Identity Management Success

Hello Everyone:

A topic that comes up quite often — and rightly so — is the role of Business Systems Analyst (BSA) within an Identity Access Management (IAM) Program. What is the right mix of skills? How much of the hiring decision should be weighted toward business acumen, light development (XML, web forms, etc.), and requirements management?

In short, the answer depends on your IAM Program, scope, organizational composition. Before I post a representative job description, some background is in order. First, an Identity BSA is not like the traditional BSA. A traditional BSA works more closely with the various lines of business to determine which each business needs, what it is currently doing, what it wants to be doing in the future, and other factors as required by the stakeholders. The BSA then collates the information, separating actual requirements from wish list, and subjective preferences. A process of synthesis continues until business requirements, and functional requirements have been collated and prioritized. Synthesis complete, the BSA hands the list off to the development or program team for development and implementation. (In the interest of time, I am paraphrasing to an extent, and not intending to in any way minimize the criticality of a traditional BSA.)

Where the traditional model breaks in the Identity World, is that now the developers themselves are stakeholders, often with dramatically needs from one another. Application teams have their own requirements for integrating their applications with the IDMS, or for consuming its services. Each individual application (which can number into the hundreds or even thousands for very large organizations,) requires its own analysis and requirements gathering project. The Identity BSA must address all requirements, of all audiences.

In short, the Identity BSA adds the dimension of detailed developer (and general Identity Management) knowledge to the level that he or she can do some light development work,, especially in the area of Business Process Management (BPM). What is vital, is that the Identity BSA can:

• Collect all information
• Synthesize actual requirements from subjective wish lists and “nice to haves”
• Synthesize Business Requirements from the whole
• Derive Functional Requirements from Business Requirements
• Document workflows and process in a visual model
• Document future state (”to be”) workflows in a visual model
• Derive User Acceptance Tests (UAT) from the Functional Tests
• Translate future state workflows into executable business process.

Sounds like a tough role to fill? It is. Compound the difficulty by the fact that really large Identity Programs may need several. To help ease the process, I am including a sample Identity BSA job description. The usual disclaimers apply - it is not comprehensive for all possible situations, and your mileage will vary. However, when used effectively as a guideline, the list can greatly facilitate the hiring, placement, and effectiveness of this very crucial resource.

Identity BSA Job Description

The goal for this position is to hire a person that is well-versed in both
business and functional requirements gathering. This is an exciting and
dynamic opportunity to work with key business units, developers, vendors,
and security analysts and help shape the future of our Identity and Access
Management (IAM) Program.

Duties Include

Collect application security requirements from internal developers
and external providers

Frequent meetings with stakeholders and IAM Program Team members

Collect business requirements from key business stakeholders

Validate all requirements, and separate key business requirements
from application wish lists

Translate business requirements into functional requirements

Translate functional requirements into Use Cases (UAT)

Maintain project requirements database

Maintain project UAT database

Create visual models of current "as-is" workflows (individual business
processes)

Create visual models of future state "to be" workflows

Assist in the translation of visual diagrams to XML as needed

Assist in the verification of IAM Product Change Orders

Minimum Requirements

3+ years as a BSA with at least one large (5000+ user) organization

Excellent written, verbal, chat, and email communications

Strong familiarity with IT Architecture concepts

Expert-level diagrammer (Visio / Dia / UML)

Good familiarity with Project Management Methodology

Strong familiarity with Relational Database (RDMS) systems. (Not a
DBA, but comfortable with data structures.)

Good working knowledge of Internet security concepts and web
application architecture

Ability to meet deadlines in continually changing environment
Excellent prioritization

Strong self-starter that can work independently as needed

Overall understanding of high-level Identity Management concepts
(user ID"s, what provisioning is, etc.)

Basic understanding of compliance and audit requirements

Desired Skills (Optional)

Ability to read, create, and modify UML diagrams

Experience with XML message creation (SOAP, XML-RPC, etc.)

Creating and maintaining Business Process via BPM tools

HTML-based forms

Requisite Pro or similar requirements management tools