What makes a good SharePoint Analyst?
Guest Author: Michal Pisarek
With SharePoint being such a new technology, and unique in the skill sets required, the role of SharePoint Analyst has become a role that seems to encompass many differing skill sets. But what exactly is a SharePoint Analyst and does the role of the SharePoint Analyst differ from a more traditional Business Analyst?
For me the SharePoint Analyst role is a unique combination of platform knowledge, business acumen and interpersonal skills. Someone that is comfortable in technical details but equally comfortable training end users or explaining tangible business returns to executives.
Personally I think that this role has developed due to the difficulty in finding good SharePoint resources. It seems that anyone who has any SharePoint experience is not only expected to be familiar with the technical aspect, but becomes the go to person for any SharePoint related activities for an organization.
What makes a SharePoint Analyst different to a ‘traditional’ BA?
When working with SharePoint there is a fine line between the ‘prescriptive‘ and ‘descriptive‘ approach. Whilst a traditional Business Analyst will ask a client what their needs are, a SharePoint Analyst needs to balance this with the capabilities that the platform offers and how it can be leveraged to most effectively satisfy business objectives. This does not imply that user requirements are disregarded, or that platform capabilities will be put ahead of business needs. However SharePoint offers a multitude of business solutions, with varying degrees of complexity on many levels such as deployment, architecture, development and customization which a SharePoint Analyst needs to have an appreciation.
A good SharePoint Analyst will always seek to gain maximum business value from the various components that SharePoint offers. Remember that SharePoint can be viewed as both a product and platform, the most successful SharePoint Analysts will balance time, budget and scope to determine the most successful solution approach.
Platform knowledge
For better or for worse a good SharePoint Analyst needs to have some knowledge of the multitude of capabilities that SharePoint offers. Some appreciation of out of the box configuration, infrastructure knowledge and development experience.
This does not imply that the SharePoint Analyst is a master of all of these skills, or can even perform them. But the SharePoint Analyst needs to know the ‘what’ of the platform, not as much the ‘how’
The ‘what’ refers to what the platform can do and what it can’t, and where the line is between configuration, customization and development. The ‘how’ is the deep vertical technical knowledge that is the realm of so many brilliant people in the community.
Now the reason that the SharePoint Analyst needs this knowledge is twofold. Firstly SharePoint is a platform so in theory it can be molded to do anything you like, but this doesn’t mean that it should. Secondly being able to steer conversations around high value, low risk alternatives to heavy customization can provide incredible value. I am sure that the EndUserSharePoint audience appreciates this more than most. If you can help your client understand that a small tweak in a business process can reduce the complexity of the solution by an order of magnitude you will have both happy users and a high return on investment for your client.
But also there are times where customizations will be needed. A SharePoint Analyst needs platform knowledge in order to manage user expectations of the complexity this might entail. With so many capabilities SharePoint is seen as a solution to everything, the SharePoint Analyst knows this not to be the case and can help their organization understand where the platform can be most effectively applied.
Steering the Ship
SharePoint is unique for many organizations because it is one of the few products that can have an impact in so many areas of an organization. A good SharePoint Analyst will be the captain steering the ship through the murky waters that can quickly become most well intentioned SharePoint project, program or implementation.
But as captain you have to make sure that you know where you are going, then determine how you will get there. This is where the SharePoint Analysts business acumen comes into play. Contrary to what most people think SharePoint is first and foremost a business tool and the SharePoint Analyst has to be very clear about the business problem that is trying to be solved.
Secondly a captain needs to make hard decision and be honest. You will have to say no more often than you think to make sure that the ship stays its course. You have to ensure that business problems are being solved in the most effective way and that SharePoint doesn’t become an exercise of technical prowess. The SharePoint ship can be quickly pulled in many directions all at once, make sure that the choppy seas of unclear business problems and intangible business returns does not run the ship aground.
Finally with a clear understanding of where the ship is heading to it is up to the SharePoint Analyst to make sure not only that it arrives there, but it’s does so in the best condition with minimal issues. Educating clients on seemingly unrelated issues around SharePoint such as governance, usability, adoption, training and others issues calls into play the SharePoint Analysts interpersonal and business skills. In many implementations the SharePoint Analyst finds that the technical challenges are far easier to resolve than the change management needed to ensure a successful solution.
