6 Months Worth

After almost 6 months, my first two “out of school–real life” projects are finally coming to an end. Truly, it has been one unforgettable experience since so many things have happened in just 6 months. I remember joining the company late August after thinking for about a week or so if I should accept the offer given to me. So many things came into my mind then. What if some multinational company would offer me a few days or weeks after? What if the negative prediction that the fortune teller mentioned would come true? I talked to Ealden about it and asked for more information about the company. I asked about training. There was none. According to him, experience is training itself. I asked what if I screw up. Well, he said that we’re bound to make mistakes but what’s important is that we learn from it. After conferring with a lot of people and seriously thinking about what I want in a job, I finally accepted the job as Business Analyst and Project Manager and was immediately assigned to my first two projects.

September

During my first month into the project, I was really, really nervous. I didn’t know what to do exactly since it was my first “official” work and the methods used in the company were different from the things I learned in school. In Ateneo, we learned what they call the “Waterfall Method”. But in Orange & Bronze, they were using the “Agile method”. I only learned the Agile Method by reading about it in the websites / e-books provided to me and through the discussions I had with our team lead, JP. Other than that, I had zero knowledge about it. I had faith that I’ll probably learn it as we progress in the project. Then came documentation. As Business Analyst, it’s our duty to understand the business (how it is currently running, what the client expects from the new system) and how we can interpret it in the way that our developers would easily grasp these requirements. With the first project, the client gave a long detailed document about it so I thought that this could be enough. Maybe all I have to do is summarize it and give a list of System Requirements based on the document. For one, I didn’t know what documents to write or what documents were needed so I just started with that. After some time, questions kept coming in and I finally realized that what I did was not enough. I had to gather data further and find a way to really document the details.

October-Mid November

Around the second month and third month, I was assigned to start collecting data for the second project. After reviewing the PowerPoint Slides, which was the only initial document they had about the second project and only contained 22 pages (four slides each page), I began asking questions. One question led to another question and another question. Looking at the data needed, I, along with Clair (my BA/PM partner), started to formulate a document that would reflect the business requirements, data needed, etc. We initially called this the “Business Rules and Requirements”. As the project progressed, we started making revisions until it became better. We found some elements that were lacking and added to the document. In the end, this document became a combination of the system requirements, data requirements, semi-use case, database tables and columns, etc. (Yup, it was a pretty long document!). Why this long of a document? Well, we had to prepare for the developers coming in from the first project so we thought that we didn’t have time to create other documents so we decided to stick with one document first, while one person does one part, the other does another part. Another reason is that we didn’t have a standard way of documenting or simply, the documents needed in a project and what the document contains.

Mid-November-December

Around mid-third month to the fourth month, my PM side really hit me. Focusing too much as a BA in the previous months and after finally understanding what is expected from a BA, I honestly can say that I slipped away from some of my PM tasks. I did assign tasks, schedule meetings, monitor people’s whereabouts but one element that I forgot to look into was the schedule and it really hit me hard. Then I realized that I wasn’t juggling my tasks effectively. I finally realized that extensions in meetings or any issue or blocker should not hold you from progressing. I started learning how to manage Wiki / Trac – setting up pages, understanding the format, etc. I also began to help in monitoring the progress of the project and the deadlines we had to reach. Finally, during the Christmas week, we formulated a list of documents needed in a project and the details along with it to help the BA’s in the next projects to come.

January

On the fifth month, I can say that I started to learn how to juggle both my PM and BA tasks. With my BA work came coordinating with the developers, handling tests, monitoring the changes in the business rules, documentation, etc, while my PM side has to monitor the progress/schedule, handling and assigning tickets, schedule meetings (both O&B and ABS), monitoring people, etc, etc. It’s not an easy task. I still have some flaws. I still have to learn more and improve managing both myself and the projects. Although it may be difficult at times, I have no regrets. This is the path I chose and this is really what I wanted as an MIS graduate. Besides, beyond the stress and the pressure, I’ve met good friends along the way, I’ve learned a lot as a Business Analyst and Project Manager in a real-life project and, I learned that truly, experience and making mistakes is part of the training or the learning process itself.