Journey to Create a High Performance Business Analysis Function
1. Place your chosen
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For covers, the three
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Journey to Create a High Performance
Business Analysis Function
Craig Rollason
UK Business Analysis Manager
November 2015
3. The BA challenge at National Grid
3
Energy Industry Drivers IT Industry Drivers
4. About the BA Team
7 UK business portfolios
26 Internal / 20 3rd
party
“BA Support Team”
Awards & Recognition
BCS BA of the Year 2013/14, 14/15, finalist 15/16
BCS Best Place to work in IT finalist 2015/16
BCS IT Manager the year finalist 2014/15
“Close to world class” employee engagement
Interviewed on engage for success radio.
Chairman’s Award - Fathers @ Work & Inc. and Diversity
4
5. Change Drivers
“Raise the bar for high performance”
Create a high performance practice
Practice as a Single entity
Build Knowledge
Multi sourcing
Sustainable
…and save money doing it
5
6. BA Vision
6
For the UK Business Analysis (BA) team to be known
internally and externally as a high performance BA practice
providing insight, experience, and innovation in the way we
work and what we deliver.
7. Story of building the practice
Consult industry best practice
Management sign on
Communicate
Develop your team
Continuous improvement
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8. Team Organisation (March 2013)
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For Against
Continuity of resources Local interpretation (resourcing,
standards)
Depth of knowledge Breadth of knowledge
Geography Development opportunities
Full booked to projects – limited
improvement time
9. Team Organisation - Options
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Option Description Model
1 (as-is) Portfolio Lead
2 Enhanced Portfolio
3 Matrix Structure
4 Critical and Non-Critical
10. Matrix Design & Principles
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Resourcing Lead
1:1s, professional development,
Challenging perspectives
Best Practice & Standards Lead
Community feel
11. Performance Management of Practice
“Performance Hub” content
Safety
Feedback – business
engagement & work quality
Resource Utilisation
Practice feedback
3C’s – concern, cause,
correction
Resource SLAs
Efficiency Tracker
Team Barometer 11
Providing control &
visibility of overall BA
performance to senior
management
12. Diversity of Role &
Skills
Service Catalogue
Alignment of resources
& development
BA Services & Resourcing
Q. What does a BA do?
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13. Performance Management of Individuals
Company Framework
Rating Assessment (Weighting)
Safety compliance
Contribution to team, function or wider company (20%)
Work performance feedback (80%)
Monitored on the performance hub
13Business Engagement Quality of Work
14. Engaging Individuals
Individual Level
1:1
Resource Support
Best Practice Support
Team Level
Weekly call – rotating leadership
Team event – “ASK”
BA Community of Practice
Book Club – BA Lead Role
Mentoring & Topic Leads 14
15. Sustaining Engagement
New Ways to Learn
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• Build a tower using spaghetti, string with a marshmellow
on top – 18 mins
• www.marshmellowchallenge.com
• Agile Principles
• Team work
• Fun
16. Lessons Learned
1. Management support remains #1
2. Continue selling the value, keep on the radar
3. Right people in the team (& keep them engaged)
4. Keep aligned with the company agenda
5. Don’t be precious about the model
6. Time - Marathon not a sprint
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17. The Future?
Resourcing becomes a ‘one-stop shop’ across multiple
disciplines
BA team recognised for wider value – not just IT
Develop our Community of Practice to include non-IS
and non- National Grid BA’s
IIBA creates an award called
‘BA Team of the year’ and NG wins!
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Editor's Notes
(3) Mins - AF
Intro:
Welcome (AF)
AF – Resourcing FL
CR – Practice Manager
What we are talking about (see slide)
(3m) - AF
Message – big agenda – IT is at the heart – good business analysis ensures we get this right
Energy Industry Drivers
1 Managing supply & demand of gas and electricity through change – examples - connecting to europe (saves UK cosumbers £1bn). Upgrading our Gas network to manage the change in supply – e.g. LNG terminal.
2 Conecting our network to new forms of sustainable energy e.g. windfarms
3 replacing assets on our aging networking
IT Industry Drivers
1. Exploit mobility for our workforce to give them access to information and decisions in the field
2. Protecting our network from cyber attacks. IT is at the heart of our control centres them keep the lights on and the gas flowing so protecting is essential.
3. Cloud computing and big data gives us new data analytics to make decisions in where to investment.
But we are regulated infrastructure company and we have to keep out costs low. So good business analysis ensures
1. Cost efficiency - great business cases for our investments
2. Commercially Savvy - 80% outsourced IT spend
(3m) - AF
Portfolios covering gas and electricity distribution and transmission plus back office functions (finance, etc) and smaller businesses.
Awards
For BA – good
But we look wider – ew encourge the BA’s to engage in the wider agenda. – stakeholder and analysis skills. – more on that later
So lets start the jounney. - AF
(3m)
Back in 2013 we had a re-organisation (… about happens all the time)
3m
At this point annabel hands over to Craig
So we started we a vision we agreed on to know what we
CR
When I took on the role I went through a series of steps to show how we planned to build a practice cabale of delivering the vision.
(5m)
CR
Started with business portfolio model. By portfolio I mean different business area.
CR - 5m
1 – Portfolio (as-is)
Thin layer of BA management & internal BA capability
No process support
2 – Enhanced portfolio
- Build BA mgmt structure within portfolios
CNI Band D (ESO + GSO), Shared Band D (Portfolios)
Switch key positions to internal + deputies in lead positions
Additional Best Practice Role (internal)
Work pack mgmt
3 – BA Practice (Matrixed Pool)
Minimal BA Mgmt – called off by BC & PM’s
All resources, internal, SDC & Contractors managed as a pool
Additional Best Practice Role (internal)
PM’s manage all workpacks
Split out business analysts vs project mobilisation
4 – Split model based on CNI/Non CNI
combination of option 2 and 3
CNI BA’s report to one BA Manager (this could report solid or dotted line to SO relationship manager
The non-CNI are managed as a pool.
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We choose matrix model – better development of individuals, drove consustency of how we work e.g. resourcing and methods. Allowed us to easier design and implement sharing of knowledge and success.
5m
Craig hands back to annebel.
Talk about the roles. Annabel talk about your experience. What annabel does is………..high level.
Community feel – ASK, COPS, WEEKLY CALLS, BUDDYING, 1:1’s, SITE Visits. – where are there to support them, not manage them.
Feedback – not just BA’s for perfmance but the support team as well…what we do is….survey monkey etc,.
3m - AF
Talk about hub,
AF
Part og introducing lean thinking in to National Grid – whole org is tranisiotn to manage performance via hub concept.
Here is BA hub
3 main areas – people, perf, CI.
“one shot view”, no more than 10 mins once a week, shared with rest of team, shared with senior management.
Reference to Craig’s IRM article. (leave one the sheet)
Come and see the us in detail over lunch. Bring us some lunch!
Annabel – to included why services and how you resource to serviuce, not get me a BA. - Af
(2m)
Annabel hands of to Craig. - CR
(2m) company fraemework - What and How
Balanced objectives – wider contribution recgonised – not just the job on its own.
Essential to keep people engaged in the work, team and the wider company. - CR
1m
1m - CR
combination of practice learning and fun.
Mention puppet show to get messages across.
Selling the value – hub at tina level, speaking at other events – int and ext, help the company agenda e.g. father, I&D, faciltation support outside IS.
(3m)
Message – we are keen to joinup with otrhers & help others – here are our email addresses and contact numbers. (laminated sheet) + small freebie.
Here is our linked in NG BA interest group to carry on the conversation (Craig to Set-up) about the practice.