The Strategic Business Analyst
(Or, Who Me?)
BADD Iowa
May 2, 2008
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Outline
Contest
All I Want
The BA’s Role
The SLM
Implementing the SLM
Some Examples
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Contest
Three volunteers.
You could win a Major Award!
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All I Want From Life Is
Everyone makes decisions that are
aligned with strategy.
Everyone makes decisions that properly
use resources.
We use these decisions to win in the
marketplace.
A pill that gets me in shape and makes
me eat healthier.
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Whither Strategy?
Strategy has different meanings to
different people.
I prefer (actually demand) Michael
Porter’s definition:
Strategy = Sustainable
Competitive Advantage
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The BA’s Role
Business Analysis Planning
Enterprise
Analysis
Elicitation
Solution
Requirements Assessment
Analysis
And
Validation
Requirements Management and Communication
The Fundamentals
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How Can This Be Strategic?
Most companies cannot articulate their
strategy. Therefore, how can a BA use
strategy to improve decision making?
How best to utilize resources is
subjective.
Sadly, BA’s are toast.
But wait . . .
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What If There Were . . .
A simple to understand,
Easily communicated,
Immediately implementable,
Way to articulate and use strategy to
improve decision making?
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There Just Might Be . . .
The Purpose Alignment Model (or SLM).
This model views business processes,
business rules, and, therefore,
requirements in two dimensions:
– The extent to which they differentiate us in
the marketplace.
– The extent to which they are mission critical.
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Purpose – The SLM
High
Partnering
Differentiating
Market
Differentiating
Who Cares?
Parity
Low
Low
Mission Critical
High
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In Practice
High
Do We Take
This On?
Innovate,
Create
Market
Differentiating
Minimize /
Eliminate
Low
Low
Achieve and
Maintain
Parity, Mimic,
Simplify
Mission Critical
High
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An Example – CPG
ERP project to replace legacy system.
Legacy sequence of data entry:
Name, Telephone, Address
ERP sequence of data entry:
Name, Address, Telephone
Business requirement was to customize
ERP sequence to match legacy sequence
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Using Purpose
Is data entry sequence here
High
Partnering
Differentiating
or here
Market
Differentiating
Who Cares?
Parity
or even?
Low
Low
Mission Critical
High
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Project Example (Real Life)
“Requirements” = 3000 function points
Anything
here?
What goes
here?
Anything
here?
Most are
usually here
Result: Better product in half the time and 60% of
the original cost.
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Specifics
Differentiating was to improve the process for
distributed document collaboration.
Product management, development, and
business analysis worked together to create a
unique, on-line method to create, review, and
finalize documents.
For the other modules, the company
benchmarked and mimicked market leaders.
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Graphically - Before
Project Tracking
Document Mgmt
Document Edit
Document Library
Search
EDGAR Integration
High
Market
Differentiating
Low
Low
Mission Critical
High
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Graphically - After
High
Portal
Document Edit
Market
Differentiating
Project Tracking
Document Mgmt
Document Library
Search
EDGAR Integration
Low
Low
Mission Critical
High
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The Key to Using Purpose
What simple decision filters can we use
to identify what is “Differentiating”?
These decision filters should link to
strategy (in fact, are a good way to
define and articulate strategy).
These decision filters are powerful tools
in the hands of a BA.
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Linking BA Role and Purpose
Analyze the enterprise (articulate strategy).
Elicit meaningful requirements (self-filtering).
Analyze requirements (differentiating / parity?).
Assess and validate solutions (what makes us best at
differentiating? How can we simplify and streamline
parity?).
Manage and communicate requirements (simple
question – differentiating or parity?).
Analyze business plans (gaps provide project
roadmaps).
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Example – Custom Pricing Engine
Current business rules require multidimensional pricing. Imagine 6
dimensional space:
To get to price, find
the right combination:
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Pricing Engine
These business rules treated pricing as if it
were “Differentiating”.
But, decision filters identified products (not
pricing) as differentiating.
Pricing is “Parity”. Therefore, uniqueness is
wasted. How to simplify and streamline?
Solution: Standard product pricing with
standard discounts based on past year’s dollar
volume and promotions. No customization.
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Example – Split Payments
eCommerce and catalog order
management system supported split
payments?
Split what? Pay with a combination of
credit cards (as many as you want).
Required a significant customization. Are
split payments differentiating or parity?
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Split Payments
Differentiating includes product selection and customer
service. Therefore differentiating.
Not so fast, if differentiating,
Let’s advertise!
Treat exceptions like exceptions.
Inelegantly handled with standard functionality.
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Fine, How Do I Start?
Make better decisions
Distill to simple questions
Define the decision criteria
Present the model
Example Questions:
Will this lower lifetime cost?
Will this lock up long contracts?
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Lessons Learned
Emphasize (all the time) the mission critical
nature of parity.
Purpose is not priority.
What is both differentiating and parity changes
over time.
The more distributed the decision filters the
better the results.
Purpose shifts the burden to behavior change.
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Did I Get What I Want?
Everyone makes decisions that are aligned with
strategy – the decision filters.
Everyone makes decisions that properly use resources –
designing around purpose improves resource use.
We use these decisions to win in the marketplace – by
making the differentiating truly differentiating.
A pill that gets me in shape and makes me eat healthier
– still waiting.
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One Last Example – Payroll
BP
LG
One Payroll
CP
SLM: Payroll = Parity (15 minutes)
Net result, one system, one set of rules,
standard codes and process.
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Questions?
nnick@accelinnova.com
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Shameless Plug
Stand Back And Deliver
New book by Pixton,
Nickolaisen, Little, and
McDonald
Published by Addison
Wesley in early 2009
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