What makes a good SharePoint Analyst?

So what does make a good SharePoint BA, and what exactly is a SharePoint BA? This is an oft asked question and one that I think really need some thought.

What makes a SharePoint Analyst different to a ‘traditional’ BA?

Firstly when working with SharePoint there is a fine line between the ‘prescriptive‘ and ‘descriptive‘ approach. Whilst a traditional BA will simply ask a client what their needs are a SharePoint Analyst needs to balance this with the capabilities that the platform offers and how it can be leveraged to meet their needs. But this is where things get confusing… Talk to some people and they will say SharePoint is a platform, others will say it’s a product. So what exactly is it? Well it’s both but how you treat SharePoint depends on the three tenants of any software project: Time, Budget and Scope

SharePoint is both a Product and a Platform. How it is leveraged depends on the business, the BA, the requirements and the cost.

Leveraging the Platform

Firstly a good SharePoint BA will need to know how to most effectively leverage the platform to meet the needs of the enterprise and users. In many cases this will involve leveraging the out of the box components and then making a decision on how to make up the difference on what the platform can do and what the business really needs it to do to be effective. From experience it is much more effective to make use of the out of the box components than to redevelop custom functionality that might be 90% sufficient – but this exactly the conversation that a good SharePoint BA will have with clients. “This is what we can configure, this is what it will provide, this is what your users really want, and these are the costs associated” should be the mantra of the SharePoint BA”

To act as an advisor

The position of the SharePoint BA is really one of the advisor. You have the knowledge about the many possibilities that the platform offers and it’s up to you to advise the client on how to proceed through the murky waters of SharePoint. That advisor role cannot be emphasised enough when working with the product. But with the advisor role comes some hard decisions and actions. You will have to say no lest a project goes way, way out of scope. You will have to negotiate with the client over the three tenants. There will be situations that you will have to say no. But that’s half the fun isn’t it Good, intelligent SharePoint design and architecture can be orders of magnitude less costly and more effective than a poorly designed solution

Technical and personal skills

You need to have an understanding about what the product can do because it’s much easier to be able to steer the conversation with the client when it happens rather than investigate a scenario and then realise that it’s too expensive or simply not feasible. Now no one person can really know everything about SharePoint, I would hazard that even good Consultants, Analysts or whatever you want to call them only know about 30% of what the platform can do, but its knowing that 30% that will make the difference.

You need to know the ‘what’ of the platform, not as much the ‘how’

The ‘what’ refers to what the platform can do and what it can’t, and where the line is between configuration and customisation. The ‘how’ are the deep technical issues that this might entail, this isn’t the realm of the advisor, there are brilliant technical architects and people that have already forgotten more about the technical issues of SharePoint than you will ever know! In addition you  need those personal skills when dealing with individual and enterprises. You need to know how to negotiate the person issues, the battles and win people over with your knowledge, skill and intelligence.

What do you need to be a good SharePoint Analyst

• Be passionate about what you do: Project Managers are passionate about time, scope and budget. Developers are passionate about technology, the SPBA needs to be passionate about both!
• Need to have compassion for people: Help them understand SharePoint, some people aren’t that technically savvy, don’t try to sell them SharePoint, sell them a solution to their problems
• Need to have restraint: Don’t use every possible feature of SharePoint, don’t show every single feature of SharePoint
• A sense of humour: Firstly a good sense of humour is always need when you do a demo or forget or make a mistake in something that you say. Anyone who doesn’t have a good sense of humour working with the 2010 beta would be the nut house by now!
• Be humble: Fact is you won’t know it all, every day there are 1000 things to learn about the product and on many occasions you simply don’t know…be honest

  Don’t try to sell users SharePoint, sell them a solution to their problem

What does a good SharePoint Analyst bring to the team?

• Clients: Clients want someone that will join them on this SharePoint journey, they want someone that is equally comfortable in technical and business conversation, this can be you!
• Project Managers: Project Managers , whether traditional or Agile, love that there is someone there that will control scope, time and budget that frequently can derail even the best intentioned projects.
• Developers: Love the fact that they can concentrate on building interesting stuff while you are crafting out of the box solutions for your clients. Let the Developers have fun!

So I hope that some of you fulfill this role and really love what you do. In this site we are going to try to focus on all the things that we feel are important in becoming a good SharePoint Analyst but please let us know if we are missing the mark!

Tags: featured, post-wide

Category: General, Planning, Requirements and Analysis, Tools and Templates