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360°
Business Analysis Assessment
Enterprise Agility’s 360° Business Analysis Assessment is a comprehensive, intense but targeted initiative to document and understand how a business analyst organization works today and how it may be improved in the future. The assessment effort averages about 6 weeks in duration. During that time, your organization is interviewed and the work it performs is evaluated. We look to document essentially two major items, Variation Points and Areas of Concern (explained below). The Assessment itself in divided into four phases: Planning; Discovery; Gap Analysis; and Roadmap Definition. Planning This initial phase of the assessment is necessary to plan the approach for the assessment. We believe there is no good canned approach to an organizational assessment. While we use a proven methodology, we tailor it and the plan according to your needs. The Planning phase encompasses the following activities: Vision and Goal Setting and Confirmation; Securing Key Sponsor Commitment; Communication Plan; Identification of Population Under Assessment; Project Plan and Interview Schedule; Confirmation on Use of Methods, Approach and Tools (Methodology); Identification of Deliverables and Milestones; and Kick-Off Meeting. The Planning phase is sometimes performed when developing the work statement for our client. Discovery In this second phase of the assessment, we interview your team—often individually or in pairs—to understand how they work by themselves and with others; what they produce, who uses what is produced and what the perceived value proposition is today. In capturing this inventory of work practices, we categorize using four essential dimensions: Activity Analysis; Role Analysis; Artifact Analysis and Document Analysis (artifacts and documents are not always one in the same). Among these we are looking at the 360? view of a person’s and team’s work practices, which include evaluation of documented (or declared) core competencies and best practices. Since work practices are often interrelated as are artifacts, we look for existing and missing linkages as well. The Discovery phases concludes with a refactoring exercise by Enterprise Agility consultants to identify duplicates, synonym terms, and other aberrations so we can produce the most accurate and objective inventory of work practices. Gap Analysis This third phase focuses on using the inventory of work practices developed in Discovery and characterizing and evaluating each one according a predefined set of criteria. Criteria is divided into two major categories that helps identify Variation Points and Areas of Concern. Variation Points are points in the work process where work practices differ between projects and/or groups (or even individuals). Areas of Concern are techniques or methods where the current work practices have significant weaknesses. The criteria governing Variation Points and Areas of Concern are a standard set of factors we use in the assessment. These factors are sometimes tailored to the assessment needs. In capturing Variation Points we document the scope of the variation and use up to ten variation qualifiers—semantics and intent are just two—to gauge the extent or severity of the variation. (Note: Variations are not necessarily bad but we note these in order to determine certain patterns of the organization’s business practices. See Project Archetype.) Similarly, Areas of Concern use a detailed set of criteria grouped in three areas: Support Mechanisms, Integration, and Validation. Gap Analysis concludes with a weighting and scoring exercise,
and a brainstorming session to identify and confirm targeted areas
of improvement for the organization as a whole. Roadmap Definition This last phase of the assessment is the development of a strategic plan covering a one to two year horizon that identifies major goals for improvement. Development of this plan is a collaborative effort between Enterprise Agility and your stakeholders. Complimenting this is the design of a tactical plan to actualize the targeted areas of improvement identified in Gap Analysis. The tactical plan includes skills development and organizational development initiatives. Skills development may take many forms, including classroom training; workshops; and hand-in-hand mentoring of individuals and small teams. Organizational development may include a plan to establish an area of competency or center of excellence. This last phase is strictly planning related. Execution of the plan is provided through Enterprise Agility’s service Improving Business Analysis Proficiency.
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