Business Alchemist - The Two Things

A recent article in the Guardian newspaper alerted me to the Two Things website http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/thetwothings.html. Glen Whitman who runs this website is an economist and recounts a story about a stranger asking him what the 'two things' about economics are. This is on the basis that there are only two things you need to know about any subject. Whitman suggested the following for economics:

  • Incentives matter.
  • There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Thinking about the two things for a given subject is an interesting activity - some of us even find this sort of thing fun as evident from the list of suggestions for various topics and professions published on the website. The list makes interesting reading and includes some inspired ideas. Those of a cynical turn of mind can also find much to enjoy here!

Having looked through the list published on the site and (astonishingly) finding nothing about business analysis, I thought it might be interesting to suggest 'two things' for our shared area of interest. A tricky task given the range of BA activity but if it is possible to summarise the entire cannon of Economic theory in two things then it should be possible for BA.

My suggestions are:

  • Requirements must be related to business need.
  • Solutions must address problems not symptoms.

What is useful about thinking in this way is that it really helps identify the key underlying rationale for a subject by distilling all information to its very essence. In a way, we could relate the 'two things' to critical success factors - you could say the two things above provide a basis for defining CSFs for business analysis.

While I found this an interesting exercise I can, of course, think of a third thing - concerning stakeholders - that I would like included. However, on reflection, this probably fits into the 'application of the two things' rather than being a separate 'thing'. Whitman's site also says that there are two things about the two things, one of which is that 'people rarely agree about the two things' and 'that goes double for anyone who works with computers'. On this basis, we might have difficulty having consensus on the BA 'two things' however, it would be interesting to see other ideas. All suggestions welcome - we will publish a list and submit to Whitman's website.

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