Originally published in BA Times on January 18, 2016.
Each year, since 2009, we have enjoyed reflecting on what’s happened the previous year in the areas of business analysis and project management (including Agile), and making predictions for the upcoming year. To summarize the trends we saw in 2015:
Here are the industry trends we see happening for the upcoming year:
Executives have long been interested in getting the most value from programs and projects. They want Initiatives that show true commitment to value realization. This need is one reason for the increased popularity of Agile. A new trend that is also helping ensure that value is achieved is the emergence of the business relationship manager (BRM) role. BRMs are more than just liaisons between business and IT. They propose and help influence the portfolios, programs, and projects that will deliver the most value. The role is accountable not only for delivering value, but also for proving it.
We think this role will begin to gain popularity because too often the responsibility for measuring value has fallen into the chasm between business units and service providers, meaning no one focuses on it. BRMs fill that void, for example, by linking the actual benefits received from an initiative back to the forecasted benefits in a business case. This feedback loop greatly improves initial forecasts, project selection, and leads to quicker decisions to abandon projects that aren’t delivering sufficient value.
As Agile practices gain traction in some organizations and mature in others, some significant questions still remain including:
We believe that although these issues will not be solved in the upcoming year, they will be addressed.
Traditionally, business analysts have “gathered and managed” requirements and project managers have managed a project’s time, budget, and scope. The future is looking very different. The same responsibilities will be needed, but they will be augmented with strategic-oriented duties. Organizations are increasingly realizing they need to ensure projects actually deliver the benefit value that was stated in the business case. Smart organizations are deploying project professionals more strategically to help them obtain and prove the increased value, including new roles that go beyond the traditional BA and PM (see trend #1).
This trend is good news for project managers and business analysts who like to think and contribute strategically.
Project managers and others really are finally making peace with the idea that delivering value is what matters, not whether or not they’re Agile and how Agile are they. Yes, people still struggle with organizational change issues around implementing Agile, and yes, team members aren’t always given what they need to make the switch effectively. But the angst increasingly is no longer about whether organizations or teams can call ourselves Agile; it’s (appropriately) about whether what they’re doing benefits the organization, particularly when they’re doing more than is really needed. If doing the right amount of work for the organization manifests itself in some kind of light-weight, Agile-traditional combo practices, then organizations are becoming more OK with that, as long as it delivers value fast and eliminates waste. This is happening outside the boundaries of projects, as well. Whether it’s HR decreasing the frequency of, or even eliminating, regular performance reviews, or organizational metrics around customer or employee satisfaction getting culled back to scales of 1-3 or simply yes/no, it’s not that less is more. Less is the norm.
As predicted a year ago, there is still no clarity related to industry certifications. There are some changes, though.
As a side note and cautionary tale, the Harvard Business Review recently posted an article about the need for all professional associations, not just those related to project management and business analysis, to rebrand, as members find alternate ways to network and learn.[i]
As we predicted last year, the increasing use of business analysis techniques for “non-technical” design work is gaining momentum. This approach is similar to design thinking and moves the focus from product requirements to product features and functions. This trend is popular because it leverages tried and true methods for understanding customer needs and gets them into a buildable solution quicker.
Here are some examples of “non-technical” designs. Instead of listing data requirements in a simple data dictionary, the trend is to create a fully normalized data model. Instead of creating a use case narrative that must be transformed into other objects, the trend is to create them in the form of readily useful acceptance criteria. Instead of ignoring user interfaces, the trend is to create prototypes that reflect business needs. Each of these helps create the solution sooner, thereby helping the organization achieve maximum value sooner.
There are a number of trends related to how organizations get work done.
Don’t forget to leave your comments below.
[i] Harvard Rusiness Review, To Stay Relevant, Professional Associations Must Rebrand by Denise Lee Yohn https://hbr.org/2016/01/to-stay-relevant-professional-associations-must-rebrand, January 5. 2-16. viewed on January 13, 2016.
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