Jeff,

You question contributes to a great debate on the evolving role, responsibilities and place of a Business Analyst or Business Analysis itself. Some important questions often asked are: When to start business analysis? Who should do it? What should they do? Does business analysis belong to IT or to organization as a whole? What should be the skill set of Business Analysts?

As some one who has often defined the Business Analyst’s (BA) role for his clients, I noticed Business Analysts being part of ‘Requirements engineering’ function of an IT organization as well as in a separate ‘Business Analysis’ function outside of IT organization or vice versa. In either case, BAs were responsible for documentation and analysis of customer (both internal and external ones) needs. Their work was instrumental either to justify a new project or to extend an existing one. Their work also served as input to specify functional requirements and perform detailed analysis for the applications being developed. So our observations about BA’s role seem to be similar.

As Business Analyst role evolves and matures, thanks partly to the efforts by IIBA, organizations will continuously to experiment with different models based on their own maturity and understanding of Business Analysis is and what it may do for them and their business.

To conclude, I must opine that Business Analysis efforts should not be limited towards developing IT applications only. Business Analysis can easily serve as input to: a) analyze and produce different products and services, and b) evaluate efficiency and values of different corporate units of an organization thus leading to an effective BPR, CPI and Business Architecture efforts. In such cases, ‘Business Analysis’ functions will really need to be outside of IT so BAs can have a holistic view and understanding of a company’s business.

Regards
Badar

posted June 27, 2008

From the perspective of my current job in a small Software-as-a-Service provider, I strongly prefer to report outside of IT. Since my role is to match business needs to actual technology projects, I have to listen well to both sides, but while issues of cost and technical feasibility are relatively simple to understand, the real needs of the business are much more complicated and nuanced.

I started in this job as a member of the IT team, was moved a few months ago so that I now share a supervisor with our account executive team and have an office in their part of the building. I find this greatly enhances my ability to bring real business understanding to bear on technology projects.

While I don't have the perspective to tell you whether there is a trend toward BAs reporting outside IT, I can certainly recommend it.

posted July 3, 2008

For our consumer direct business, our BA group is part of the overall strategy and development unit on the business side, not IT. Was it a considered decision? No. Our IT group was centralized and the corporate IT team did not really want the BA group, so they stayed with the business. Are we better off because of it? Absolutely.

BAs should be separate from IT. In my opinion, BAs should be aligned to the goals of the business, should serve as an objective party balancing the needs of multiple business units / projects, but should definitely be an advocate for the business when dealing with IT.

BAs also can/should provide their services to projects that are outside of IT's control. By having the group separate from IT, it is more likely that these other projects will be properly identified and included in the BAs scope of work.

posted June 28, 2008

Wholeheartedly agree with Wolf and Tim, BAs are not and should not be aligned exclusively with IT. It is a generalist practice, aligned with the business to support their goals and communicate what they need from IT, and vice versa communicating from IT what they intend to deliver to the business to fulfil that need.

posted June 30, 2008

Jeff,

companies do it their own way.
some place these folks in non-IT but business units. they are the so-called "subject-matter-experts".
this model works well only if they colloborate well with the IT folks. Some companies want to centralize BA function outside IT but within the business mainly to
1. support end-user operations (production)
2. better day-to-day knowledge acquired
3. want people to think of a business process (for reengineering, eliminating, improving, implementing etc.) even without IT systems.

most of the times, IT centric BA role will quickly think of a system rather than a process..

end of the day, it boils down to factors like headcount, budget for adding a resource. these are not directly related but definitely worth mentioning that decide where the BAs go.

cheers,

posted June 30, 2008

It really depends on the "type" (for lack of a better word) of BA. Some BAs also do Systems Analysis and Project Management work as well. In other words, some companies have PMs on the program and/or release level while allowing IT BAs to manage enhancements individually for a given release. Also, many companies divide up systems analyst work among developments and BAs.

I think that BAs working for a non-IT department can be leveraged as Subject Matter Experts for a function, department, and/or application. They can provide user support, develop and enforce business rules, etc. Also, they can author requirements which a IT BA can use to develop functional specs.

The only issue with BAs being in many departments is that it is harder to enforce common best practises since they will have different bosses. However, a matrix approach can resolve that.

posted June 30, 2008

Hi Jeff

I've spent about a third or less of my BA time in IT.

Although it's a logical place for BAs to reside it isn't always the best, and yes I think there's a growing trend to place them centrally in the business.

A quick example of this are BA efforts spent improving processes, providing recommendations & implementing service improvements etc. Key to this are very broad functional skills from around the business. About half the time this work doesn't/shouldn't involve IT.

Hope this helps

Regards & good luck

Ian

posted June 30, 2008

posted June 30, 2008

In my experience, the BA function has been in three places, depending on the company. And they were outside of IT since at least the 80s (when I got into the business), and likely a lot earlier.
- Functional Dept. (Finance, Purchasing, HR, etc)
- IT
- Intermediate "automation" dept that work with both the Functional end users and IT. This was essentially a dept of Business Analysts. In my opinion this worked fine, as it was indpendent of the direct line management of both functional and IT depts, thus able to be non-biased.

The intermediate dept concept would also fit into the companies that have a PMO (Project Management Office), as the concept is similar.

posted July 1, 2008

Hi Jeff,

Here's how I see it. There are two sides of the BA house: those that are User Requirements oriented and those that are Business Process oriented. The former is usually in the IT department. The latter is usually part of the business. The IT folks usually have spent the first couple of years in a technical role and have moved up to an analyst position. The process folks more than likely started out in a business role. One probably has a Comp Sci background and the other has an Engineering/ Six Sigma background.

BA's should be involved in assisting the business folks with the Business Case to justify the IT project to begin with. This requires business knowledge.

In my opinion, the Business Analyst need to get as much exposure to the business as possible. In this ecomomic climate, business are looking to cut cost through process improvement.

I've made some generalities here, but you get the idea.

Howard

Links:

• http://www.bpminstitute.org

posted July 1, 2008