Hi everyone,
Does anyone have a good BA process for new projects? A process flow, list of repeated tasks, or documents and deliverables at each project stage would be helpful. I haven’t had good direction from project managers, so I always feel like I am either doing too much or not enough.
Thank you!
I would recommend this book How to Start a Business Analyst Career: The Handbook to Apply Business ... - Laura Brandenburg - Google Books
It’s a great guide on how to establish yourself in the role. In my opinion there’s no ‘standard’, it very much depends on the organisation and the project.
I would lean into the five whys. Look at all the existing documentation and ask questions. Are there gaps? Do you understand the project? Talk to the team members, how do they see their roles and your role connecting and collaborating. Talk to any other BAs, are there a bunch of resources or templates somewhere hiding on the intranet. What do they do? How do they approach things?
Great response - thank you! I’ve watched a few of Laura Brandenburg’s IIBA webinars on her BA Process - really helpful.
Hi @Optimistic_BA – I’d agree with @RhiB … there’s no (good) “standard” that will work everywhere / every time / in every place. You generally build up patterns and then apply (and modify) the patterns as you see the same things repeated over and over.
In saying that, I personally found anchoring myself to other processes helpful including:
It is sort of less like WE have a process, and more that we end up flexing to other processes and supporting them to actually end up with something good!
What kind of environments are you working in? Or perhaps more importantly, what kind of environments do you want to work in? It’s sometimes better to focus on the precise context you’re in?
And for what it’s worth, that feeling of “not doing enough” is super common! And it’s (usually) BS! The very fact that you’re worried about it shows that you care about your performance and your contribution!
Happy to dig in further but I also don’t want to steer you in the wrong direction because my experience and context could be wildly different than yours!
PS: yes, project managers who can give really good instructions / parameters is actually surprisingly rare (in my experience) – but this is sort of precisely why I think a community like this could be valuable – sharing what worked and what didn’t is how we help everyone get through that really gnarly first couple of years in the role!
Thanks again for another great reply! I’m really enjoying being part of this supportive community.
I like the idea of adapting another process based on the type of project - we cover everything from software development, software enhancements to dashboards and hardware changes. I’ll spend some time researching some of the other approaches you mentioned (never heard of the diamond one!) so I’ve got a few options to lean on depending on the type of work.
Lots of food for thought!
Hi @optimistic_BA, I third the same sentiments, there’s no standard. Although, there’s a pretty solid approach that you could go into each project, task, sprint, assignment with…
Orientate yourself.
What are the facts? ask who, what, why, where and when.
What stage is the project at? Are we pre-project, day 1 or somewhere else?
What has already been done (there’s often something by the time BA’s are involved)? What is expected of you, and when?
Then it’s a case of jumping in. We (Redvespa) created this ‘toolkit’ from the perspective of a BA navigating projects. I feel like it helps to answer some of your questions, head here to download, totally free! I hope it helps 
