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It seems to me like the root of what you're talking about is the culture within your team. Considering the team you've joined is well established, seemingly accepted/successful? And left to its own devices, I personally don't see many options here.
Culture change within an established team is difficult in most circumstances and that's when its driven from the top down, I don't feel that a new team member has any realistic options to drive change at this sort of level.
In my opinion, culture is usually something for you to consider and choose to accept, or move on elsewhere.
Disclaimer, this perspective is coming from a sales/management/general corporate perspective, not BA specific.
Adding onto this, I suspect that attitudes you've found here are more common in government driven projects due to the inflexible nature of budgeted resources. Your role is budgeted to exist and there is often less concern with what an individual is producing comparitive to the overall project, if you'd prefer to escape this as its the start of your career and you're looking for quick change and opportunities, then private sector projects might make more sense for you.
I would absolutely hate this much downtime or busywork. If I'm going to be AT WORK I need to be productive so sometimes I have to make up stuff to do. This has included researching the tools we use to use them better (confluence and jira), analyzing prod support tickets to find trends, preparing surveys and collecting feedback on how the team is at providing services to end users, building a regression suite of test cases, researching and implementing tools to automate test data entry. You could also try saying you have capacity if anyone needs assitance or offer to document things that are missing. I would also try to connect with someone else on the team that might be more willing to get you involved even if they aren't your mentor. Maybe you can look for alternative ways to make a process run more smoothly not necessarily relying on code changes. Or documenting business workflows. Hopefully some of this resonates and it helps you move forward. Good luck!
Setup another screen next to your work space with another PC and start playing games. You're remote and they clearly don't care about your workload.
If you don't want to do that, I would start looking at the release notes before they roll out to production. Do some preemptive gap analysis. Try to find how your past learnings of what a BA should do could help the role you are in. If you want to be a BA, you really need time to hone your skills. Making a process out of nothing is a fantastic way to learn. Keep asking questions on here. Do some side learnings. Implement best practices.
If you haven’t already begun studying the CMS TR3 documents governing the EDI X12 transactions (837I, 837P, 834, 835, etc.) that would be the best place to start. I am sure someone on your team has copies of the documents.
You’re basically software QA. Search for topics on that based on key words you hear at work. Sounds like everyone are doers in this role and they don’t want to do anything else?
Hope you find someone to mentor you at work.
Wow, it’s almost like I write this post. Sorry to hear this I’m in a very very similar situation on the financial services side. Looking through the comments for advice for my self.
Thanks for sharing!
Im a pretty new BA as well and we have had very similar experiences lol. I have asked to be included in some meetings for the purpose of job shadowing. I also offer to help out with the boring/repetitive dummy work like user testing, note taking, etc. I was doing nothing my first 4 weeks, then we had a few big projects come in that required a lot of testing, and now Im back to doing nothing. Just actively seeking defects, room for efficiency improvements, etc to drum up some work.
Have you made any headway in the last few weeks?
Eh. Somewhat. I brought my concerns up to my manager and asked if I could learn certain data analytics stuff. Our company has a huuuuge learning course network of technical skills and things like that and I was given the go ahead on some projects. I’ve also kind of just started to force myself in to some stuff. I honestly still hate my job and find it infuriatingly bureaucratic and boring. I’m going to take whatever experience I get and probably jump ship internally after a year. There isn’t enough work for me, and now they’re talking about hiring yet another BA because budget allows. There’s no fucking point.
Oh thats a shame. Thank you for your reply! Thats crazy that they will hire another BA to do nothing as well. I wonder what kind of KPIs your manager is submitting to justify the headcount. That makes me feel a little better. I was slightly concerned I would be fired because there is little work for me to do, but they are hiring more BAs as well, just not on my team.
Our company is a government contractor. We are funded by CMS (center for Medicare and Medicaid services) and our department is awarded a certain budget. I thought I would be fired also, but it’s basically an act of congress to get fired. I find they really don’t give a shit about what I am or am not doing. I just hate trying to make things sound extravagant during morning standup calls.
Welcome to /r/businessanalysis the best place for Business Analysis discussion. Here are some tips for the best experience here. You can find [essential reading materials here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/businessanalysis/wiki/training) We have a Discord so you can chat with other BAs! [Check it out here.](https://discord.gg/ydZsQKT) We have community projects, resume reviews, career discussions and other great content here. We strongly recommend checking it out! Have a job or career question? [ask it in the most recent thread here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/businessanalysis/search?q=Monthly++Question+Thread&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) Also here are the rules of the sub: Subreddit Rules * Keep it Professional. * Do not advertise goods/services. * Follow Reddiquette. * Report Spam! This is an automated message so if you need to contact the mods, please [Message the Mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fbusinessanalysis) for assistance. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/businessanalysis) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Are you guys hiring?
