Were Business Analysts responsible for all that project chaos?
According to the tables at the top of the early Standish Chaos Report into why projects fail are the quality of business requirements followed by the lack of involvement or engagement of users. This reading was often used to extrapolate project failure largely to the BA, with user engagement being cited as the Business Analysts responsibility. On the flip side, I cannot recall BA's receiving significant attribution for project success when they succeed having quality requirements and strong user relationships. So who was making the call that requirements inadequacies ruined the project or is it just a case of who is being asked to explain why and what interests they have in who they blame? Reading just a little further down this same report, managers with projects failing all around them do not mention requirements at all. They see a broader malaise that results in it being nearly impossible for the BA to be successful which is attributes of management including; poor attitudes