Are there still companies failing to take advantage of the role of the Business Analyst?

I work as a business analyst for approximately 10 years, in addition to experiences as a Full Stack Developer and Project Manager. During more than 14 years of experience, I still see companies failing to take advantage of the role of a business analyst.

Maybe you don't know what the role of a business analyst is in a company, or maybe you are a business analyst and feel left out, just as I have felt many times.

The role of the business analyst in a company, industry or even an IT consultancy is:

• Help Stakeholders (People directly or indirectly affected by a project or solution) to define their objectives, what is the best solution and how to create a plan to achieve them.
• Facilitate requirements gathering or elicitation meetings
• Be a bridge between what the different business areas need and the technology team that will execute the project.
• He is the person who must ensure that the client or the business area is the center of the entire project.
• The person who plans and thinks strategically about the solution.
• That is side by side with the Project Manager, helping in the Pre-Project, Analysis, Monitoring, Execution, Testing, Approval and Go Live phases.

Wow, if I were to describe everything a business analyst can do, I would have to write a dedicated article just for that. By the way, if you find it interesting send me a message or put it in the comments: what else would you like to know about business analysis or Business Analysis.

Anyway, the point here is that, some time ago in a galaxy not so far away, I went through a situation that made me want to write this article.

One of the clients I serve requested a change in the company's document management system, so far so good.

When I heard what the customer or Stakeholder wanted, I already had a dozen questions about why the customer wanted that improvement. As one of the important roles of an analyst is to ask questions, and questions that are relevant, I started:

• Why are you asking for this improvement?
• What problem today would you like to solve by applying this solution?
• Have you considered any other way of doing this?
• What are the possible risks to your daily routines if we implement this solution?
• What would be the real benefit of this improvement for your day to day? Would you have gained time or quality in your work?

Well, I'll be honest that after these questions it was clear that the customer didn't really know why he was asking for the improvement. It was clear to me and clear to them too.

But the customer wanted to continue with the improvement or solution the way they had defined it. As I am insistent, I tried again, but now pointing out possible problems or bottlenecks in the daily routines of the department if the improvement were carried out, here is what I scored:

• Have you ever thought that with this solution you will still have manual work to update this information?
• One of your requests is to facilitate access to information by department X, but with this layout containing so much information displayed at the same time, don't you think that this could make access to information even more difficult?

You can imagine that my questions didn't help at all, and the solution that the client brought was implemented.

Moral of the story:

• The business analyst's role is to ask the right questions, to make the customer or stakeholder think, and to help choose the best solution.
• We are not and will not be the holders of the decision, that is up to the Sponsor (Project Owner) or the Stakeholders.
• The client didn't want the support of the business analyst, but someone to document an already defined solution. Here in my view is the error, as there was no discussion on the subject.
• In short, the solution, after being implemented, was not used by the area as access to information continued to be difficult.

What I mean by this article is that the Business Analyst's role should not be underestimated when a need for improvement or new software is raised. We, as BA's, have a duty to value the user experience, the correct use of the resources of the company we work for, or the client we serve (in the case of a software consultancy, for example).

A message to business analysts: Do not accept without “fighting” the solutions that Stakeholders bring, question, try to make your customers think about it and, always, alwaysfocus business objectives and project objectives.