IM BLOG: Business Analysis Skills: The Secret Weapon for Information Management Success
The records and information management landscape is changing rapidly. Between exponential data growth, increasing C-suite attention, and the relentless march of AI and automation, information management professionals are facing unprecedented challenges. The old ways of doing things simply aren't cutting it anymore.
Here's the reality: in a world where projects compete fiercely for limited resources and executive attention, information management initiatives need a competitive edge. That edge? Business analysis skills. These aren't just nice-to-have competencies – they're becoming essential tools for any information management professional who wants to deliver successful outcomes and build their professional brand within the organisation.
The good news is that you don't need to become a certified business analyst overnight. By mastering three core techniques – stakeholder analysis, requirements gathering, and process modelling – you can dramatically improve your project success rates and ensure your information management initiatives get the attention and resources they deserve.
Understanding Your Players: The Power of Stakeholder Analysis
Think of stakeholder analysis as your project GPS – it tells you who matters, where they're coming from, and how to navigate the organisational landscape successfully. Without it, you're essentially driving blind through a complex web of competing interests, hidden agendas, and unspoken expectations.
A stakeholder is anyone whose support is essential for your organisation's existence. In information management terms, that includes everyone who creates, consumes, or relies on data, information, and records to achieve organisational goals. The challenge isn't just identifying these people – it's understanding what makes them tick and how to work with them effectively.
The stakeholder analysis process involves four critical steps:
- Identification: Recognising all individuals and groups who can impact or be affected by your project, including both internal and external stakeholders
- Interest assessment: Understanding their goals, concerns, attitudes, communication preferences, and any cultural considerations
- Influence evaluation: Mapping their decision-making authority, resource control, expertise, relationships, and past influence
- Prioritisation: Categorising stakeholders based on their importance and potential impact on your project
One of the most effective tools for managing this complexity is the power/interest matrix. This simple grid helps you plot stakeholders based on their influence over the project and their level of interest in its outcomes. A project sponsor typically sits in the high power/high interest quadrant and requires close management, while organisational customers might be low power/low interest but still need monitoring.
Remember, not all stakeholders are created equal. Your approach to each group should reflect their position on this matrix, ensuring you're investing your time and energy where it will have the greatest impact on project success.
Getting to the Heart of It: Requirements Gathering That Actually Works
Once you understand your stakeholder landscape, it's time to dig into what they actually need. Requirements gathering is where many information management projects either soar or crash and burn. Get it right, and you'll deliver solutions that genuinely solve problems. Get it wrong, and you'll find yourself defending a system that nobody wants to use.
There are four types of requirements you need to consider:
- Business requirements: The high-level goals, objectives, and outcomes that define project success
- Stakeholder requirements: The specific needs that must be met for each stakeholder group
- Solution requirements: Both functional (what the solution should do) and non-functional (how it should perform)
- Transition requirements: The often-overlooked elements needed to bridge current and future states, including training and change management
Two critical skills will make or break your requirements gathering efforts. First, you need to challenge "because we've always done it this way" thinking. This means encouraging critical thinking, backing up discussions with data, and sometimes educating stakeholders about what's possible with new solutions. Leading from the top with a continuous improvement mindset creates space for open discussion and innovation.
Second, help your stakeholders distinguish between needs and wants using the MoSCoW method:
- Must have: Essential requirements critical for business process, compliance, and project success
- Should have: Important but not critical requirements that add value
- Could have: Desirable requirements that are nice to include if resources allow
- Won't have: Least critical requirements that may be considered for future phases
This framework becomes invaluable during procurement processes, providing a clear measurement system for evaluating potential solutions and vendors.
Making the Invisible Visible: Process Modelling for Better Outcomes
Process modelling works hand-in-hand with requirements gathering to provide a visual representation of how your organisation actually works. This isn't just about creating pretty diagrams – it's about understanding the real flow of information and identifying opportunities for improvement that align with your project goals.
Effective process modelling helps you:
- Clarify activity sequences: Understanding the logical flow of work
- Map information touchpoints: Identifying where information is generated and consumed
- Define participant roles: Understanding who's involved and when
- Identify trigger events: What starts each process
- Reveal process intersections: Critical for ensuring requirements aren't considered in isolation
- Document outcomes: What each process is designed to achieve
Whether you use simple flow diagrams or more sophisticated Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) standards depends on your project complexity and stakeholder needs. The key is choosing an approach that serves your audience and objectives.
Every process model should include these essential elements: activities (individual steps), events (triggers), directional flow (logical sequence), decision points (where paths split), links (connections to other processes), and roles (organisational positions, not individual names).
The Strategic Advantage
Business analysis techniques give information management professionals a strategic advantage in today's competitive project environment. They facilitate stronger presence during prioritisation decisions, help ensure successful project delivery, and build the relationships that influence future opportunities.
Most importantly, these skills bridge the gap between information management, IT, and organisational strategies. In organisations without dedicated business analysts, developing these competencies becomes even more critical for information management professionals who want to contribute effectively to projects.
The reality is that information management is gaining unprecedented attention from C-suite leaders. This attention creates both opportunity and pressure. By developing business analysis skills, you position yourself to capitalise on this moment, delivering projects that genuinely support business objectives while meeting compliance requirements.
The magic dust isn't actually magic at all – it's methodical, strategic, and learnable. It's about understanding people, processes, and priorities well enough to design solutions that work in the real world, not just on paper. For information management professionals ready to elevate their impact and influence, these business analysis skills aren't optional – they're essential.
Meet your blog author:
Experienced and passionate leader with a demonstrated history of working in both government administration and the private sector. Skilled in information management, business analysis, business process improvement, customer and vendor relationship management, IT technical management as well as a wide range of transferable knowledge and experience.
A leader committed to ongoing professional development and personal growth with a BBus focused in Business, Accounting, Information Systems from Open Polytechnic of New Zealand.