How do I, the BA, work best with you
Posted by Marva432@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 52 comments
I’m new to the Business Analyst role and the IT team, but not new to the company. I haven’t worked with any of them in my other roles. I have a certificate in our CRM but no sysadmin or dev knowledge really. The rest of the team are seasoned vets who I gather don’t have a lot of patience for me acting green. What are some things BAs do that irritate you? Can you describe a really good working relationship you’ve had with a BA? Just trying not to make too many missteps and annoy anyone. Thanks
ryanp83@reddit
Gathering the proper information and requirements and including the proper it teams early on are both huge. Planning is everything
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply, learning to get the proper peoples’ eyes on things early on
ryanp83@reddit
My current org struggles with this and the PMs tend to wait too long to get IT teams included. Then it becomes a rush for the teams to get things ready and it’s not fun.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
We’re struggling with not having an established process and channel to consult across departments or even project manage within the IT team, so people get missed or are an after thought causing lots of start-stop and speed bumps. One of the unofficial projects on my list is figuring out how we PM
TheDunadan29@reddit
I think the biggest thing is getting the technical input from the Sysadmin and not just giving orders. You can collaborate by asking the Sysadmin what their recommendations are. I built a good working relationship with one BA by deferring to his area of specialty, and he'd defer to mine. Together we could cover most aspects of a project by simply just talking with each other. Sometimes we'd touch base before a meeting just to make sure we had the right info each of us needed (granted, we were collaborating with clients so wanted to be on the same page before presenting to the client, you may not need a before meeting meeting) but the idea being if you can play off each other well then you'll have a great working relationship.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I’m learning how to best work with the different SMEs on the team, e.g. getting certain people’s eyes on feature requests and solutions before we get too far, because they might know of a good existing workaround
TheDunadan29@reddit
Sounds like you're getting the hang of it. Cheers!
GloveLove21@reddit
Be able to do your job, but as someone who is also a people pleaser, try to work on acknowledging that any disrespectful behavior from them isn't a reflection of you, but on them.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply, trying to not be sensitive and take things personally, but balance that with that I really do have learning to do to be a good teammate and work efficiently with them
pdp10@reddit
Business Analyst can mean slightly different things in different organizations. Ours focus on discovery and analysis of workflows, and on applications. Business requirements/projects are supposed to go to BAs, not ambush engineers at the espresso machines.
We appreciate all of our BAs, but I can think of one in particular who I know impressed the engineers and the business leaders both by being competent and thorough. They asked intelligent questions of the SMEs, often ones where forward-thinking or asking preferences paid off.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply, having the understanding to have considerations like that in mind and ask those good questions early on is what I aspire to
Mackswift@reddit
Unless it's assigning rights or roles to accounts, know the CRM that you are using for your job. BAs have a terrible habit of bothering sys admins and engineers when they don't understand the CRM (problems or otherwise).
And from a compliance and least privileged standpoint, we really should not have a high level of access to the CRM. Role and security assignment, sure. Able to see sales and operational data, that's a hell no.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply, I have a certification in the CRM and I’m interested and eager but trying to stay in my lane because we have someone else for that
dunnage1@reddit
This is a good one: ask questions and listen to your devs. Pretty soon you'll be able to decipher technobabble and coherent thoughts.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply, zero IT experience before 2 months ago and so glad I did some night learning beforehand, and following these subs
LAKnerd@reddit
Omg I've had such good experiences with BAs! Know your way around a computer, get familiar with the business side of things, and help translate between us admins/developers and the business people.
Establish that you're on their side and be willing to learn.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply, trying to prove I’m on their side and a valuable addition
Practical-Alarm1763@reddit
None of our business analysts did that. We called those "Communication Coordinators" lol
TitsGiraffe@reddit
I only remember being annoyed by BAs who weren't computer literate. It's kind of important when you're trying to recommend something to address a business need if you don't know basics. Or they'd argue with us when we would refuse requests that weren't technically possible or feasible, like we were trying to avoid work? When you can't code you don't get to tell the coder what is going to work.
...Just don't be those and I'm sure you'll kill it.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply, I’m trying to defer to those who know what I don’t know, which means knowing what I don’t know
Immediate-Opening185@reddit
Don't say things that pops into your head the second it gets there. Use the five Y's to determine if there are any obvious road blocks that you can see. This also applies to questions, don't be afraid to ask if you really can't get a handle on something but if you go to people and can't show that you tried your not going to be well liked.
gnipz@reddit
This, for real. I have a coworker who will do the following kinds of things.
Gets me on a call. Asks how to do X. I ask him to look at the documentation I wrote, mainly because I need to know if there’s a section that needs to be explained better. He starts to read it, gets hung up on “where is that?” All he had to do was finish reading the sentence.
It’s getting extremely frustrating, to say the least.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply, definitely trying to not be that person
gnipz@reddit
No worries and don’t overthink it. Everyone has limits to their knowledge. If you’re researching an issue, be sure to keep notes and screenshots of your findings along the way. It’ll help when it comes that time to reach out to a colleague/team for a second pair of eyes. Good luck!
DowntownBad6182@reddit
First I've heard of the 5 whys, this was interesting! https://youtu.be/SrlYkx41wEE?si=MSz407QdAYtvHaBU
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply. 5 whys is so simple but it’s amazing how the average person just doesn’t root cause
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply
tekaccount@reddit
Honestly your question seems like you're on the right track. It shows that you want to understand the relationship and be collaborative. I think you'd benefit asking BAs about their lessons learned.
