Building the Foundation: The BOK on BA

This week I thought it would be fun to engage the community by providing a bit of insight around what is in store with PMI’s Foundational Standard in Business Analysis. I have seen the question posed more than once, “Why do we need this standard?”

As we mentioned at the product launch, PMI was waiting to hear from the community after the unveiling of Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide.  Did the community want and need more? Was the community wanting to see PMI move forward with the development of a foundational standard to support the business analysis profession and serve as a reference for the PMI-PBA^®?  Well, the answer was very clear by the feedback received, and so here we are developing the standard!

The core development team brainstormed ideas for building off the success of the practice guide while also addressing the most recent trends in the industry and the needs/desires of the community. So let’s take a look ahead… 

1. The new foundational standard in business analysis will align well with the PMBOK^® Guide, and by doing so will help project managers and other team resources understand how the work of business analysis aligns to the work of project management.  The business analysis standard will align and integrate the knowledge areas and process groups presented in the PMBOK^® Guide to help address the confusion surrounding how business analysis is performed in relationship to project management.

2. But wait!! Business analysis is performed outside of projects, and therefore equally important will be the alignment to PMI’s Portfolio and Program Management standards. There has been much misinformation in the community regarding the scope of business analysis and therefore this alignment should help address those concerns.

3. Now our team would be remiss to simply frame up an IT-centric waterfall-based standard. We know business analysis is performed on a lot of projects including IT ones; but we also recognize the importance of understanding what business analysis looks like in iterative and adaptive project life cycles too. PMI’s Foundational Standard in Business Analysis will embrace adaptive (agile) project life cycles as much as predictive (waterfall) approaches.  And while I am talking about the breadth of this standard, let me also mention “across industries”. So think of this new standard as a one stop reference for business analysis across life cycles, across project types and across industries.

4. Speaking of one stop reference, one of the biggest thrills for me in seeing PMI move forward on these business analysis initiatives, is that for the first time in our community PMs and BAs can have standards that align, use a common vocabulary, and emphasize the desired and well-needed collaboration that many organizations struggle with. By having these two critical disciplines under one PMI umbrella, teams can easily obtain complementary resources required to make their projects, programs and portfolios successful.

5. Also, PMI’s Foundational Standard in Business Analysis will continue to utilize the collaboration points that the community so loved with the practice guide. We aren’t stopping by looking solely at the PM and BA roles, but instead are looking at how business analysis resources work across the organization with many role types to perform business analysis successfully.

6. Last, but certainly not least, let me also share that we really put the focus on business analysis and not business analysts. Does this seem odd?  Well let me explain that many adaptive life cycle projects such as Scrum, don’t recognize the role of the business analyst explicitly and so we need to evolve too!  Ellen Gottesdiener and Mary Gorman so eloquently state this point in “It’s the Goal, Not the Role” and this team is really taking this to heart. The objective is to focus attention on how business analysis supports the end goal - successful product delivery, regardless of job title performing the work. We continue this thinking within PMI’s Foundational Standard in Business Analysis.

We hope you are as excited as we are about the evolution occurring with these critical disciplines and being able to finally align and come together under one umbrella, share a common framework and language and move us towards a shared understanding of what it takes to perform business analysis. We can’t wait for you to engage with us further during future review processes and help contribute to this advancement in business analysis to support project, program, and portfolio efforts. 

So what do you think?  What are you looking forward to seeing and what ideas are valuable to you and your organization?

Part 1: Meet the Team

Hello and thanks for visiting our new blog. My name is Laura Paton, chair and contributing author of PMI’s Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide. Working on that project with an amazing team of authors and subject matter experts was one of the most rewarding experiences in my career. I continue to hear from members of the community how much the practice guide is helping them understand and apply business analysis.  I have received such great feedback about how easy the guide is to use, how comprehensive it is and it is no surprise that practitioners just love the examples!

After its publication, we kept hearing how the community wanted more. I am privileged to be asked back once again, and this time to lead the development of PMI’s foundational standard in business analysis. This publication—which we hope to launch in  2017—will take a lot of what you loved about  the practice guide to the next level. It will answer your requests for a foundational standard that supports the knowledge and practices of the profession. It will also be a body of knowledge reference for the PMI Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA)^®  certification.

If you missed the announcement, you can check it out here.

A global development project such as this requires a core team to help oversee the effort and to get things kicked off. To ensure we can deliver the standard quickly, we decided to make the core team small.  But, small in number certainly does not mean small in experience! It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you the core team for PMI’s foundational standard in business analysis. You can even check out their linked profiles for more information.  

• First off is Joy Beatty PMI-PBA, CBAP - Vice President, Research and Development for Seilevel in Austin, TX.   Joy has published so much in the field of business analysis and has been a frequent speaker at many PMI events.  She has a ton of practical experience and has even authored several standards. All of this and her enthusiasm makes her an important asset to the team.
• Sue Burk CSM is Principal at Top Five to Seven, LLC based in Wilbraham, MA. Not only does Sue have lots of experience in requirements, business analysis, and project management she is a certified Scrum Master and brings an agile perspective to the team—an essential component in today’s business world. Sue also has extensive standards experience.
• Cheryl Lee PMP, PMI-PBA, CBAP is President of a Toronto based consulting firm. Much of her work is devoted to the harmonization of the PM and BA roles and has authored a book on the topic. It is also vital to project success so you’ll see that theme in the upcoming standard.
• And finally, yours truly, Laura Paton PMP, PMI-PBA, CBAP , Founder/Principal of BA Academy, Windermere, FL. I’ve been working in business analysis and project management for over 30 years and, when I’m not writing standards for PMI, I work as a BA coach/mentor, trainer and developer.

Remember this standard is being built by the community, for the community so think of this team as an extension of you!

What’s Next?

Now back to the blog!  Why are we here? Well, for starters, we want to provide you key insights into the development efforts to ensure you remain engaged and informed during this journey. We encourage you to be a part of the process by collaborating with us and among yourselves; by sharing ideas, needs, likes; and yes, letting us know when there are things that need to change.

Our first step is to build off the success of the Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide and leverage the extensive PMI research on the topic of business analysis. From this we will assemble an initial outline and then provide the rough draft content through two review processes. Business analysis thought leaders will partake in a subject matter expert review process later this year. And in early 2017, the global community will partake in a public exposure draft review process. Stay tuned for more information about these key reviews.

We have a lot to share, so this is just the start.  In next week’s blog, Cheryl Lee will share her insights about the foundational standard and how it will help support anyone performing business analysis, including PMs and BAs.   Future postings will provide you more insights about the project, stuff about us and maybe even a bit of trivia. And if there’s something you want us to talk about, let us know!