So, what are you asking you’re colleague to look at? This will depend on the size of the project. If it’s a large project with a huge budget running over a year or more you cannot expect a superficial peer review to uncover all the issues, so it is much better to focus on one or two areas where you know you struggle. Pick a review of your data modelling, or configuration, or your requirements gathering strategy, for example. Ask them to look for:
- Things that you are doing well: this is useful feedback so you can keep doing it.
- Things that they would do differently: you can discuss if you want to adopt their method.
- Things that you are not doing at all that you should be doing.
You can see from this list that you need to ask someone with equal if not more experience in business analysis than you have. If you have one, your mentor is the perfect choice. Otherwise opt for a senior business analyst, a project manager or someone in the programme or portfolio office.
Talk with them about what you are doing, show them any relevant documentation and let them draw their own conclusions. Agree how you want to receive feedback. A one-page report? An informal discussion over coffee? This isn’t a formal process so you can decide on something that works well for both of you.
The main thing to remember is that they should give you feedback that you can act on. It isn’t any good hearing that you are fabulous at everything. Aim to come out of the peer review with three or four things that you can do differently or start doing.
Use the experience of the people in your team – and their fresh pair of eyes on problems you have probably lived with for a while – to improve what you do. This will get your project work into the best possible state, and give you practice at explaining clearly to others what you have been working on. And don’t forget to return the favour!
A key tip is that if you think things are going astray on your project but you can’t put your finger on it, get someone else to show you where!
