Senior leadership have introduced the working practice of using deliverable specific work packages, I have a business analyst in my team who is adamant that work packages based on deliverables aren't viable for BA work, I personally feel the process if used properly is effective and has worked generally elsewhere.
The other BAs' haven't fed back in the same way so looking to understand the community thoughts on this. Saving Changes...
Assuming you are referring to work packages as the lowest level of a WBS, then PMI does tend to support the approach of using a deliverable-oriented decomposition.
However, if the BA on your team is having difficulties with this organization of the scope, they can take the work packages at the lowest level and group them in some other manner. There would still be traceability from their detailed requirements to the work packages and back up to the deliverables.
What might be causing this concern is if the breakdown they are looking for is from high-level business objectives to high level requirements and down to detailed requirements. In such cases, the business objectives or high-level requirements might not be mapped to a single deliverable.
Kiron Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
I'm guessing your quandary is the traceability from a BA's work packages to deliverables.
My first thought would be to have this discussion with the BA, not us. You need to understand their perspective and see if you can reconcile it to the recommended approach. I realize it's easier to simpler enforce a one size fits all approach. Unfortunately, we lead projects that are anything but standard. Saving Changes...
I would challenge their assumption that it doesn't work for BAs, since deliverable based work statements are very common. The answer is probably that it won't work they way they envision, which is certainly not the only way. Ask specifically what won't work, and why. Then dig deeper.
As Kiron and Stephane point out, there can be multiple views of a product or system that are used for different things. Together those views are called an architecture. It can be hard to translate information between views. One deliverable might support many functions and several deliverables might support one function, so how much do the functions cost?
This is why in many delivery models, you have architectural roles working closely with business roles and the PM role. That is how solutions to these types of problems are developed. The BA might have to alter the way they collect information. Likewise the design teams might have to change aspects of the way they write their WBS like linking deliverables to functions.
That needs to be a collaborative process or you will sub-optimize where it is easy for some roles, but very difficult for others. Saving Changes...
Wayne MackRetired| RetiredSouth Riding, Va, United States
The Business Analyst (or any other role) should not have individual work package deliverables. Work packages should be a team effort that the BA contributes to. Saving Changes...
