Interviewing as a Business Analyst or Product Owner
what you need to show…
I’ve been interviewing a number of potential colleagues recently, and while most of them were cool, sometimes interviews don’t go well, and usually that’s not because the candidate sucks, but because they focus on the wrong things or are not prepared. This is, what I think you need to demonstrate:
(I am aware that business analysis is a wide ranging field from financial analysis to technical systems analysis: I am focusing on business analysis in the area of supporting clients and digital teams in the delivery of digital applications. Also, for the purpose of this post I will use BA and PO synonymously).
Business
Understand that value creation is based on human needs that translate into problems or opportunities and how this translates into solutions. Be able to identify and articulate the real problem and be able to argue your case.
Present actionable advice not generic ‘consulting’.
Domain Context
Demonstrate that you can deal with complexity, quickly make sense of a domain, model context, identify, analyse and model system, people, data and events, and their relationships and that — from this — you go from the ‘what to do’ to the ‘where to go’ to the ‘how we will get there’.
Specific domain knowledge is helpful but can add bias — it is more important is that you can get into things quickly.
Methodologies
Know your waterfall from your agile, your Kanban and Scrum your XP, your lean, your sociocracy, your situational awareness (just to randomly! name some). Know that neither is right or wrong, but when which is appropriate and how to adjust them.
Don’t worry too much about formal training and accreditations, don’t throw buzzword and textbook answers around. Applied thinking is what counts.
Tools
Know your tools for analysis, for communication, team facilitation, scope and project management: how to model user needs and experience, domain context and technology, how you identify, express, prioritise and manage requirements.
The more tools you know the better: one size does not fit all, we pick and choose and mix and remix.
Focus on ‘cognitive’ tools, don’t worry about physical tools such as JIRA, Mingle or Visio. These are easily picked up.
Epics and Stories
Sure, you need to know your epics and stories, your acceptance criteria and backlog.
But really, what counts is whether you can elicit, communicate and most importantly structure requirements in a meaningful way. Good business analysts are a requirements ‘engineers’, not a scribes.
What you deliver
Understand that business analysis is a means to an end: we are enablers and facilitators in a bigger game.
Show that you are interested in delivery valuable things, rather than artefacts for the sake of it.
How you work
Show that you have an analysis strategy, or a way of arriving at a plan for work you do. Demonstrate how your way of working logically leads to a valuable solution.
Show that communication and collaboration are at the foundation for all you do. As is quality and continuous improvement are part of everything you do, how you help your team to learn and do things better and better.
Your team
Demonstrate that you understand multi-disciplinary teams, and how you work with the various disciplines and ‘types’. Know the stakeholders and experts you need to work with to do your job, what you need from them and what they get from you: the clients, subject matter experts, user experience, technical architects, developers, QA and deployment, just to name some. And never forget the end user, be they internal or external.
As business analyst you need to be team player, you will shine through what comes out of the project
Technology
Appreciate technology so that you can reason about problems and the pros and cons of solutions approaches. A logical mind and rational thinking will allow you to pick up the detail.
You’ll quickly learn how to read XML or JSON if you need to. You don’t need to be able to design a complex data model or systems architecture but be able to sit with a data analyst or technical architect and reason about it.
Who you are
Really, are’t we all looking for people we like to work with?
I want to work with approachable interesting people I can have a laugh and professional argument. I want my colleagues to be better than me, to be opinionated and driven, but humble at the same time. I don’t think there is a place for arrogance or egos in great teams; confidence and collaboration make for good work, clarity of thought makes us sexy.