There is an issue that I’ve heard from my clients consistently over the past few years. It’s that too many Business Analysts (BAs) simply act as “order takers”. They go to the business to get requirements and simply write down what the business says. To them that’s the job of the BA and that’s what requirements elicitation is all about. I disagree! Elicitation is more than that and the BAs job goes beyond order taking. We must advise the business and we must analyze the requirements.
For example, too often we are given a fixed scope, fixed deadline, and fixed resources even before the requirements are even conceived. We then try to “get the requirements” and then struggle how to fit them into the project’s constraint. That’s not analysis. We need to advise the business when the goals are unrealistic — we need to manage expectations. If the project’s scope can’t be done in the timeframe we’ve been given, then tell the business why it can’t be done and tell what can be done.
As a former CEO, I always provided my projects teams with a vision, an overall scope, a deadline, a budget, and resources. Good leaders put stakes in the ground. If you don’t then the project teams work without goals and they won’t focus — deadline and resource constraints force prioritization and efficiency. But, if my constraints were unrealistic, I expected my project teams to tell me as soon as they know. I also want to know what they can do within the budget and timeframe. I want them to analyze the problem — not just go off, grumble and complain, and then tell me in the end that they can’t get it done. After all, I have set marketing, sales, and client expectations. So, if you can’t meet the objectives, let me know right away — I’ll understand if you give me reasons.
Anyway, we need to act more as analysts and not simply take orders and then go off without helping the business understand what can and can’t be done. Keep in mind that business does not know how IT works; educate them, help them understand why some requirements might not be doable.