SharePoint Analyst Attributes
- Be passionate about what you do: SharePoint can bring joy, frustration, pain and sometimes humor. If you are not passionate about the business issues you are trying to solve, and the platform you are using to solve these issue with, you may quickly find yourself descending into madness
. - Show compassion: We understand SharePoint but for many end users and business leaders this is a complex and intimidating product. Be compassionate, understand that people will need extra time to understand and possibly adopt the platform.
- Have restraint: Don’t make your SharePoint solution an exercise in technical brilliance whilst providing little value to end users. Use only those features that will solve business issues and improve outcomes, don’t show every feature of the platform at once. Start slow, stay the course and provide value.
- Humor: Laugh when you don’t know the answer, laugh when a CU breaks a service application, laugh when you realize that something that should be easy needs heavy customization. Trust me it’s better than crying.
- Learn, Explore and Contribute: A SharePoint Analyst doesn’t know it all, but that doesn’t mean that you should stop learning. So much knowledge is available with a mouse click, the results of thousands of hours of unpaid community contributions. Learn from it, explore SharePoint for yourself and try to contribute. You don’t have to write a blog, you don’t have to answer forums but even a tweet to an author, or a comment on a blog can bring someone a smile.
So that’s what I think a SharePoint Analyst is but I would love to know what your thoughts are. Personally I love the role, with it’s unique combination of skills and challenges. I don’t think it’s for everyone as your breath of knowledge exceeds its depths in many areas but the ability to help organization leverage this fantastic tool is ultimately very rewarding. So when people ask what my job is I tell them “My name is Michal Pisarek, I’m a SharePoint Analyst, I’m here to make sure that together we can solve your business issues in the most effective way using this fantastic tool. I don’t know how just yet, but rest assured it’s going to be a hell of a ride”
Guest Author: Michal Pisarek
Michal Pisarek is a solution specialist for Habañero Consulting Group, a Microsoft Gold Partner in beautiful Vancouver Canada. He has been working with SharePoint for 3 years and has a passion for finding the right balance between technology, innovation, governance and fun to meet his client’s needs.
You can find other articles by Michal on his blog SharePointAnalystHQ or follow him on Twitter (@michalpisarek)
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Thanks for writing an article about ME! “In many implementations the SharePoint Analyst finds that the technical challenges are far easier to resolve than the change management needed to ensure a successful solution.” Amen!
But… “So much knowledge is available with a mouse click, the results of thousands of hours of unpaid community contributions. ” This is why I love being part of the community.
Thanks for the comments Nancy. I am finding that educating clients about SharePoint is taking on much more of a business focus these days and without the community things would be much more difficult..
Great article Michal!
Realistically when someone hires a “SharePoint Business Analyst” or a SharePoint Analyst as you called it they aren’t looking for a completely impartial/typical Business Analyst, they are looking for one with SharePoint knowledge to help leverage their investment more effectively. I would also suggest that MS Office knowledge (Excel, Word, Access, etc) is also extremely valuable (as often it’s combinations of technologies that get the job done most effectively).
It is my hope that this role (and other ‘technology (business) analyst’ roles grow within organizations. In several organizations I have worked with we have built up their SharePoint Business Analyst teams and SharePoint Analyst skill sets which always resulted in tremendous value for the organization from building OOTB solutions to engaging key business units and drivers to leverage technology more effectively.
Are other people employing SharePoint Business Analysts? Information Architects? SharePoint specific Information Architects? I’d love to hear about why/what they are doing to improve your SharePoint implementations.
Thanks for the comment Richard.
We are looking to start a SharePoint Analyst Academy where I work because we simply cannot find people that have this combination of skills. The idea is to take either people from technical or business backgrounds and give them a well rounded exposure to the various aspects of the platform including both technical and business worlds.
Ideally we would like to have these SP Analysts in a multitude of roles from initial client conversations, to a more permanent placement advisor scenario to designing solutions for smaller clients. I think that there is huge benefits to our clients because they will have someone that can join them on their SP journey, whilst being able to leverage our senior architects when the need arises.
