Preparing for a Business Analyst interview - Stakeholder Management Experience
The Australian IT market is and has been quite buoyant for anyone who works either as a Project Manager or as a Business Analyst. (I will look to cover BA market rates and fields in another post)
As a current Business Analyst, the following are some of my experiences I would share with anyone who is looking to prepare for an interview as a Business Analyst.
In this post - Lets talk about stakeholder management
The typical question/s that gets asked in BA interviews;
- Can you tell us your understanding of stakeholder management
- Can you tell us of a time when you had to work with difficult stakeholders
- How did you deal with difficult stakeholders?
- How were you able to bring them on the change journey?
Good stakeholder management is fundamental to the success of any project. Any work experience, or customer centric experience will count towards stakeholder management experience.
Why is stakeholder management so important in project work? The answer lies in one word, 'Change'. The underlying premise of a project is to successfully implement a change. The change can include introducing new systems, procedures, process, tools, organisational changes etc. One of the key drivers of a good project is making sure people are on-board with the change.
A business case and requirement may stipulate the reasoning for bringing about said change, but the end-users who will feel the impact of the change might be reluctant to the change, or they may simply feel they are not consulted.
A rumour goes in one ear and out the mouths of many people - Source Unknown
Good stakeholder management means to make sure that;
- firstly the right people are identified and continually updated as the project moves along. People like to be invited - thus the feeling of being included makes people more open to contributing their opinons/feelings, reservations etc.
- second, engagement by business analysts and project managers keep these stakeholders continually updated with progress, issues, challenges etc.
If any of the above is lacking, 'noise' will start to filter through an organisation which will unnecessarily hamper the project teams focus on the task at hand and may possibly require additional time to be put towards bring certain people on the change journey.
To help prepare for the above listed questions, always write down some of the key stakeholder experiences you have had in your career. Pay special attention to the different circumstances that led to the scenarios and what role you and your team played in helping to make it better.
Make sure to prepare for the interview by writing down your answers and talk to yourself as you practice answering the questions. The more you practice the better you will deliver the answer when it gets asked in an interview setting.
One more tip, make sure to keep the answers you write down, so that for future interview preparations, you can also compare how you answered something previously vs. how you intend to answer now that you have more experience under your belt.