This month is special; we wrapped up the summer and are now getting ready for the Fall and Winter. Well, there was something extra special about last month - we had 5 Tuesdays! In our Chapter, this meant we had our exceptional “Lean Coffee” event, which we hold exclusively for the chapter’s volunteers whenever we have a fifth Tuesday in a month. Why am I talking about this? Well, because in such an event, we have the chance to decide what to discuss and we actually discuss what we decide! So, among many great questions and topics which were raised by our volunteers (we might write about the other topics later) was: if you are in the process of recruiting someone to help “Enable Change” and “performs business analysis tasks” (which is technically the definition of the Business Analysis/Analyst as per the BABOK), are you going to choose A: experienced SME with entry level with BA, OR, B: An experienced business analyst with entry level of the industry where the change will take place?
We had amazing debates and shared multiple opinions, considering the “Context” of the change, the change itself, and the stakeholders involved, and so on. My feedback was, however, if I have the power to choose, I will pick “B”, which is: experienced BA, but why did I choose that? Well, as BA’s we all have the competencies and knowledge that allow us to deal with the change in a structured way, and without any bias, and while the SME can be a priceless stakeholder, yet they can’t really cover the entire change from business analysis best practices.
I wanted to share this story in our monthly newsletter, to acknowledge our chapter’s appreciation to all of the volunteers, and to provoke some ideas and discussions that might help shape the best practices further.
Ziad Sakr, MBA, CBAP ®, AAC, PMP ®
President, IIBA Ottawa-Outaouais Chapter