In terms of Architects we currently have Information Architects, Solution Architects and Infrastructure Architects. The problem is that these guys are thoroughly swamped with work. I think that a good SPA should be able to at least ask the right questions that could then be taken back to this architect role, reducing the time burden on them.
Cheers
“We are looking to start a SharePoint Analyst Academy where I work because we simply cannot find people that have this combination of skills. The idea is to take either people from technical or business backgrounds and give them a well rounded exposure to the various aspects of the platform including both technical and business worlds.”
Very interesting part here. I heard from headhunters that they have trouble finding “SharePoint Project Managers”, meaning people who know both SharePoint and PM quite well, but didn’t really think about analysts in that situation yet. But after reading this, I realise that this is a quite common problem: people may have good SharePoint knowledge as they’re developers/administrators, or they have good BA/PM knowledge, but usually not both.
Hi Michael,
I recognized myself immediately in this article. Every day, I go to work, talking to my clients about their business needs. I think about SharePoint and its possibilities (and of course limitations), and try to help them reach their goal.
And as Nancy said, thanks to all the people contributing to the community, makes our job a little bit easier. We don’t always know “how” to accomplish things, so a search on the net makes the challenges smaller.
So thank you for a great article!
Good article and I ‘fit’ in to the category of “We do more with less.” I am the only person that handles the SharePoint ‘needs’ at our hospital with a staff of almost 4,000. I am the Admin, designer, trainer/instructor and anything that has to do with SharePoint. The challenges I face is getting the ‘Medical’ staff to use SharePoint more each day.
Excellent article, Michal.
I am the sole “SP Administrator – aka SP Analyst at my company of 400. I introduced SP over 4 years ago and we are soon to update to SP2010. This has been a long haul, gaining ground inch by inch. I have to understand company business needs department by department day in and day out in order to offer solutions using SP. It hasn’t been easy, but it has been a wail of a lot of fun! I thought of my self only as a SP Admin, but after your article I think adding SP Business Analyst to my roll better describes what I do here. And thanks to the website and sites like this, I do not feel alone grappling with issues I face.
Tom
Michal, Every article you’ve written has felt like you’ve written it just for me! I love your contributions here. From my perspective it seems that organizations don’t know what to label us, or for that matter what to ‘do’ with us in terms of salary and budget. In my case, I’ve clearly grown into a full analyst role. But traditionally ’system analyst’ positions have been held only in IT in our organization, and IT is unwilling to share the title. Sharepoint doesn’t fit into IT’s notions of a standard platform mold, so I think they struggle with what to do with people like myself – especially when they aren’t really aware of what kind of knowledge we possess, or how valuable that knowledge actually is! It is clear to me that roles like mine will have to be embraced in large organizations deploying Sharepoint, and they can’t be held only by IT professionals. I’ve been pondering the title Sharepoint Pioneer lately, as it sure seems like I’m clearing the path! Like a pioneer, it is the belief in a better future that drives me through the doubt, the struggle, and the hard work that it takes to make the way easier for everyone else.
Thanks for this fantastic article outlining what it is I do everyday!
I like to see someone else describing my job description. I think that when decision makers will understand all the value of SharePoint, we will need much more than 24 hours a day… but that’s the reason why we love SharePoint so much; isn’t it? ;-)
Excellent article.
I just bookmarked your original article yesterday to read it once again (first time was shortly after it was published, I think?), and now it shows up here! Even more reason to look at it again.
As with some of the previous commentors, your description matches what I’m doing (though I think I’m not a pure SP Analyst, but a few things more as well). A job that may often be underappreciated or even not fully recognised (What, you don’t do development or administration?), but extremely important
Pretty much describes me too, but I’ve always marketed myself as more of a consultant. I do development, architecture, information architecture, training and requirements gathering.
What separates a SharePoint Analyst from a SharePoint consultant?
I’d say a consultant either has a more generic skillset (that might include the analyst’s skillset), or a more specific skillset. Though in the end, there is no clear definition for “consultant” and it can mean a lot of things.
Good question Nathan and to be honest I don’t really know!
