I have now been doing business analysis in the Yukon Government for 18 months. I thought I would share of some of my thoughts on working in this environment and some of the advantages and pain points that I have experienced in my time.

I would like to note how this has been an amazing opportunity to develop my skills and knowledge. I was greatly beyond my tolerance for coding and even to this day I find it exceedingly difficult to enjoy thinking in code to any level that I previously appreciated. Simply put, I prefer interacting with a person to an integrated development environment - and I am a much happier person for that.

In my time at YG I have been steeped in a new technique, an old technique and a smattering of small government "because's". I'll start with the new techniques.

I have been introduced to the PowerStart method - devised and taught by Trond Franzen. This technique of capturing requirements is just what Trond says "fast and accurate". The core of the techniques relies on capturing the business events that occur and capturing the answers from the subject matter experts through prompting via structured questions. As I get more experience in this method I will post more of my thoughts on it - I have talked a great deal with Trond about how to handle different situations and he is an able guide through the minefield of requirement definition. The method requires a great deal of thinking on your feet and trusting your users to know their business. This method produces a final product of great value to the business - the business requirements document (or BRD)! I will post more about PowerStart as I get more familiar with it, it has some great strengths.

I have been re-introduced to Use Cases. The BRD is a great document, but it is less useful to contractors who will build/configure a system. Use cases fill the gap between what a business stakeholder needs and what a system stakeholder needs; use cases flesh out the details that business users want to have captured but from a different perspective that introduces system and implementation details- something that should not be the focus of a BRD. 

Finally, I have been introduced to the character that is Yukon Government - there is frequently one or two people in a particular role for the entire government! This can introduce a scheduling nightmare to plan around when the sole subject matter expert (SME) is crazy busy!

I am on one project where summer equals field season. The SME is available one or two hours a week at most! Project progress is much slower because of this and is just a reality of the environment that I work in; this particular aspect was very frustrating to adapt to. My manager takes advantage of the restricted progress by assigning what would be a killer workload if all the projects were active at the same time; so I am rarely bored.

I have to say this is the best job I have had in a very long time - I deeply enjoy working with people (who knew!); I love the freedom of the role; and I find the wide variety of projects to be challenging and invigorating.