Have you ever had a stressful experience during your onboarding?
Did you struggle to effectively contribute to the project after the onboarding training?
If the answer is yes, this article will help you identify the key onboarding elements for success.
The role of a Business Analyst is crucial to the success of any organization, as they help bridge the gap between business needs and technical solutions. However, the success of a BA also depends on the effectiveness of their onboarding process.
A well-designed onboarding process can not only help new hires become productive quickly but also foster a sense of belonging and motivation.
Starting a new project can be an exciting time for any BA, but it can also be a daunting task. The success of a project often hinges on how well it’s onboarded, and there are a lot of moving parts that need to come together for this to happen smoothly.
Knowledge Transfer
Knowledge transfer is a critical aspect of the BA role that ensures project continuity and success. BAs engage in knowledge transfer activities by documenting project requirements, processes, insights, and sharing them with relevant stakeholders.
This transfer of knowledge occurs through various means such as training sessions, documentation repositories, mentorship programs, allowing team members and future analysts to build upon existing knowledge and make informed decisions throughout the project lifecycle.
Project Overview or Scope
At the kick-off of your new journey, you’ll get an overview of the project and its domain, including goals, objectives, timeline, and key stakeholders. It also covers all aspects of onboarding, including orientation to the client company culture, policies, procedures, and stakeholders.
Stakeholder Analysis
As a new member of the team, you must identify the key stakeholders involved in the project, their interests, and their level of influence. Project stakeholders include project sponsors, project team members, customers, vendors, regulators, competitors, and other individuals or groups who have a vested interest in the project's success.
You must analyze each stakeholder's needs and expectations and determine the best way to engage and communicate with them throughout the project. By conducting a thorough stakeholder analysis, you can develop an effective communication plan and build strong relationships with all stakeholders, which is critical for the success of any project.
Example of stakeholder analysis below:
BA Governance
BA governance is important for onboarding BAs to a project. It involves creating and enforcing guidelines to ensure their work aligns with the organization's goals. This leads to better outcomes, and regular training and monitoring should be conducted for ongoing compliance.
Some examples of BA governance areas include:
- Decision making
- Change control process
- Plan prioritization approach
- Plan for approvals
Benefits of BA governance:
- Great efficiency
- Better data quality
- Better compliance
- Better decision making
- Improved business performance
Documentation
The best way to learn about the project and process is through reading the necessary documentation available (if any).
Up-to-date documentation should be a single source of truth that can save time and energy while onboarding and throughout the project. Most companies have a Confluence space or wiki that outlines the necessary processes.
Key Project Documentation
The following documentation may or may not be available depending on what project methodology you are working in, the project domain and/or sensitivity of the document.
SOW (Statement of Work)
- Defines all the work management aspects of your project
- All activities, deliverables and timetable for the project
- Defines the terms and conditions agreed upon between parties
Project charter
- Explains the project in clear wording for C- level management
- Outline the entirety of projects to help teams quickly understand the goals, tasks, timelines, and stakeholders
Business case
- Defines the value it will deliver if executed and benefits the company over the costs involved
- Understanding of the components and necessary resources
BRD (Business Requirements Document)
- Describes in detail the business solution for the project as per business / customer / client’s needs and requirements
- Includes the purpose of starting the project, what business solution does it provides, the purpose behind doing the project, its features and functionalities, and its timeline of completion
SRS (Software Requirements Specification)
- Explains how and what the software/system will do
- Defines the features and functionality that the product requires to satisfy all stakeholders’ (business, users) needs
FS (Functional specification)
- A formal document that details all features and specifications of a certain software product
- The FS is one of the key documents created by a manager or lead developer
- The FS should contain enough detail for the developers to begin the design of the project and thereafter to begin coding
BA Approach
- Sets out the business analysis involvement for the work concerned to set expectations, to feed into a wider plan and gain agreement on the deliverables
- Should contain BA best practices, and processes related to writing and documenting requirements
Team Introduction
During the onboarding process of a new BA in the team, the team introduction is a crucial step in helping the new hire feel welcomed and integrated into the company culture. This may involve a formal introduction to team members and their respective roles, as well as an overview of ongoing projects and workflows.
Additionally, team members may share their backgrounds and experiences, allowing the new BA to build connections and understand the strengths of their colleagues.
This introduction period is also an opportunity for the new team members to ask questions and express their own perspectives, contributing to a dynamic and collaborative team environment.
Done correctly, a thorough team introduction can help ensure the new team member feels comfortable and confident in their role and is well-positioned to contribute meaningfully to the company's and project’s goals.
Training
“The action of teaching a person or animal a particular skill or type of behaviour”
Having an onboarding training plan is an essential part of getting the base knowledge about your specific project which allows you as a BA to integrate into a new team comfortably and confidently.
