Technology and business has spent tens of millions of dollars to figure out why projects fail, and by far the largest point of failure is business requirements (Gartner Group, 2013). Logisolve’s Business/Technology Alignment Group is determined to change that. How? By recognizing the key tasks required on projects and putting appropriate resources in place that have the background and experience to successfully complete the tasks assigned. A Project Business Analyst is typically going to struggle with a large enterprise initiative that requires process improvement. Procurement wants to boil job titles down to the lowest common denominator, but projects are failing because of it, and costing companies huge amounts of identifiable cash, and more importantly, costing companies competitive advantage and speed to market.

Logisolve’s Business Analyst group is focused on completing projects that meet the business need, on time and within budget. In today’s Business Analysis world, requirements gathering and documentation are just some of the many tasks people with the title “Business Analyst” do. Some business analysts create process efficiency, while others map and communicate business and technical architecture. A newly identified “Business Analyst” role is enterprise wide business requirements management.

Logisolve has identified the following business analyst related roles that play a critical role in today’s successful projects:

• Project Business Analyst - requirements gathering, facilitation, documentation, story boarding/use cases, Agile)
• Enterprise Business Analyst - skill to view the project within an enterprise perspective; ability to map process and flesh out dependencies at an enterprise level.
• Business Process Analyst - requirements gathering and mapping, facilitation, documentation, visual mapping of current state, future state, and proposed interim solutions, strong communication of current process life cycle.
• Business Technology Liaison - Communication, technology architectural and business understanding and ability to reduce complexity for different audiences, facilitation, documentation.
• Business Technical Spec Writer & Communication Specialist - documentation, technical and scientific writing, interpersonal communication, mass communication, ability to publicly speak and give demonstrations. Note: Typically tech writers and oral presenters are different people.
• Business Architect - requirements gathering at an enterprise level with an eye on critical strategic business initiatives, goals and outcomes. Executive facilitation. Ability to guide both technical and business groups in strategic business objectives. Strategic communication including process mapping-typically for communication purposes.
• Business COE and BABOK OFFICE - Creation and improvement of business analysis groups at the macro and individual level. Includes methodology, template, process and role reviews documentation, change management.

(BABOK) is the written guide to the collection of business analysis knowledge reflecting current best practice, providing a framework that describes the areas of knowledge, including roles, tasks and techniques required for successfully completing a project that meets the business’s needs.

Logisolve espouses adapting Agile based BABOK and the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) as cornerstone concepts to drive process and business change to lift project delivery from ad hoc to the CMM “managed” level.