The CIO round table on "war for talent" at the gartner symposium, brought forward someThe CIO round table on "war for talent" at the gartner symposium, brought forward some very key aspects around success having been delivered more often than not, when there is deep involvement of good business analysts. We debated on the need for BAs to be part of the IT team and not as part of the business teams. The interesting question posses by fellow CIO of Cannon, was wether it would then be fair to say that business teams can then bring on board technical analysts! Aren't most business folks technical analysts any way!
Grooming BAs to the point where they really start delivering value is a long process. In environments that are friendly and embracing g, BAs could be productive in their second year. In large complex environments, sometimes it takes 3 or 4 years to really deliver value.
The grooming program is the key to success. These BAs need to spend at least 6 to 8 weeks in each of the key depts and SBUs working as apprentice to the line function 2 to 4 weeks each in the other depts of the organization. Once the business operations are clear, these guys should shadow the SBU leaders for 3 weeks and dedicate a day to be spent with SBU head exclusively one-on-one. These guys then been to serve as apprentice to the C layer for a week each.
Couple of aspects to be kept under active observation for grooming interventions in the first 6 months of their active deployment.
1) Do these guys come up with their own ideas for the Organization or do they come back with a list of things to be I proved upon as told by the business teams during the induction and the grooming program
2) Their attitude and their next steps after some of their plans are either rubbished or politely turned down due to prioritisation.
3) their approach to building their individual credibility and branding in the first 4 months of their productive deployment.
4) Their ability to assess risks and their approach to project planning where risk of failure is high
5) Their ability to effectively interact with the C layer and their ability to hold their own under the spotlight.
I have been in the past, been able to very quickly slot the guys into 4 buckets:
1. Self starters - self explanotary.
2. Efficient executors - they need to be told what needs to be done, and then you don't have to follow up
3. Solomon's spiders - keep trying repeatedly when faced with failure. They never give up
4. Batman - two faces, both strong suites
5. The Spielberg - builds larger than life plans and projects. Loves to take Complex projects. When handed over a simple project, paints a larger than life picture about it. Inspires participation from one and all.
Each of these strong suits are detrimental at one level. I don't generally work with BAs who have one strong suit and a equal or relevant mix of other aspects. I like to bring together people with these exclusive strong attitudes on one table and work with them as a team. The learning are immense. However, this results most of the time into an emotional drain on oneself. So if you don't enjoy roller coaster rides at work, maybe a different approach needs to be evolved. The opposite of work is play. Human beings, I believe are wired to play. We need to choose our game and invite the players to team up. I love picking BAs from college. Good BAs work inside the business teams and get pro-activity going for IT. Instead of being told by the business on what needs to be done, IT can start defining for business the best path forward. For this to happen, the grooming process is key.
Couple of advantages with this approach:1) CIOs will be integrated on the business plans at the SBU level by integrating the BAs into SBU structure. This move will be welcomed, if the BAs KPIs are similar to that of the SBU heads KPIs
2) The CIO can plan SBU's directions and can have more meningdul discussions at Mancom/ExCo - travesring the journey from order taker - agenda setter - strategy co-creator - pace setter.
3) Evolve the BAs to digital strategy officers
Vijay Sethi said on November 21, 2012 11:05 AM
ReplyDeleteNagraj - I agree with your views. Business Analysts as a concept is gaining ground beyond consulting in industry now as internal IT team plays more significant role in process redesign, process re-engineering, change management in organizations.
With most of the new hires in any organization being very IT savvy, I think this trend will only grow.
However, a challenge for organizations could be managing career of BAs - not all can be digital strategy officers. I feel some could become part of functional areas like say supply chain etc. while some could be groomed into IT Project Managers, while some may get into consulting.
V BALAJI said on November 22, 2012 3:59 AM
ReplyDeleteNagraj : Very key concepts and makes sense. The success of a CIO is strongly dependent on how effective his/her ambassadors (Bus. Analyts / Bus. Relationship Managers) are .. and how they articulate the integrated vision of IT to our partners.
The perfect career path would be to get the right folks from your business groom them for a few years as Business Analysts and then have them go back into the business into more senior roles. This becomes a win win strategy.
The ability to measure and incentivize these capabilities is key as well.
V. Balaji, CIO Tata Technologies
Pearl Zhu said on November 22, 2012 5:50 AM
ReplyDeleteAs I also participated the other CIO brainstorming regarding IT organizational restructure in order to improve IT maturity, well blend IT and business talents to shape high-performance team is key to bring success for such effort, a good BA with clear analytics thinking, cross-functional perspective, good at breakdown complex problem into logic solution, also with both IT & business knowledge can be valuable talent needed in such team either working on optimizing business process, or complementing EA’s view, the engineering staff shall also be good BA when learning business side of business. thanks.