From Drifting to Defined: Rebuilding a Business Analysis Practice
A major North American construction company had grown its business analysis capability without a shared standard for how it worked. The BAs sat inside the Continuous Improvement team, but business units saw little clear value from the role, and analysts had drifted into project coordination, testing and product ownership instead of core BA work.
Leadership could see the inconsistency but did not have the internal expertise to diagnose it, because the function was overseen by leaders without a BA or project delivery background.
The challengeNo consistent standard existed for how BAs operated across the organization’s initiatives. That left the role hard to measure, uneven in value and increasingly disconnected from the work it was meant to support.
Tricon’s roleTricon was engaged to run a fixed-fee assessment of the client’s BA practice: benchmark current-state roles, processes and tools against industry best practice, and deliver a prioritized roadmap for improvement.
The ApproachTricon ran a structured four-phase assessment, review, interview, analyze and recommend, across roughly four weeks.
Interviewed 31 stakeholders across BA, leadership, IT and business-partner groups, up from an initial scope of 25 at the client’s request.
Facilitated a stakeholder kickoff and a separate leadership alignment session to manage change and build trust before interviews began.
Benchmarked findings against the BABOK and Tricon’s BA maturity model, evaluating roles, delivery processes and supporting tools.
Extended the assessment to the surrounding initiative delivery model (IDM), since BA effectiveness was shaped by how clearly initiatives were governed and resourced.
Delivered a final assessment report and an executive summary presentation with prioritized, phased recommendations.
The outcomes17 findings and recommendations spanning BA role definition, delivery framework and initiative management.
Seven key risks flagged for leadership attention and action.
A three-phase roadmap sequencing foundational, core and long-term initiatives by priority and effort.
Three BA archetypes, strategic, functional and technical, giving the client a clear framework for role expectations.
The result For the first time, the client had an evidence-based picture of its BA practice and a sequenced plan to strengthen it, built on 31 cross-functional interviews rather than assumption. The assessment turned a vaguely-felt problem into a defined set of priorities leadership could act on.
This is Project Victory. This is the Tricon way.
