GETTING THE BA WORK PLAN

TO WORK FOR YOU Jennifer S. Battan, CBAP®

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

The benefits and uses of a Business Analysis Work

Plan

How to select a work plan tool/format for your BA

environment and maturity

How to gather and analyze “actual” work plan data

to create task estimates

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PULSE CHECK

Who is already using / creating Business Analysis

Work Plans today?

Do you update it throughout the life of the project?

Do you create it and use it as a checklist, but don’t

update it?

Do you create it and never look at it again?

What’s a Work Plan?

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WHAT IS A WORK PLAN?

A description of the planned activities that the

business analyst will execute in order to perform

the business analysis work involved in a specific

initiative. - BABOK 2.0

A deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of

the work to be executed by the project team to

accomplish the project objectives and create the

required deliverables. – Work Breakdown Structure

definition, PMBOK, Fourth Edition

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BENEFITS OF

THE BUSINESS ANALYSIS WORK PLAN

Establishes credibility

Demonstrates an understanding of what needs to be

accomplished to successfully complete project objectives.

Shows the BA has a clear understanding of their role in the

project.

Leads to more accurate re-estimates.

Encourages accountability

Enables the BA to if not determine, at least influence dates.

Assists in creating accurate forecasting and budgeting.

Streamlines status reporting, communicates detailed work to

be done.

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BENEFITS OF

THE BUSINESS ANALYSIS WORK PLAN

Promotes consistency

Across BAs within a team or teams within the

organization.

Powerful negotiation tool

Useful for managing expectations with the PM

Allows for negotiation of expectations, roles and

responsibilities

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IF THE WORK PLAN IS SO GREAT…

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WHY DO WE ‘FEAR’ IT?

LET’S MAKE THIS REAL

Fortune 25 company.

High Performance, fast paced work environment.

>50 Business Analysts across the company.

Centralized BA teams within functional vertical

organizations. (As opposed to BAs embedded within

application or technical teams.)

Established a CoE to define and deploy best in

class practices and drive consistency in delivery.

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HERE’S THE STORY

A “Work Plan” was embedded within the

Requirements Specification template.

Icky on so many levels.

A team specific Core Competencies Document

outlined required deliverables – but didn’t align with

the embedded plan.

Some BAs took it to the next level:

Created a ‘checklist’ of competencies / expectations.

Created a simple, basic work plan to include task

duration for tracking outside of the Requirements

document.

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THE STORY CONT.

Modifications were made and shared as BAs used the template.

Estimated and Actual hours added.

More detail and additional analysis tasks and/or deliverables.

BACoE was formed.

The Work Plan best practice was rolled out, although adoption was spotty at best.

The evolution of the work plan happened in rough parallel to the evolution of the role.

Department began using the Work Plan as a tool to ensure greater accuracy with re-estimates.

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THE STORY CONT.

Department had outgrown the existing format in several ways.

Initiated a Comparison Study to determine actual task hours and duration.

Pilot project/BA tracked detailed true “actuals.”

Reviewed other completed project’s plans for “reality check” and projects of varied size.

Created three templates based on project size.

Approach aligns to how the BA role is estimated.

Included average estimates for effort (hours) and duration (days).

As the team matured in the planning process, they moved to a MS Project template - now ‘plug n play.’

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PLUG & PLAY?

PLUG & PLAY YOU SAY?

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HEY JEN –

CAN YOU FINISH REQUIREMENTS IN A WEEK?

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CRITERIA TO CONSIDER

WHEN SELECTING A FORMAT/TEMPLATE

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Maturity of the BA role

overall

BA responsibilities

Estimating

Budget / Forecasting

Skill Sets: maturity in

planning / estimating

Project Size

Timelines

Project overall

BA tasks

Complexity

Role on the project

PM/BA

Lead BA w/multiple BAs assigned

Skill Set

Team Considerations Project Considerations

GATHER YOUR REQUIREMENTS:

REVIEW THE BA PROCESS

Is your process well defined and documented?

Your process will help you define what needs to be

included in the Work Plan as a required element,

versus those deliverables or tasks that are BA or

Project specific.

Ensure that Core Competencies are being

delivered on every project.

Ensure consistency with Best Practices.

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GATHER YOUR REQUIREMENTS:

WHAT LEVEL OF TASK TRACKING?

A highly detailed, granular work plan will become

cumbersome.

To little detail will not allow you to realize the

benefits of using and maintaining a Work Plan.

Finding the right level of detail will combine the best

of both worlds:

Serves as an up to date and consistent status report

that can be provided to the Project Manager.

Helps for ease of ability to incorporate/link to the Project

Manager’s overall work plan.

Variations by team or by project are possible.

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SO NOW WHAT?

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CONDUCT THE ‘PILOT’

Determine the base tasks for an average project.

Get the BA Team using the starter template.

If you’d like, enter estimates for hours of effort and

duration in days.

Most importantly – everyone must track and update

as they go.

Enter actual hours per task in the plan

Enter actual duration

Ready to hold the meeting, but the SMEs aren’t available for 5 days.

Mark completed tasks

Track what tasks were done, but not on the starter template.

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ANALYZE YOUR DATA

Assess pilot project data by looking at:

Actual hours

Actual duration

Be sure to compare similarly sized projects.

How does your company define a project? Small projects: up to 1000 total project hours

Medium projects: 1,000 to 3,000 total project hours

Large projects: More than 3,000 total project hours

Generate averages per task per project size.

Assess added tasks for inclusion as ‘base’ tasks.

Create the next generation template.

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SELECT A FORMAT

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Easy to use

Great for any size

project, possibly better

for small or ‘simple;

projects.

Easily accessible to

anyone needing to

view the plan

More robust tool

Can link directly into

the overall Project Plan

Allows for complex

tracking and

dependency driven

planning

Excel Project

WORK THOSE PLANS!

Determine which plan works for your project.

Tweak the tasks for the project.

Enter due dates

Estimates will already exist for hours and duration.

Share the plan with your PM

Negotiate dates or resources as necessary

During the project – update as you go. Enter actuals

Update remaining hours

Mark completed tasks

Adjust dates as necessary

Communicate deviations to everyone

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THE WORK PLAN IS GREAT!

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WHAT YOU’VE LEARNED

The benefits and uses of a Business Analysis Work

Plan

How to select a work plan tool for your BA

environment and maturity

How to gather and analyze “actual” work plan data

to create task estimates

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TOOLS FOR YOU!

Microsoft Excel BA Work Plan template

Simple

Detailed

Microsoft Project BA Work Plan template

Templates include:

Task lists

Sample estimated effort and duration

Download the templates or email me!

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© 2011 Trissential. All Rights Reserved. © 2011 Trissential. All Rights Reserved. 26

About Trissential

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• Average 22 years experience

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AWARDS & ACCOLADES

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Out of the Box

BA

Jennifer Battan, CBAP®

Blog: Outoftheboxba. blogspot.com

Email: Outoftheboxba

@gmail.com

Twitter: OutoftheboxBA

QUESTIONS?

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