Sunday, December 20, 2009

Business Analysis!

Lessons learn while business analyzing for 6 Months:

A brief history. I'm a BI developer, or I like to think of myself as one. I have been for the better part of 3 and a half years. I like data, I like designing kick-ass warehouses, I like cubes, I like data mining, I like dashboards. How did I get into BA then? I told my boss I wanted some experience on the front side. Talk to the business users, get their take, etc.

I was quite excited with the job that came my way. It was to be a major MIS redo by one of the major banks. Alas, this never happened. I was thrown into doing analysis for compliance systems.

The Good
- Its your show! Get every one together to make sure every one knows you will be calling and asking questions and being generally a pain in the rear end until you have the system the way you want it!
- Clears your head: No progressive, cause and effect type build here. You need to get your plan together from the start. These are the people involved, this is what they need to do, once they are done what do I need to know... Then get every thing done on documents based on a all encompassing master plan that you have had to suck out of thin air 4 months before you knew anything about the damned project.
- Think ahead:
- The people: You get to talk to them, find out what they need... Tell them what they need. And tell them in such a way that they actually understand it.

The Bad
- You don't build anything! The pure feeling of being used overwhelms me as I enter the building every day. (the coffee doesn't help). For a guy used to building a system that people get to look at, touch and use, the effort it takes to compile a mountain sized heap of documentation just seems like a severe waist of effort. (Not to mention that its bad for the planet)
- Confusing as all hell: Right... Me Left Brain Person! Focusing on 4 different deliverable at once is counter productive. Its probably something I'll be able to learn, but once again my dev background dictates that I should finish one thing, make sure that its perfect, the focus on something else.
- Waiting: You just can't afford to wait... but you inevitably do! Someone needs to send you some thing... lets say... the rules needed for column naming as data enters their system. Did they confirm that they will send it... yea! Will they send it? Next year sometime, if you're lucky. So what do you do? You wait, or, you irritate them by means of constant harassment. (I suggest the direct approach, emails and phone calls don't have the same... presence)

The Ugly
Got to grips with the pure supernatural effort involved to get separate groups of people, in a major corporation (as well as external groups), moving together in a direction. The inertia is terrible! So... now I have a new found respect for project managers, and their families. I have also decided that being a project manager is no longer a career goal, but something to avoid by any means necessary. I must point out that my current PM, that I have been working under for the last 6 months and 4 different projects, is a real fighter. There have been times when I really thought the hills were his fast approaching future, but the big man stuck it out. Well done George!
It also seems that nobody is willing to take any risks in getting things done. This causes projects to be generally late, over budget and just a damn big frustration.
The need for every one to constantly cover their own asses is a concern when you are a business manager, I suppose. You employ a bunch of highly educated, capable wusses, and all that happens is that you get to watch them slowly spin around one another in some sort of a bee hive dance of finger pointing and general distrust. This goes on until someone is screamed at.

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In closing:
Much more to talk about really, but I actually do have work to do. If only I can figure out what it is.