Traditional business analysis is built around the sponsor who pays for the project. It’s done to the stakeholder, not for them. Old-school business analysis is under the hammer of time, cost and quality, and any restrictive scope measures to solve the problem—to build the product, to land the service, to make the change.
When the stakeholder has little choice but to listen to you and live with what you give, when there are only three similar options, only one service provider available, only limited choice, the path to bottom-line might be the path worth pursuing.
But the newly enlightened stakeholder has discovered that what looks like distraction to the project sponsor feels like opportunity. They’ve come to realise that they have an infinite number of choices, an endless array of options. For the business analyst, they’re caught trying to facilitate the hedgehog and the fox one—a project simplified against one high-level idea versus a project that revolves around different questions.
Thousands of niche business solutions.
Hundreds of ERP system’s available in the market.
More experts, solutions and consultancies than they could ever consider, never mind engage with or hire.
Having this plethora of choice, most of it offered by people who are simply wielding a hammer, the stakeholder is making the obvious choice. Go somewhere else.