As a young BA I gained the opportunity to work on the homepage of a big media website (homepage is one of the most visited pages!). With the team we wanted to introduce a new section to the homepage, so that trending topics would be made more prominent. I was working closely with the editorial team on the way stories would be presented there. Designs were prepared, shared and approved. Everything was ready to go live when I heard the question “What about ads?”. Digital advertising is a major revenue source for the site and we have forgotten to involve the ads team! A campaign is not always running on the homepage and as we haven’t been seeing ads during development, we have completely forgotten the ads team and adding ad slots! Unfortunately ad slots did not fit well with our new pretty designs and we had to rework the new section.

I learnt a key lesson: stakeholders can be different than the requester. BAs role is to investigate all the composing parts and shape the big picture in their head, to identify all interested parties and keep them all involved.  

When you start work on a piece of business analysis, ask yourself the questions: Are there any other people who are interested in solving the problem? What are their positions? Who are the decision makers? 

Make sure that everyone interested is involved – you can ask at meetings if there is anyone else who needs to be informed on the ongoing work. 

Identify:

  • Those who raised the problem
  • Those who would benefit from the solution
  • Those who have special knowledge
  • Those who will use or implement the result