David Avis's presentation from the event held at LV in Bournemouth on 24th October 2013

1. #UKIIBA

2. • A bit about the Annual BA Survey (what it is / what’s in it / why do I do it!).
• Play your BA Cards Right!
• A look at some of the key data – the state of the nation
• Our role in driving the profession forward
• Next steps / questions
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4. • Now running for two years.
• The ONLY comprehensive UK Wide benchmarking for BAs.
• Results FREE to all.
• Published under Creative Commons (free to use and
distribute).
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Profile across the UK (Location, sector, length of career)
Professional Activity (processes, duties covered and techniques used)
Practice Maturity
Personal Opinions (growth, recognition)
IIBA UK Performance
Professional Tools usage
Qualification Holdings
Employment (Retention and Attraction)
Remuneration (Salaries, Day Rates, Bonus, Benefits)
Sample Size for 2012 is 421
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The IIBA UK take a major interest in the growth of the BA Profession in the UK;
Measure it – Drive it!
Enables personal identification of
self against my profession
Enables BA Practices to identify
their maturity against others
Drive the
Profession
forwards!
Annual
Enables Suppliers to offer more
tailored products and services
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Two contestants.
For the first question both will write down an answer. Closest takes control of the
board.
Audience participation is encouraged at all stages!
All questions are based on the 2012 UK BA Survey.
All answers are %s
Once in play, the contest who controls the board simply has to answer whether
the answer to the current question is higher or lower than the previous answer.
8 questions to win the game!
However, for a wrong answer, play is passed to the other contestant who
continues from where the previous player left off.
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10. 47%
63%
55%
26%
40%
38%
48%
79%
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12. What’s hot!
Diversity
Experience
How we feel
Position in
Organisation
Under invested
Responsibility
What’s not
Remit of Role
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13. BAs by Sector
• 47% Financial Services but 3rd
largest segement is ‘other’ and
covers 31 sectors – none of which
represent more than 0.7% of the
BAs polled. In total 41 diverse
sectors.
• Really good sign in terms of the
proliferation of the role and the
transferable nature
BAs by Region
• Regionally we still see highest
deployment of BAs in London and
the South but we have fairly good
coverage in other regions too.
• Anecdotally that representation is
growing too.
Good levels of diversity both regionally and by sector
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14. BA Service Offering
• Both good and bad (I’ll explain),
there are different levels of
involvement in processes,
techniques, and methodologies. We
obviously see the common areas
(requirements, waterfall, etc.) being
the main focus but many of us
reach out to other areas too.
BA Actual Processes Conducted
Techniques Used
Wide set of service offerings and techniques
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15. % of Development by Method
• When it comes to IT build
methodologies we’re also well
versed to work on a wider range of
methods. Whilst last year 83% of
BAs worked on waterfall projects,
63% also worked Agile.
• Growth on ‘hybrid’ techniques
could be good or bad!
Overall Exposure to Methods
63% of Business Analysts are using Agile Software Development approaches
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16. • Over a 3rd of all BAs have been working in
the field for over 10 years – showing vast
levels of expereince in the proffession.
• Less than 5% have worked in BA for less
than a year showing good routes into the
profession.
• The latter stat may be an indication of
growth too but without info on exits out
of the BA profession its hard to determine
anything conclusive.
PM Duties Performed
BA Career Length
• Rightly or wrongly, 73% of us also
carry out or sometimes carry out
project management duties.
• Although only 46% have any formal
PM training!
3rd of all BAs have been working in the field for over 10 years
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17. • 79% of BAs agreed (strongly or
otherwise) that they personally feel
valued as a BA. Up 3% on 2011 too.
• 80% of BAs also felt that the role of
Business Analyst was gaining in
recognition.
• Both incredibly strong numbers in
terms of how people feel about
their chosen career path.
BAs Feel Valued
BAs Feel Gain in Recognition
8 out of 10 Business Analysts feel that their role is gaining in recognition
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18. • There’s also strong confidence in
the role in the Market. Only a hand
feel it would take more than 6
months to find a similar role should
the worst happen.
• About 33% of BAs are ‘actively’
looking for their next role – It’s hard
to say what this means but suggest
healthy movement if the market
can support that level of turn over
• If we put aside – the positive
movement (people ready for their
next challenge, growing careers,
etc.) it also means that 67% are
happy where they are.
BAs Re-Employment Confidence
80% of BAs are confident they could find similar employment in under 3 months
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19. • 48% of BAs are still based within
the IT department and we’re
actually seeing (albeit over two
years) a drop in the proportion
based in the business units.
• There’s no hard or fast answer as
we’re often the spanning point
between the two but natural
maturity says that we’d step out of
IT and take a more strategic role in
the business.
Organisational Homes for BA
Projects Resulting in Software
• Most of our projects also indicate a
strong IT focus and less
involvement with Continuous
Improvement / business based
projects.
Most BAs still report into the IT Department
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20. Would Investment De-Risk Projects?
• 88% of BAs feel that increasing
investment in the company /
practice would de-risk projects.
• And that’s not a selfish stat.
Whatever metrics we use we know
our work is the lynch pin when it
comes to successful delivery.
• Almost unanimously, 96% of BAs
believe that the quality of the BA
input directly affects the outcome
of the project.
• But then if we look at things like
tool usage and training we see a
lack of support…
‘78% of Business Analysts feel
that the use of professional
requirements elicitation and
management tools helps to ensure
good quality projects’
Quality of Work Directly Impacts Project Success?
‘only 46% of Business Analysts
have one or more BCS modules’
96% of BAs say that the quality of there work directly affects the outcome of the project.
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21. • 78% of BAs believe that
professional tools ensure quality
projects yet only 55% have access
to these tools.
Professional Tools Drive Project Success?
Tool Usage
80% of BAs believe that professional tools ensure quality projects
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22. • This ones actually quite surprising –
whilst we offer a lot of ‘services’
and have involvement in lots of
project activity we’re not taking as
much accountability as we should.
We saw a general 5% drop back in
responsibility (against 2011) and 9%
don’t feel they’re accountable for
any of the processes listed!
• Vital that we see ourselves as
responsible for what we do and
communicate it as such.
Professional Tools Drive Project Success?
1 in 10 BAs don’t consider themselves to be responsible for any key process
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23. • Our service offering, whilst diverse,
is centred around requirements.
• A vital part of our offering but
there’s so much more we could be
doing.
• We should partner with the
business owners gain trust through
flawless implementations and
obtain the remit to help generate
new investment into the business
teams.
• BAs can add value to the whole
lifecycle… and beyond!
BA Service Offering
True value and maturity comes with e2e BA involvement
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24. What’s hot!
Diversity
Experience
How we feel
Position in
Organisation
Under invested
Responsibility
What’s not
Remit of Role
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Download a copy of the results from http://uk.theiiba.org/index.php/aboutus/basurvey
Further reading on the case for investment (Because You’re Worth It) published in
Analyst Anonymous Spring 2013 (page 20 & 21)
http://www.assistkd.com/_uploads/documents/analysts-anonymous/aa-spring2013.pdf
Share with your colleagues.
Sign up to the IIBA UK mailing list to take part / receive results for 2013
(September).
You could win a place at next years European BA Conference through participation.
If you’re interested in Practice Level Assessments – Drop a line to
david.sean.avis@gmail.com
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