🥇 How We Trained a Systems Analyst from Scratch

Are you familiar with the situation where your business needs are growing, but there aren’t enough people to meet them? What should you do in such cases? Where can you find individuals with the necessary skills, and is it even worth pursuing?

Since this problem is not new, there are already solutions in place. Some companies resort to outsourcing and hiring specialists from external organizations. Others expand their search geography and utilize recruitment agencies. Meanwhile, some find inexperienced individuals and develop them in-house.

One of our most significant projects focused on training system analysts from scratch was likely the School of System Analysis, which Kirill Kapranov reported on at the AnalyzeIT MeetUp #3. However, before entering the project, we decided to conduct an experiment: we took an inexperienced person and tried to develop them into a system analyst who met our requirements. Below is how we prepared the analyst and what ultimately came of this initiative.

I met Dasha at the first meetup for analysts, organized by employees of Alfa-Bank. That same day, I was asked to become her mentor and guide her onboarding as an analyst from scratch. I agreed.

Onboarding began in October. Overall, it did not differ significantly from the onboarding of an experienced system analyst (more on recruitment, onboarding, and development of system analysts at Alfa-Bank can be found in Svetlana Mikheeva's report at the AnalyzeIT MeetUp #2). Dasha and I had to go through the same stages — to develop a '100-Day Plan', undergo an interim assessment, and successfully complete the probation period. However, each stage had its nuances.

100-Day Plan

For each new analyst, we develop a 100-day plan. It outlines the list of goals for the new employee and metrics for assessing their achievement. While the goals and metrics for experienced specialists are fairly clear (as we have an accumulated base of plans), what should be set for an analyst starting from scratch? Besides memorizing who is who, what we actually do here, and where to grab a bite.

To answer this question, a meeting was organized with the leads. We formulated expectations for the new analyst after 100 days and documented them in a plan consisting of three sections — Scrum, Architecture, Analytics.

Scrum. Dasha was being prepared for the product team, and most of our product teams operate using Scrum (taking into account our specific features, of course). Therefore, as a result of executing the plan, we expected the new analyst to understand the terminology and the established approach to product development within the Bank.

Architecture. Our analysts are "mini-architects," involved in designing the architecture of future products. It's clear that one cannot become an architect (even a "mini") in 100 days. However, an understanding of corporate architecture principles, the process of designing applications for the new internet bank for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs (the onboarding occurred in the team developing applications for this channel), and their structure should develop.

Analytics. The first two sections constituted roughly 10% and 20% of the successful completion of the 100-day plan. The main focus was on developing hard skills — the ability to work with individual modules of the master systems and developed applications, the ability to identify discrepancies between implementation and stated requirements and to write specifications for their correction, the ability to maintain documentation structure across projects and manage documentation for various layers of applications. We also paid attention to soft skills, which play an important role, such as when searching for the necessary information for the team. However, we understood that this is not the quickest task, so more emphasis was placed on the first category of skills.

Within each section, goals and expected results were formulated. For each goal, materials were provided to assist in achieving it (recommended literature, internal training, and other useful resources). Criteria for assessing the achievement of the expected results were also formulated.

Interim Assessment

After one and a half months, we are summarizing the interim results. The goal is to gather feedback, evaluate the progress of the new analyst, and make adjustments to their onboarding if necessary. An interim assessment was also conducted for Dasha.

Five people participated in the evaluation, all from the team where the onboarding took place. Each participant was asked to provide feedback in a free form by answering a series of questions. The questions were quite basic — “How do you assess Dasha as an analyst? What does she do well, and what not so much? Where should she develop further?”.

Interestingly, four out of five people were unable to provide an assessment. This revealed the following problem. All analytical tasks initially went through me, and then I passed some on to Dasha. The results of Dasha’s work first went through my review and then were communicated to the team. As a result, the entire communication of the team and our new analyst was funneled through me; the team did not see Dasha as an analyst and could not provide feedback on her. Therefore, in the second half of the onboarding process, we focused on establishing direct communication between the new analyst and team members (hello soft skills).

Completion of the probation period

And now 100 days have passed, we are summarizing the results. Did Dasha manage to meet the plan and achieve all the set goals? Were we able to grow an analyst from scratch?

The plan for 100 days was completed by 80%. Feedback was collected from five team members. This time they were able to note the positive aspects of our new analyst’s work and give her recommendations for further development. Interestingly, Dasha noted in her summary that, in her opinion, an experienced specialist could have completed the tasks set for her in a couple of weeks. In my view, this indicates that Dasha has integrated into the work process and has a clear understanding of the knowledge and skills she has acquired during onboarding.

One year later

A year has passed since the end of the probation period. Dasha is showing excellent results. She has already participated in the launch of two new products. Currently, she is working on the analytics of one of the key modules of the new online bank for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs — the correspondence module. Moreover, Dasha is a mentor and is conducting onboarding for a new analyst with experience.

Thanks to the experience gained from nurturing a systems analyst from scratch, we were able to launch a School of Systems Analysis, prepare, and hire seven more people. Have you had a similar experience in training specialists from the ground up? How justified do you think this approach is for selecting people with the necessary competencies?

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