why i'm into business analysis

Providing help – expert versus process consultant

The consultant or business analyst can operate in one of two modes when helping people: as the ‘expert’, who provides information, diagnoses the problem and comes up with the solution, or as the ‘process consultant’, who works with the client to jointly understand problems and co-create solutions.

Most business analysts would like to think they are being the process consultant when often they are being the expert, a situation that may be caused by the actions of either the business analyst or the client. It may be explicit, for example clients may say they do not have the time to be involved, or it may just be the way things are done in that organization.

The following guidelines will help you encourage collaboration and adopt a modest approach, demystifying the art and science of business analysis in the process:

1 You do not own the problem; the client does.

2 The client understands the business better than you do.

3 You are working jointly with the client to identify what to improve and how to improve it.

4 You use process and techniques to help the client to understand the problem and to develop and communicate potential solutions.

5 Always try to be helpful: business analysis is an overhead, and the client is the one directly creating value!

6 Only the client will know what will work in the particular situation. However, the business analyst should look for and propose a variety of potential solutions that are well thought through for the client to consider.

7 When clients learn to see the cause of the problem and how to come up with the solution themselves, the solution is far more likely to be successful.

8 It is your objective to leave clients better able to diagnose future problems and come up with their own solutions.

Whenever you have difficult situations in a piece of business analysis work, reflect on the type of help you are providing. Using these guidelines for process consultancy, can you readjust your thinking and behavior? In stressful times it is easy to fall back into your comfort zone and to start behaving like the expert. The most important lesson from the process consultant approach for business analysts is to use models, tools, techniques and methodologies to help clients better understand their problem and the potential solutions.

The power within business analysis lies in the potential to blend hard skills with soft skills, a fusion that can be used to great effect. ‘People possessing these skills are able to shape their knowledge to fit the problem at hand rather than insist that their problems appear in a particular, recognizable form. Given their wide experience in applying functional knowledge, they are capable of convergent, synergistic thinking’ (Leonard-Barton, 1995: 75).

A further challenge arises where management or part of an organization has adopted new assumptions, beliefs or values. This means the new system, product or structure is designed with one set of beliefs, but used by people with another set of beliefs. This mismatch is so often missed but is where business analysis can provide a new level of value and importance.

Challenging yourself and your beliefs You have to learn from what you and others do, learning from what works and what doesn’t work. Learning means being prepared to challenge yourself and your beliefs.

Business Analysis and Leadership