How to assign business analysis projects

Few organisations are truly great at planning and prioritising. Business analysis projects are often reactive, which is to be expected, as we cannot foresee every change. Mobilising the right people at short notice can be a real challenge — even for large organisations with more people.

The reality is that most organisations do not operate a ‘bench’ of resources, so don’t have anyone immediately available for new urgent work. This leaves two options: bring in additional people to increase capacity, or move the existing workforce around.

The importance of prioritisation

Moving people around requires explicitly ranked business priorities. Most organisations don’t have this. Often, at an organisational level, everything is considered high priority; each project has strong senior supporters and excellent business justifications. Discussion about priorities is often superficial and aimed at peacekeeping, while individual agendas prevent honest discussion and agreement. What senior leaders can fail to grasp is that if they are not clear about relative priority, managers further down the chain will make their own decisions about where to allocate resources.

Allocating resources effectively

Without a clear indication of priority, business analysis managers have to grapple with optimising resource decisions; receiving and understanding requests for business analysis and deciding how to meet them is not as easy is putting names in a spreadsheet. There are several mechanisms which can guide the decision making process:

• Whoever ‘has capacity’: this is least disruptive but not necessarily in the best interests of the individual or the work, as it doesn’t consider the skills and knowledge required or the skills and preferences of the person
• ‘Best fit’ for the work: theoretically a very sensible approach based on the skills, knowledge and professional development needs of the individual business analysts (BAs). This approach also allows more creative ways to meet a business analysis project’s needs, such as assigning a junior BA supported by a more senior BA. The problem is the ‘best person’ is typically not available, and stakeholders may not be open to creative resourcing suggestions

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• Existing business knowledge: it is often considered a benefit and shortcut when a BA has significant relevant business or system knowledge. However, it comes with dangers like becoming an SME not a BA, making assumptions rather than asking questions, and failing to do actual analysis
• Political appointment: when individual BAs are requested by name, it can be difficult as it suggests that the requestor has faith in that particular analyst, not the application of business analysis as a concept. It can also create disharmony in a team if there is a suspicion that some people are preferred or cherry-picked for projects
• Personalities: we have to consider relationships, attitude and environment as well as skills. Would this BA work well with that sponsor? Would that BA thrive in that environment? If we want to set people up for success, that means recognising that not every situation is suitable for every BA in the team

Conclusion

Business analysis managers — and anyone making resource allocation decisions — thrive with clear business priorities to guide them. Managers must be trusted to make decisions that balance the quickest resourcing solutions with effective placements which allow everyone to do their best work and continue to grow and develop. Giving some element of choice and autonomy to individuals is critical for building high-performing teams.