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Compliance is just a business case for another form of business change. In a recent assignment to assess FATCA readiness at a banking client, we discovered that the three different banking products each had a different front-office origination process. In the wake of this discovery, part of our recommendation set was, unsurprisingly, to consolidate processes and reap the various benefits that accrue from this. It all seems so obvious – but is it really? All too often All too often compliance projects start with a specific endpoint – ensure that we get the compliance projects relevant tick in the relevant [&hellip

BSG (UK) Business Analysts recently attended the Business Analysis Conference Europe 2012. Shortly after the conference, the BSG delegates collectively identified a number of trends which cropped up across the conference topics. 2012 10 xx bsg uk reflections on ba conference europe version 1 from BSG (UK)

All too often people take on the “Business Analyst” role to provide some specialist input to a project. It’s a great starting point, but the move to Business Analyst involves a greater mindset shift than just moving desks  – it’s about creating something meaningful, achieving a purpose.  To lead the business through purposeful change, it is essential to be able to communicate with different stakeholder groups using the right tools and techniques. BAs need to learn to “speak analyst”.  Key takeaways: Three orders of business analysis: bridging the gap, introducing innovation and facilitating change Understand the notion of “Analyst” as [&hellip

Compliance is often much maligned as a tick-box exercise that your operations director needs to complete in order to have the right certificate on the wall. It doesn’t have to be this way. Understanding why regulations are introduced contextualises them as both interesting and important. Compliance – It doesn’t have to be a tickbox exercise from BSG (UK)

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve been nominated for the IIBA’s BA Supplier of the year competition. Full details can be found here. The “company bio” we used was published as follows… BSG is passionate about being a proactive force for positive change. We are inspired by the opportunity to help clients deliver change which improves their organisations and their customers’ experiences. Our business analysis is driven by three considerations … 1. Is the analysis, design output and project approach aligned to organisation’s strategic ambition? 2. How can we challenge the current thinking so that we bring additional insight by [&hellip

So there are 5 special senses, we all know that. There are more subtle ‘senses’ like a sense of fear amongst others. But what are the senses of a Business Analyst? Someone who makes letters and numbers in a spreadsheet into a successful system or change initiative. Someone who makes the impossible possible. Someone who tames the wilderness. Here are some thoughts on the emergent senses of the evolving BA. > Common sense Several of my contemporaries, notably @ukadrianreed, have highlighted how common sense is a thing missing from many BA’s armoury at the moment. I fear that BA’s get [&hellip

For many years now, a driving philosophy for IT departments has been consolidation. Disparate systems have beenmerged together, architectures have gone SOA, enterprise resource planning software has been implemented andmanagement reporting has been streamlined.But what happens when systems decoupling needs to take place? What happens when, after years ofconsolidation, your business and systems processes need to be separated? Perhaps the market has turned and abusiness unit needs to be sold, or a change in systems vendor requires replacing a legacy system, or new legislationrequires a different way of working. These are all real possibilities that need careful consideration. BSG (UK) [&hellip

The days of the humble report are surely numbered. Infographics, self-service reporting, BI dashboards and real-time analytics have usurped the humble report. Instead of knowing how many widgets we produced last month, now we want to know what the likely impact is going to be of next month’s unforeseen event on our ability to reach the financial measures of our balanced scorecard for the current financial year. When I first began business analysis work, we’d focus intently on process and data requirements. After rounds of analysis and reviews, we’d have a detailed sense of what it is the system needs [&hellip

I fear the wrath of project managers everywhere when I write that delivery against planned timelines is unimportant. The success of a project does not depend on whether the changes were implemented by some, often random, predetermined date. The success of a project depends solely on whether the benefits promised (and paid for) were delivered. It amazes me how often this perspective gets overlooked, never at the outset of the project of course. In the heady early days, it’s all about benefits models and the associated business case. It’s usually once the project gets underway that the focus slowly shifts [&hellip

BSG Business Analysts reflect on the results of the IIBA’s industry survey. Recently the UK International Institute of Business Analysts (IIBA) published the results of an industry-wide Business Analysis survey (http://bit.ly/iibasurvey2011). BSG BAs, many of whom completed the surveyquestionnaire, reviewed the results and discussed some observations. 2012 03 02 bsg (uk) reflections on iiba ba survey version 1 from BSG (UK)