Comments on: Escalation and Infinite Regression

By: JB

JB — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:40:11 +0000

Interesting. Where you were drawn to consider the need for business knowledge, I kept finding myself thinking that it’s very useful for the BA to have a fundamental knowledge of systems/technical architecture and how technology is used to solve business problems. Not because I think the BA needs to be an architect, too, or that business knowledge is any less important. That’s just the direction my mind took as I read the examples.

When I read Veryard’s quote about using escalation to deliberately kill a change, I think back to an instance or two where I’ve been able to draw on the more technical knowledge to distinguish between the type of complexity that is inherent in dealing with systems and their inter-dependencies (basically, complexity that can’t be avoided),and complexity that is fabricated or forced because no one else knows better.

Now, you could reasonably question whether or not it is the business analyst’s job to make that kind of a distinction and call “bull” when the delivery team is making things more complicated than they have to be. I’m just saying I’ve been there before, and I think it’s another way that I have been able to provide value in the BA role.

And I have no doubt there is a psychological component to all this. I bet there are books and articles to be read on the psychology of hierarchical complexity. Of course I’m just dense enough that it takes a nice little story like the one I cited to make sense of those types of concepts..

By: doug goldberg

doug goldberg — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:54:44 +0000

RT @jonbab1 Complexity Escalation and Infinite Regression : Practical Analyst http://bit.ly/q6d7Q <———very interesting article!!

By: Jonathan Babcock

Jonathan Babcock — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:52:59 +0000

New Blog Post: Complexity Escalation and Infinite Regression http://bit.ly/q6d7Q

By: DougGtheBA

DougGtheBA — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:50:07 +0000

I can always count on you to get my synapses firing in the morning with new articles. I really liked this one. The one thing that kept coming back to me as I read it, is that the acquisition of thorough business knowledge is something that can help make the difference against these tendencies. It is often the one thing that helps control an analyst from going off on tangents, because the foundation of how the business operates and its governing processes are in place. Perhaps this is why some organization mandate industry or business knowledge as a requirement to get hired.

In any case, the cases that you highlighted were great and certainly rang true to my own world. I bring up business knowledge as a controlling mechanism because I’ve found that while some will escalate or regress due to other motivating factors, the biggest one seems to be that they aren’t grounded in what SHOULD guide them. I’ve done this myself when I wasn’t as prepared as I should have been. The tendency to start pondering gravitational pull as a constraining mechanism to requirement 14 is much higher when I don’t know what I’m talking about, which includes overarching knowledge of the business.

I also need to read a bit more on Ed Yourdon’s findings. I really also wonder if some of what you are getting at here and what he has written about is basic psychology. Maybe persons that aren’t grasping the original problem, or cannot resolve it, inflate the importance of it (via escalation or regression examinations) to mask this inability.

I hate it when you make me think this early in the day…but love it just the same.

Ok, so I’d like to hear your thoughts on this response.