Migration to Business Roles: Reflections

I was in my UNIX Network Administration course, a recreational course I am taking for fun, and I was discussing my plans.  The instructor was saying this was very high level (especially in contrast to nuts and bolts of UNIX).  I was like, well, perhaps, but someone has to bridge the gap between technology and business.  I explained that I want to empower business managers to make decisions, and help them understand technological limitations and opportunities.  I also what to be a champion of engineers and IT folks, to let them know that their needs and requirements are considered when executives craft business plans.

This always has been my goal, ever since I saw a brilliant project manager and vice president at Imaging in Apple Computer back in the day.  I was inspired from these role models.  At the same time, I was frustrated by infamous executives and directors that made decisions, which really showed lack of technological competence...

From here, I knew I needed to make a difference, and I dreamed of being an empowered technical person in the world of computing.  This was back in the 1990s.  A Business Analyst is just one of the roles that can help gain skills in this area, at least so far as can tell from my incipient knowledge.  I think this can branch out into process analyst, project management, product management, and other forms of analyst or management.

Training for Business Analyst

The UC Davis extension program offers a certificate in Business Analysis based off of BABOK Guide 2.0.  From several sources, this is the one program close to the Bay Area that I have found.   The total costs of the program covering 6 knowledge areas will cost $5150 to $5500, not including the $45 certificate application fee and textbooks.  The courses are offered completely online.

On their website covering Business Analyst, they state that salary survey shows that analysts earn more than $100,000 per year and are among the top 20 most recession-proof careers.  The part that gets me personally excited is the following text from their site:

 The dependence on technology has created the need for individuals with the ability to bridge the gap between business and IT.  Business analyst provide this crucial llink between functional areas such as human resources, finance, marketing, research and development, and IT.

They cover 6 areas that include as listed on their site: Business Analysis Fundamentals; Business Analysis: Planning and Monitoring; Enterprise Analysis: Defining the Business Need; Requirements Elicitation; Requirement Analysis, Management and Communication; and Solution Assessment and Validation.

The cost for the introductory course will be $685 with a 10% discount for PMI or IIBA members and grants 25 CDU or 25 PDU for earned credit programs for various certifications. for project management and business analyst  I was considering on taking the summer course, assuming I can save up enough for that course.

References:

• http://extension.ucdavis.edu/unit/business_and_management/certificate/business_analysis/).

Business Analyst, Part Deux (IT Bus Skills)

The Underlying Competencies mentioned in the BABOK Guide 2.0 is further broken down into:

• Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Creative Thinking
• Decision Making
• Learning
• Problem Solving
• Systems Thinking
• Behavioral Characterisitics
• Ethics
• Personal Organization
• Trustworthiness
• Business Knowledge
• Business Principles and Practices
• Industry Knowledge
• Organizational Knowledge
• Solution Knowledge
• Communiation Skills
• Oral Communicatons
• Teaching
• Written Communications
• Interaction Skills
• Facilitation and Negoiation
• Leadership and Influencing
• Teamwork
• Software Applications
• General-Purpose Applications
• Specialized Applications

Business Analyst (Business Skills)

In addition to project management, I identified business analyst as another set of skills related to information systems.  There are several paragraphs that define business analysis from BABOK Guide 2.0 (Business Analysis Body of Knowledge) by IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis).  My favorite line is: business analysts often play a central role in aligning the needs of a business units with the capabilities delivered by information technology, and may serve as a "translator" between those groups.  They listed project management, software development, quality assurance, and interaction design as related disciplines.

The BABOK Guide 2.0 lists these as knowledge areas:

• Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring,
• Elicitation,
• Requirements Management and Communication, 
• Enterprise Analysis,
• Requirements Analysis,
• Solution Assessment and Validation,
• Underlying Competencies,

There are application areas for business analysis and related professional bodies of an area listed in BABOK that I found interesting: Agile Development, Business Intelligence, Business Process Management, IT Service Management (ITIL), Lean and Six Sigma, Project Management, Software Quality Assurance, Software Process Improvement (CMMI), Strategic Planning, and Usability and User Experience Design.

Decision Management and Process Analytics

This is a curiosity for me to learn more about business side to information systems.  In doing research in the area of BPM (Business Process Management), I came across other related tools in the umbrella of process analytics and overall field of decision management.  Some of the terms I discovered are:

• PA-DM (Predictive Analytics and Data Mining)
• BAM (Business Activity Monitoring)
• KPI RMM (Rules Maturity Model)
• CEM (Customer Expectation Management)
• BRMS (Business Rules Management System)
• BI (Business Intelligence)
• BPI (Business Process Improvement)
• Lean Based Approaches
• Six Sigma
• TQM (Total Quality Management)
• BRE (Business Rules Engines)
• BDM (Business Decision Management)
• BRM (Business Rules Management)

Some of the modeling tools used for these are something like UML and OMG's BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation): http://www.bpmn.org/.   I am sure at some point some of this are turned into abstract E-R models as well when it comes time to implement databases.

There is training in BPM offered by BPM Institute (http://www.bpminstitute.org/) and BP Group (http://bpgroup.org/) and the recent Association of Business Process Management Professionals (http://www.abpmp.org/) with their BPM Body of Knowledge (BPM CBOK).  UC Berkely Extension offers a course called BPM Process Modeling, Analysis, and Design using BPM CBOK: http://extension.berkeley.edu/cat/course2216.html.

There seems to be a lot of momentum on CEM (Customer Expectation Management), and there's a group offering certification on that IPAPI (International Process and Performance Institute) and their CPP (Certified Process Professional): https://ipapi.org/open_courses.php.

Suffice to say, there's a lot of material out there, I can spend a day going through all of this, and the field is developing fast.   I have doubts that our public universities can respond quickly to cover the developing field.  Though, San Francisco State University used to offer a course in BPM, i.e. ISYS 569 : Information Systems for Business Process Management (http://www.sfsu.edu/~bulletin/courses/32203.htm), and they offer ISYS 650 : Business Intelligence (http://www.sfsu.edu/~bulletin/courses/33257.htm).  Though the later, I heard was not a good course.