Benefits
- Shorten the learning curve and increase productivity
- Boost performance and start contributing immediately
- Acquire key knowledge points about how to work on the project
- Understand the standard operating procedures followed by the team
Drawbacks
- Onboarding training plan material may be out of date, not followed by the team
- Material may be poorly structured and misaligned with project knowledge required
- The timeline is too short leading to an unproductive onboarding experience
Opportunity
The BA always has an opportunity to continually improve an onboarding process by making suggestions and asking probing questions, which will benefit future employees by having a satisfying onboarding experience.
What should the BA do if there is not an onboarding training plan?
There may be times when you enter a new project and there’s no established training for a new hire. At this point, you need to gather all the necessary information and establish a training plan all by yourself. What can you do?
First, approach the Scrum Master or a project manager to learn more about the project and get tips and hints of where to find the information to start off the training process.
Secondly, after you get introduced to the team, talk to the QAs: these are the people who know the how the product the team works on better than anybody else.
Lastly, do not be shy to ask questions!
Don’t be hard on yourself you’re not supposed to know everything right from the start.
Dev and BA Collaboration
Collaboration between developers and BAs is essential for project success. BAs work closely with developers to translate business requirements into technical specifications and ensure alignment between the desired functionality and the actual implementation.
Regular communication, knowledge sharing, and mutual understanding between developers and BAs facilitate a smooth development process, reduce rework, and result in the delivery of high-quality solutions that meet the stakeholders needs.
KPI's for BAs
Depending on the type of project there may be a list of specific BA KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that have been put together by the lead/senior BA in collaboration with the customer.
The lead/senior BA can agree the metrics with the BA teams to assess BA performance and share with the client on demand.
If a KPI is going to be of value, there must be a way to accurately define and measure it.
Below are some examples of KPIs to measure the effectiveness of business analysis.
- % of rework attributable to requirements
- % of projects with prioritized requirements
- % of requirements fully implemented
- % of approved requirements not implemented
Over time, KPI's can be updated, added to or removed to continuously improve BA performance.
Access to Systems
Access to the necessary systems is a critical aspect when diving into a new project. You can approach the Scrum Master of the team, Project Manager, the Tech Lead, or your peers on the project to get all login credentials for the various applications, databases, and software programs.
This access to systems allows the BA to gather necessary insights and data, communicate with key stakeholders, and perform critical analysis of various business functions.
BA Support Tools
BAs can use various tools to support their work and enhance their performance on projects depending on goals and duties.
Data visualization tools
Enable BAs to analyze and present complex data in visually appealing ways, aiding in identifying patterns and trends, e.g. Tableau, Power BI.
Requirements management tools
Help capture, organize, and prioritize project requirements, ensuring alignment among stakeholders and development teams, e.g. Jira, Trello, Asana.
Collaboration platforms
Facilitate seamless communication and knowledge sharing among team members, e.g. MS Teams, Slack, MS Outlook.
Process modeling tools
Assist in documenting and visualizing current and future state processes, aiding in process improvement, e.g. Visio, Lucidchart, Miro, Mural, Draw.io, BPMN.io.
UI/UX design tools
Help create mockups, wireframes, and interactive prototypes enabling effective communication and feedback from stakeholders, e.g. Sketch, Figma, Balsamiq, Pidoco, Axure RP, InVision.
Virtual whiteboards
Assist in organizing retrospective sessions, enabling efficient collaboration, brainstorming, and documentation of insights and action items for continuous improvement, e.g. Miro, Mural, EasyRetro, Mindmup.com.
Storage tools
Help organize and securely store project-related documents, requirements, meeting notes, and other relevant information, e.g. SharePoint, Confluence, Google Drive.
Productivity tools
Faciliate document creation, data analysis, and presentation delivery, e.g. Microsoft Office Suite, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Key takeaways
- Onboarding is an integral part of all new employees entering a new project and it’s essential to start contributing and adding value to the project effectively.
- An effective onboarding strategy is about continually adding value to the training plan to keep it up to date and relevant for new employees. The onboarding strategy should be put together collaboratively with the immediate team and project team on the customer side to ensure that material is aligned with the project goal and change circumstances.
- Everyone is responsible for contributing to the onboarding training plan, and this should be reviewed often at least twice a year to ensure the material is relevant for any new employee.
- Having a well-organized, structured, up to date onboarding training plan will allow the new employee to gain knowledge and insights about the project and that means the employee will be able to contribute to the project needs more productively.
Acknowledgements
This article was written as a team, we actively participated in meetings and generated ideas to come up with the topic and structured the content based on our valuable project experiences onboarding onto projects.
I would like to thank all the writers who equally contributed to this comprehensive article: Nastassia Shahun, Olga Leshkovich, Rakesh Vetagire and Robert Mckenzie.
I would like to say a special thank you to Gordon Mullan for doing the article English review as well as some structural advice.
Stay tuned, more articles coming soon!
References
https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
Top Benefits of Data Governance for Businesses (techtarget.com)
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