I think the best path to success for anyone that ends up in an IT shop with a non technical function is to really understand why you're there and then demonstrate that to the team.
BA means different things everywhere you go, but in most cases you're a translator and the tech side is your second language. Understanding the tech is vital, but don't take that as you need to take a coding bootcamp. You need to know enough to intelligently talk to the sysadmins/ engineers and really know what you're asking of them. What seems like a simple adjustment on a GUI could be weeks of dev. For this reason you'll always benefit from a dialogue with the tech team instead of a demand.
The other side is being able to communicate business/user needs to the tech team in a meaningful way. The plight of tech people in business is that they understand the tech. The users don't. It's going to happen that you ask for a fix or change, but to your engineer it isn't broken. the user just doesn't get it or they're "lazy". Being thoughtful and understanding of both sides is how you bridge that gap.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I’m learning to stay in my lane, and a lot about managing users expectations and really validating the business need
I_ride_ostriches@reddit
There is a fine art of knowing how to ascertain what it is that the users/business actually need vs what they are asking for. Like when my wife says she needs more time in the day, what she needs is for me to do more chores around the house. Also, if there’s an application that does 9/10th of what they need, don’t recommend a new app for that one thing. Also, start small, then build.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply. Definitely learning to take a step back and validate the need is a need. And trying to get other departments comfortable with MVPs
bylebog@reddit
You'd be better served asking in a BA associated community what you should look out for or be doing. You will need to provide some idea of what the employer's expectations for your position are in order to get anything other than generic "be good at it" or "don't try to change everything at once."
I will let you know, you should look into asking smart questions. Respect everyone's time and don't make folks ask for detail that should be included in the original communication.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for the link. I actually have a daily reminder to be more resourceful before asking questions, and not voice any thoughts without validating any assumptions. I come from a team with a very warm fuzzy culture where it’s pretty ok to not be very resourceful and ask a lot of questions, the type of team that starts every meeting with a warm up question about which cat meme reflects your aura today. I’m now very suddenly with a relatively unfriendly bunch who don’t do small talk and will not spare my feelings if I’m asking stupid questions. I want to be better, I don’t like when people aren’t resourceful, I want my team to see value in me being here, but I keep learning lessons the hard way.
kg6kvq@reddit
Google is your friend, I appreciate people that are willing to learn … but I really appreciate those who try to solve a problem before raising it to me. Our group isn’t necessarily unfriendly, we are just jaded, cynical, and lean more towards dark humor than warm and fuzzy.
If you need to take notes on things, do so.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I’m trying to be resourceful, and definitely take mad notes
dboytim@reddit
Have this conversation with them. I suspect that if you went to them, said "hey I'm new and I want to not annoy you, I come from a department that started meetings with cat auras, so help me work with you" it'll go a long way. Especially if you can handle them being very direct and tell them you're ok with it. The fact that you're asking here is a good start.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I make a point to call myself out in standup when I’ve made assumptions that were not validated and wrong, or 1:1 if I asked a stupid question
ObeseBMI33@reddit
Learn how to use outlook and excel.
pdp10@reddit
Of course you mean learn the preferred tools in an environment.
I'm hesitant to even say that BAs should "learn spreadsheets", because BAs shouldn't be gaffer-taping workflows together with a manual spreadsheet manipulation. In a fair few organizations, BAs spend most of their project time replacing risky spreadsheets with server-side code that can be validated and runs 24x7.
So, being able to read and understand spreadsheet code is quite useful for BAs, but usually the real skill is ANSI SQL.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply
Practical-Alarm1763@reddit
We used to have a "Business Analyst" at an MSP and they were a combination of a receptionist, client account manager, provided a tier 1 helpdesk before opening a ticket with IT, and also assigned escalation tickets from support to engineers. I've also worked in a business where the "Business Analyst" worked heavily with SQL database management, report development, SQL scripts, stored procedures, and BI report dashboards. Essentially they were a data wizard with the job title "Business Analyst"
Till this day, I still have no fucking idea what a "Business Analyst" is or does.
So for starters, let us know what exactly it is you do lol.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply
operativekiwi@reddit
Business analysts are supposed to gather requirements from clients and translate them into a "Story" for the technical teams.
BornAgainSysadmin@reddit
Glad you said it first. My org has multiple roles titled as business analyst or business systems analyst, but these are just the job code/classification HR used to shoehorn in people during our last reorg. The actual jobs range from help desk to DBAs.
aust_b@reddit
I was in two sysadmin-ish roles over the course of a few years fresh out of school before I went to a BA role. Honestly just ask questions. I always made sure to ask questions rather than just do, because people get more frustrated when things break and it could’ve been prevented with a simple question.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply
woodsbw@reddit
But LEARN when you ask questions.
Most people don’t like answering questions…but no one like answering the same ones 3+ times.
aust_b@reddit
Asking questions to learn is completely different than asking questions to get by. Should’ve specified that.
PessimisticProphet@reddit
Know how to use a computer at a level that's respectable for your job title. You should be able to do your job without sys admin input outside of granting you access or setup of applications.
Marva432@reddit (OP)
Thank you for taking the time to reply
Mackswift@reddit
Ohmystory@reddit
Understand the financial aspects on infrastructure, operations, customer, capex, opex, amortization … month end, qtr end, year ends. How the company do budgeting … etc