Establishing and Maintaining a BA Center of Excellence

Course Outline

I. Business Analyst Center Of Excellence (BACOE) – What Is It?

A. What is a BACOE?

1. Business and Technology alignment
   • Enterprise Planning
   • Program Planning
   • Business relationship management
2. Structure
   • People
   • Process
   • Templates
   • Checklists
3. Process Improvement
   • Mentoring
   • Training
   • Support
   • Ongoing process improvement
4. Quality Assurance
   • Quality inspections
   • Quality controls

B. BACOE vs. PMO (Project Management Office) 

1. Similarities
2. Differences
3. Interdependencies

II. Benefits of a Business Analyst Center of Excellence (BACOE)

A. Consistency in Requirements Engineering 

1. Process
2. Templates
3. Checklists

B. Repeatable Processes 

1. Efficient process
2. Effective process
3. Ongoing process improvement

C. Improved Performance 

1. Of the Business Analyst
2. Of the Project Manager
3. Of the Project Team
4. Of the Business
5. Of the Organization

D. Save Time, Reduce Costs, Improve Quality 

1. More realistic schedule estimates
2. More realistic cost estimates
3. Higher level of quality
4. Improved stakeholder satisfaction
5. Improved morale
6. Higher quality work force
7. More projects completed annually
8. Project aligned with corporate goals and strategies

E. Sell the Value of Business Analysis to Your Organization 

1. Why requirements engineering is critical to project success
2. Why a great Business Analyst could be your new best friend
3. Why a project should progress only when the most critical requirements are clearly understood

III. Establishing a Business Analyst Center of Excellence (BACOE)

A. Roles 

1. BACOE Management
2. Senior Business Analyst
3. Business Analyst
4. Process Analyst
5. Documentation Specialist

B. Create Common Processes 

1. Requirements Development Processes
   • Requirements Elicitation 
   • Requirements Analysis 
   • Requirements Specification Creation
   • Requirements Validation
2. Requirements Management Processes
   • Requirements Change Management
   • Requirements Traceability
   • Requirements Tracking

C. Create Common Templates 

1. Requirements Traceability Matrix
2. Requirements Change Request Form
3. Requirements Responsibility chart (RACI)
4. Requirements gathering tools

D. Create Checklists 

1. What is required
2. What is recommended

E. Create Standards 

1. Requirements gathering strategy
   • High Level
   • Mid level
   • Detail
2. Use of KRAC
3. Use of SMART
4. Traceability
5. Requirement Types
6. Other standards

F. Create Communication Strategy 

1. Identify who needs what information
2. Identify when information is needed
3. Identify appropriate formats

G. Create Coaching (Mentoring) Strategy 

1. Identify coaching candidates 
2. Identify coaching requirements
   • Communication skills and styles
   • Problem solving skills
   • Facilitation skills
   • Questioning skills
   • Documentation skills
   • Working with people
   • Managing stakeholder expectations
     • The right way to say no
     • Working with difficult customers
   • Requirements tools
   • Requirements processes
3. Identify mentoring process

H. Create Training Strategy 

1. Identify training requirements
2. Identify goals of training
3. Identify source for training
4. Create training schedule

I. Create Requirements Engineering Process Improvement Plan 

1. Identify methods for ongoing process improvement

J. Create Metrics for measuring success and Return on Investment. 

1. Determine metrics for Return on Investment (ROI)
   • Time
   • Cost
   • Quality
2. Establish benchmarks
3. Determine measurement strategy
4. Determine timeline to measure ROI

IV. Implementing a Business Analyst Center of Excellence (BACOE)

A. Establish target start date 

1. Consider operational calendar
2. Consider holiday schedules

B. Establish Organizational Structure 

1. Identify Leadership Team
2. Map available skill sets to required roles
3. Create or update job descriptions
4. Create Organization Structure
5. Identify training requirements
6. Complete training

C. Communicate to the Organization 

1. Identify affected areas
2. Schedule appropriate communication mechanisms
3. Distribute information and answer questions

D. Implement the BACOE rollout strategy 

1. Change management
   • Understand the impact to the organization
   • Establishing 'Change Agents'
   • Manage Stakeholder Expectations
   • Open communication
2. Mentoring and support
   • Ongoing lessons learned
   • Becoming the 'Emotionless Business Analyst'
   • Create Business Analyst 'All Stars'
3. Problem solving
   • Issues
   • Questions
   • Root cause analysis
4. Commitment to ongoing process improvement
   • Workgroups
   • Rollout changes

V. Requirements Risk Management

A. Planning for Requirements Risk Management 
B. Identifying Requirement Risks
C. Establishing Requirements Risk Probability and Impact
D. Creating Risk Response Plans

 

VI. Requirements Quality Assurance

A. Planning for Requirement Quality Management 

1. Confirm standards
2. Develop Quality Checklists
3. Determine frequency of Quality checks

B. Managing Requirements Quality 

1. Validate process
2. Validate templates
3. Validate checklists

VII. Measuring Success of a Business Analyst Center of Excellence (BACOE)

A. Gather metrics
B. Compare to benchmarks
C. Report on progress

 

VIII. Conclusion

A. Summarize important concepts
B. Next steps for you
C. Contact us
D. Evaluation
E. Thank you