
As organizations depend more and more on successful project outcomes to achieve their strategic goals, they are developing career paths for their project managers and business analysts. Table 7-2 presents a generic project manager/business analyst career path.
Table 7-2—Project Manager and Business Analyst Career Path
Project Leader Assignments Mapped to Project Complexity
To make appropriate project leadership assignments, project complexity must be considered. The Project Management and Business Analyst Organizational Maturity Model (discussed in greater detail in Chapter 8) in Figure 7-1 shows that in addition to large, highly complex projects, strategic-level business analysts manage requirements for programs (a group of projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain greater benefits) and portfolios (a collection of projects or programs managed together to achieve strategic goals).
Organizations depend on successful projects to seize or sustain competitive advantage, and ultimately achieve their strategies. Managing projects in highly competitive and changing circumstances requires technical experts and business visionaries to work with project leaders who possess a combination of skills including leadership, management, project management, and business analysis.
Figure 7-1—Project Manager and Business Analyst Organizational Maturity Model
Endnotes
1. The IIBA is an international not-for-profit association for business analysis professionals. The IIBA’s vision is to be the leading worldwide professional association that develops and maintains standards for the practice of business analysis and for the certification of practitioners. This fledgling organization is growing rapidly, and if you blink, you will miss out on building the foundations of the business analysis profession. The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA), online at www.theiiba.org.
2. This list was derived from a survey of job descriptions appearing on the website Monster.com®. Monster.com® is a company helping job seekers search available jobs and access career information and advice, and helping employers access hiring tools to streamline the hiring process. To search for the kind of project management and business analysis job information referenced in Table 7-1, go to http://www.monster.com/ and enter in jobrelated key words and phrases like “senior project manager” next to the job search caption.