The Hidden Pitfalls of Managing a Business Intelligence Unit
- Business Analysis Results
- Separation of roles
- Gamification of processes
- IT and Business
- How to justify costs?
- Answers to questions
What is the role of a business analyst in enterprise process management? What should be the division of roles between analysts and process owners? How to justify the costs of analysts? What should happen after a business process is created and put into operation?
The answers to these and other questions were given by the participants of the discussion: Nikolay Galkin, Director of the IT Department of the Coffee Mania company, Dmitry Khramenkov, Director of IT and CT of the Dyatkovo Furniture Group, Svetlana Markina, Director of the IT Analysis Department of Rostelecom, and Igor Khlebnikov, Director of the Digital Transformation and Big Data Department of TMK++.
Case studies show that business analysts should be involved in the process of validation and control of business process execution, train process owners and motivate them to execute processes. Interaction between the process owner and the business analyst is necessary for process optimization and improvement. It is also important to develop a culture of working with processes and popularize it among employees.
Business Analysis Results
Why do we need a business analysis department, what functions does it perform, what does it give to the company? At the previous meeting, specialists already answered these questions, but an interesting topic remained undisclosed – the results of the work of business analysts.
"In Coffee Mania, this result is a described and formulated business process. A process owner is appointed, and this working mechanism is given under his direct control and management," said Nikolay Galkin. "We had a menu approval process formed, agreed upon, and launched. This is one of the key processes in the company, all departments are involved in it. But as soon as we handed it over to the person in charge, everything started to fall apart, and the situation only got worse. To fix it, we had to involve a business analyst again, figure out what was happening and at what stage, work with the process owner, teach him, and maintain motivation."
What to do? Turn a business analyst into a process owner, so that he constantly monitors the process, or continue to train an employee who should actually be the owner? This dilemma arises for everyone who is somehow connected with this area.
Separation of roles
The analyst creates a business process, verifies it, tracks what happens at each stage, and hands over the working business process to its owner. The relevant department is then responsible for the operability of the business process.
"Business process keepers do not necessarily have to be IT related. Any large company has departments that are engaged in storing business processes, and analysts who help to cope with setting tasks for changes in the IS," explained Igor Khlebnikov. In different companies, business analysts play different roles. There are "process keepers" and those who are engaged in project activities - they formulate functional requirements for making changes. In large corporations, these roles are separated.
To form a business process and bring it to a finished form, it is necessary to communicate with all key users, understand and record their requirements. Although the analyst can play the role of the process owner, control is still more an administrative function, while analysis is creativity and intellectual activity. Sooner or later, these roles begin to be divided.
Everything depends on how developed the project activity is in the company. "An analyst should not take control of the process execution, otherwise he turns into a manager, an administrator," explained Svetlana Markina. "Control is the role of the process owner. The company should build motivation in such a way that he himself is interested in the execution of this process."
"A business analyst should be an administrator of the process that he developed and implemented," Igor Khlebnikov objected. "During validation, he will understand what and why does not work. It would be nice to make the process self-regulating with the help of an information system. In this case, the system tells you what to do. If there are no such IT systems, then you cannot avoid lengthy training processes, involving process owners, and using various metrics."