Preface

I think the 21st century will be the century of complexity.

—STEPHEN W. HAWKING

It was a perfect storm. As we entered the second decade of the 21st century, we found ourselves struggling to thrive, and sometimes just to survive. All over the world, people faced environmental and economic turbulence, financial calamity, a stubborn recession that seemed to resist recovery, intractable societal troubles, high unemployment, and uncompromising complexity. The fiercely competitive global business ecosystem was changing so rapidly that we were confronted with complicated situations we had never seen before.

It is no coincidence that the business analysis profession is taking hold in the 21st century. Business analysis is all about understanding the needs of organizations, helping them remain competitive, identifying creative solutions to complex business problems, bringing about innovation, and constantly adding value for the customer and revenue to the bottom line. My fear is that business analysis will remain a tactical, project-focused role for too long, and organizations around the world will not leverage the often underestimated and undervalued creative talent that is bottled up in our business analysts.

CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

We know that creative leaders are top performers, but how are they different? It is becoming obvious that we need creative leaders from all areas of the organization, not just one or two individuals at the top who are leading the way. Where is the cadre of creative leaders going to come from? Could business analysts become the creative leaders we need to spark innovation? To be sure, they work with teams and individuals at all levels of their organizations. Our 21st-century challenge is this: to arm business analysts with the knowledge, skill, credibility, and confidence needed to awaken creativity throughout their organizations. We can then calm the storm, at least as it affects our businesses, and look ahead to a dramatic increase in the number of innovative changes set in motion through expertly facilitated creative sessions.

THE BUSINESS ANALYST AS CREATIVE LEADER

What should business analysts be doing to hone their creative aptitude and to foster creativity in their organizations? Business analysts participate in the development of creative leaders across their organizations by deepening partnerships with their stakeholders, especially employees and customers. As they focus on relationships, business needs, operational agility, and innovation at every turn—the hallmark of business analysis—they can instill a universal understanding that everyone is creative. To accept the challenge, business analysts need to learn to be courageous, prepared, and willing to make deep changes to their organizations’ business model.

SHARED LEADERSHIP

Project leadership is no longer just about the project manager or even just about the project manager and the business analyst. Combining disciplines leads to success, and complex projects should be led by a highly seasoned, multitalented team consisting of strategic thinkers and creativity enthusiasts. The complex project leadership team ought to comprise the best resources available, including experienced and creative project managers, business analysts, solution architects and developers, and business visionaries. This leadership team collaboratively makes managerial and technical decisions about how to capitalize on the complexities they face. As project success improves, we will all benefit.

WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM READING THIS BOOK?

This book presents a new model for all members of project leadership teams in general, and business analysts specifically, to learn how to capitalize on complexity. It delves deep into the behaviors of business analysts in their functions as expert facilitators and creative leaders and offers guidance not just on managing complexity, but also on leveraging it as a competitive advantage. In addition to business analysts, this book is an important resource for project, program, and portfolio managers; solution architects; business process owners and managers; functional managers; and senior IT technologists.

HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED

The introduction begins with a look at the current state of the global marketplace. The demands of technology and the global economy have made the business environment more complicated and challenging than ever, ramping up the demand for creative leaders. We then consider the current and future roles of the business analyst and take an early look at how we can unleash the creative potential of business analysts.

PART I: INSIGHTS INK) THE PROFESSION OF BUSINESS ANALYSIS

Part I presents an overview of the business analysis profession as we traverse the second decade of the 21st century. Chapter 1, The Heart of the Matter—An Examination of the Profession of Business Analysis, defines the full reach of the business analysis profession and the role of business analysts as they struggle to find their place in these tumultuous and confusing times.

Chapter 2, The Business Analyst’s Role from Strategy Development to Strategy Execution, explores the important and emerging role of business analysis in contemporary business practices by presenting an overview of the business analyst’s specific duties, from strategic planning activities through more tactical project-focused tasks, including shepherding requirements throughout the life of a project.

Chapter 3, The Adaptive Business Analyst, examines the striking and at times subtle changes in the business analyst role and activities as projects become more and more complex.

PART II: UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

In Part II, we explore the mystery of creativity, the secrets to igniting innovation in organizations, and how the business analyst can fill the gap in creative leadership in the business world. In Chapter 4, Creative Leadership: What’s All the Fuss About?, we explore leadership models for the 21st century, including the emerging shared leadership model that can help organizations deal successfully with complexity and uncertainty. We present the case for the business analyst becoming a critical member of complex project leadership teams, focusing on the business analyst’s role as change agent, visionary, and credible leader.

Chapter 5, Fostering Team Creativity: The Business Analyst’s Sweet Spot, presents the case for developing teams and fostering team creativity, using both time-tested and contemporary practices. We explore creative problemsolving and decision-making and present multiple techniques to incite creativity in team sessions.

Chapter 6, Igniting Creativity in Complex Distributed Teams, discusses the complexities associated with large, diverse teams. We present several strategies to consider when managing diverse teams and suggest ways to cultivate creativity and innovation in multisite teams.

Chapter 7, Creativity-Inducing Facilitation, presents an array of tools and techniques to ignite creativity at all levels of the organization.

Chapter 8, Creatively Eliciting and Evolving Breakthrough Requirements, presents best practices for planning and managing requirements elicitation sessions and for visualizing requirements to ensure understanding.

PART III: STRATEGIES TO FOSTER INNOVATION

In Part III, we explore the complex world of smart products and the complexity-management strategies available to us when leading innovation teams. Chapter 9, Developing Products for Competitive Advantage, explores the nature of innovative products, which often rely on software as the discriminator. We discuss best practices for innovative product development, recognizing the complexity of IT-intensive product development.

Chapter 10, Strategies to Foster Innovation, presents the case for the business analyst to become a major player in helping companies become innovation-driven organizations.

Chapter 11, Communication Strategies to Enable Innovation, explores strategic communication strategies to arm the business analyst and other project team leaders with the tools needed to secure management’s support and approval.

PART IV: INNOVATION-DRIVEN BUSINESS PRACTICES

In Part IV, we examine ways in which business analysts and organizations can further develop business analysis capability and maturity. In Chapter 12, How Capable Do Business Analysts Need to Be to Ignite Creativity? we provide guidance to business analysts preparing an approach to their own professional development, which can help create enterprise- and innovation-driven analysts.

In Chapter 13, Building a Mature, Innovation-Driven Business Analysis Practice, we describe the elements needed to build a mature BA practice that focuses on innovation. Within such a practice, business requirements are managed, business needs are met, strategy is executed, and business and technology are optimized such that technology becomes a competitive advantage.

Chapter 14, Innovation-Driven Management, examines the elements of an innovation-driven portfolio management practice that leads to competitive advantage.

In Chapter 15, The Business Analysis Center of Excellence: The Cornerstone of Business Transformation and Innovation, we propose implementation of an innovation-driven enterprise center of excellence that works collaboratively to leverage the best practices of both business analysis and complex project management disciplines.

Kathleen (Kitty) Hass
September 2011