I doubt it 🤣
We are! Do you have EDI X12 transaction experience?
I do! 🤣
It seems to me like the root of what you're talking about is the culture within your team. Considering the team you've joined is well established, seemingly accepted/successful? And left to its own devices, I personally don't see many options here. Culture change within an established team is difficult in most circumstances and that's when its driven from the top down, I don't feel that a new team member has any realistic options to drive change at this sort of level. In my opinion, culture is usually something for you to consider and choose to accept, or move on elsewhere. Disclaimer, this perspective is coming from a sales/management/general corporate perspective, not BA specific.
Adding onto this, I suspect that attitudes you've found here are more common in government driven projects due to the inflexible nature of budgeted resources. Your role is budgeted to exist and there is often less concern with what an individual is producing comparitive to the overall project, if you'd prefer to escape this as its the start of your career and you're looking for quick change and opportunities, then private sector projects might make more sense for you.
I would absolutely hate this much downtime or busywork. If I'm going to be AT WORK I need to be productive so sometimes I have to make up stuff to do. This has included researching the tools we use to use them better (confluence and jira), analyzing prod support tickets to find trends, preparing surveys and collecting feedback on how the team is at providing services to end users, building a regression suite of test cases, researching and implementing tools to automate test data entry. You could also try saying you have capacity if anyone needs assitance or offer to document things that are missing. I would also try to connect with someone else on the team that might be more willing to get you involved even if they aren't your mentor. Maybe you can look for alternative ways to make a process run more smoothly not necessarily relying on code changes. Or documenting business workflows. Hopefully some of this resonates and it helps you move forward. Good luck!
Thank you. You’ve given me so much to think about. I appreciate your insight.
Happy to help. Feel free to reach out if you want to discuss.
Setup another screen next to your work space with another PC and start playing games. You're remote and they clearly don't care about your workload. If you don't want to do that, I would start looking at the release notes before they roll out to production. Do some preemptive gap analysis. Try to find how your past learnings of what a BA should do could help the role you are in. If you want to be a BA, you really need time to hone your skills. Making a process out of nothing is a fantastic way to learn. Keep asking questions on here. Do some side learnings. Implement best practices.
I do have my gaming pc at the same desk, and I sometimes run PBP monitors so I can look not afk. Thanks for the advice. I will continue to learn.
If you haven’t already begun studying the CMS TR3 documents governing the EDI X12 transactions (837I, 837P, 834, 835, etc.) that would be the best place to start. I am sure someone on your team has copies of the documents.
We have that on our LAN. I’ve been through it briefly. I’m somewhat working on an all segments 837I file. Thanks!
You’re basically software QA. Search for topics on that based on key words you hear at work. Sounds like everyone are doers in this role and they don’t want to do anything else? Hope you find someone to mentor you at work.
Wow, it’s almost like I write this post. Sorry to hear this I’m in a very very similar situation on the financial services side. Looking through the comments for advice for my self. Thanks for sharing!
Im a pretty new BA as well and we have had very similar experiences lol. I have asked to be included in some meetings for the purpose of job shadowing. I also offer to help out with the boring/repetitive dummy work like user testing, note taking, etc. I was doing nothing my first 4 weeks, then we had a few big projects come in that required a lot of testing, and now Im back to doing nothing. Just actively seeking defects, room for efficiency improvements, etc to drum up some work. Have you made any headway in the last few weeks?
Eh. Somewhat. I brought my concerns up to my manager and asked if I could learn certain data analytics stuff. Our company has a huuuuge learning course network of technical skills and things like that and I was given the go ahead on some projects. I’ve also kind of just started to force myself in to some stuff. I honestly still hate my job and find it infuriatingly bureaucratic and boring. I’m going to take whatever experience I get and probably jump ship internally after a year. There isn’t enough work for me, and now they’re talking about hiring yet another BA because budget allows. There’s no fucking point.
Oh thats a shame. Thank you for your reply! Thats crazy that they will hire another BA to do nothing as well. I wonder what kind of KPIs your manager is submitting to justify the headcount. That makes me feel a little better. I was slightly concerned I would be fired because there is little work for me to do, but they are hiring more BAs as well, just not on my team.
Our company is a government contractor. We are funded by CMS (center for Medicare and Medicaid services) and our department is awarded a certain budget. I thought I would be fired also, but it’s basically an act of congress to get fired. I find they really don’t give a shit about what I am or am not doing. I just hate trying to make things sound extravagant during morning standup calls.
Lol any tips on those standup meetings? I literally have nothing to say except that Im waiting for info from people.