First off – what do change specialists and business analysts do exactly?

A change specialist is responsible for facilitating a dynamic and adaptive approach to change management in an organisation. This involves identifying emerging patterns, collaborating with stakeholders, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Through ongoing communication and feedback, the change manager ensures that change aligns with the organisation’s vision and values.

A business analyst, on the other hand, is responsible for identifying, analysing, and documenting business requirements and processes. The role of a business analyst is to focus on the change design, which ensures that a change initiative is aligned with business objectives and the impact of the change is well understood

Throughout the change process, there are several reasons why a change specialist and business analyst make a great team:

1. Understanding Business Context

Together the business analyst and change specialist need to collaborate in order to understand the wider business context and develop an overall vision for the change. In particular, a business analyst may focus on business processes, organisation structures and information and technology changes. In contrast, the change specialist provides a people lens, concentrating on making sure the change is adopted by the people involved.

Business analysts and change specialists work together to ensure that change initiatives are aligned with the organisation’s vision and values.

2. Identifying Impacts

Business analysts take a different perspective from that of a change specialist and will consider the impacts of processes, policy, information, and data. Change specialists focus on the impacts on people. Organisations are complex adaptive systems, and any change will need to be emergent. Change specialists also need to consider and include the impact on new ways of working, behaviours, and cultural aspects of an organisation.

Business analysts and change specialists work together to develop a plan for communicating the impacts of a change initiative to stakeholders.

3. Requirement Gathering

Business analysts continuously work closely with business stakeholders to understand user needs, facilitate requirement workshops, and document business and solution requirements for the change initiative to be effective.

The change specialist works with the business analyst to ensure initial goals align with the business needs, whilst ensuring those goals can flex and adapt in response to the impact of changes on people.

Overall, the collaboration between a business analyst and a change specialist brings together complementary skill sets and expertise, to establish a comprehensive analysis of impacts and effective management of change within an organisation.

By Lynda Girvan, Head of Business Analysis at CMC Partnership Consultancy Ltd, and Mick Brian, Head of Change & Transformation at CMC Partnership Consultancy Ltd