But like you I also touch upon all the other skills that you mentioned as well. I guess regardless of the skills for me it comes down to the same thing: how to best leverage SharePoint for an organisation. I think that there a multitudes of different skills, techniques and knowledge required to do this, but anyone working with SharePoint needs to at least have an appreciation, if not knowledge, of most of them.
Michal,
You seem to know me so wel! :-)
Great article. I’ll show it to everyone of my team!
Hi
This article got me thinking and I posted not so much a reply but some musings on this theme, based on my own experiences.
Its called “SharePoint Analysts – Stop analysing!” and can be found here:
http://www.cleverworkarounds.com/2010/12/02/sharepoint-analystsstop-analysing/
Hope you find it some food for thought.
Kind regards
Paul Culmsee
Hey Paul,
You were the first ever SharePoint related blog that I read from what I remember so thanks for your feedback and article. As always you raise some great points that I think will really add to this conversation.
Cheers
Paul made a really interesting post in response to this. I wanted to highlight it additionally in the comments here and suggest people read it as well:
http://www.cleverworkarounds.com/2010/12/02/sharepoint-analystsstop-analysing/comment-page-1/
Michal – first of all, phenomenal post! I really enjoyed reading your thoughts (and additional commentary) as I can complete relate and identify myself as who it was written for and who it is about.
It is amazing how many folks really fall into this category of misfits (echoing Kerri’s point) particularly with most organization’s SharePoint environments ultimately being guided and steered by the SharePoint Analyst. And as Rene stated the SharePoint Analyst is an interesting hodgepodge or hybrid role that most organizations don’t truly understand nor does IT really want to take ownership.
As a previous IT recruiter I believe we are going to see more companies looking for resources like this article describes. Certainly the SharePoint Project Managers/Architects do the heavy lifting to get SharePoint out of the box and up and running however it is the SharePoint Analyst who really are the glue to hold together the maturity and acceptance of SharePoint.
Well said Stuart! Spot on – Bravo, and thanks!
Thanks everyone for the comments! It’s great that so many of you identify with this role and that we are not alone :)
it’s a mess, and I blame Microsoft for that.
Michal, you’re correct, only few products have enterprise wide impact. But these products have been around for a couple decades, and there are some well established principles. The balance between needs and capabilities, for example, is nothing new.
I worked as a SAP consultant in the late 90’s. SAP didn’t just have a solid application, they also built a methodology and clearly defined roles (IT, developers, functional consultants). It was clear from the start that one single person couldn’t have all the required skills. More importantly, customers were made aware of that.
SharePoint analysts are just a patch applied because it’s not the businesses’ job to figure out how to manage a SharePoint deployment project. Unfortunately it seems that Microsoft has not (yet) figured it out either.
Hi Christophe,
with your experience, do you think the SAP model would be applicable for SharePoint as well, at least on a smaller scale? I lack the SAP knowledge, so I can’t compare how “big” the SAP modules are compared with some of the functionalities of SharePoint, but I think a clearer guidance on possible different roles would be very beneficial.
“It was clear from the start that one single person couldn’t have all the required skills. More importantly, customers were made aware of that.”
That’s something I think many customers in the SharePoint world are not aware of. Looking at what is required from people, it’s usually really a jack-of-all-trades, a know-it-all.
Rene
A direct comparison seems difficult, my comment was just at a high level, that SAP had everything covered.
If you look at what Microsoft offers today, in terms of training, certifications and recognition, it is obvious that they are overlooking the business/functional side.
Great article, Michal! I’m not the only one! :-) I’m new in the Analyst role so I appreciate you starting a conversation and bringing more visibility to it.
In the Analyst attribute of “Have Restraint”, I’d also add the skill of Listening. Don’t assume, or give them what you think they should want, but really listen to their needs. I’m finding use case scenarios very helpful in getting to what they might not be able to articulate.
I’d add, “Be a Champion” – we want to go beyond delivering a solution, we want to guide the business users, help them feel confident and create real Enthusiasts for the platform.
One thing we’re figuring out is where the Analyst role stops and the Support Team picks up.
Amen, Lisa… once i have gathered the requirements, built the solution and delivered it to the users, I then must be available for all the follow-up fixes and tweaks. Lots of hats to wear!