I work in a small organization (~2,800 employees) and we are about to implement an HRIS for the organization. But, the BA assigned to the project has no knowledge of, or prior experience in BA work. What is the best way to get this person up to speed on how to do their job? Should I expect less formal deliverables from them because it is a small company? (Until now I've always worked in large companies with experienced BAs. I've never been a BA myself, always a PM, so I know enough to know they don't know what to do but not enough to actually train them.) Saving Changes...
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Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Maybe the best way forward is not to get the person uptospeed on the role of BA, which you are expecting and they do not understand.
Why not focus on your joint task? Both of you will learn as you get along, you about HR and servant leadership and the BA about PM, BA and servant leadership.
I would start with sitting together (at least a day every week) and jointly developing needs and requirements for the project. You documenting them. You prototyping. BA reviewing and bringing in their expertise, acquiring more insights from HR. Then you suggesting a solution and both of you testing its applicability.
In older times this was called JAD (joint application design).
2800 people is a reasonably good size company, so the maturity of your processes will be a significant factor in your choices. If you have defined processes, formats or templates for deliverables, and overall your business process requirements written down, you can pick a minimum set of those as a starting point.
A BA role is similar to a systems engineer which also focuses on how the solution fits the business requirements. In that management model, the SE typically works for the PM although there is a lot of interaction.
Although that model of you leading them fits your need to provide guidance, I would suggest you need to meet much more frequently than one hour a week. Onboarding a new role takes a lot of effort until they can work more independently. I would think an hour per day would be more successful.
You're going to have to do a lot of teaching/coaching and the feedback should be timely. When I bring new PMs or SEs into a team, I spend a lot of time answering their questions, even when they are experienced in a job role but coming from other organizations. Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
I would suggest you each focus on your deliverables and how you have to interact to achieve those deliverables. It shouldn't be a problem if you know your job better than he knows his. Between you, you should be able to work it out for the benefit of the project. I believe the PM job description includes a phrase: "do what needs to be done to effectively deliver the project". Agree to that as your mission statement and get on with it. Saving Changes...
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