Author: Christina Lovelock

Christina is an experienced BA leader, has built BA teams ranging in size from 5 to 120 Business Analysts and champions entry level BA roles. She is active in the BA professional community, attending and regularly speaking at events. Christina is an examiner for the International Diploma in Business Analysis and is also a director of the UK BA Manager Forum. She has co-authored the 2019 book, Delivering Business Analysis: The BA Service Handbook, which shares insights and findings from research into Business Analysis, practical guidance for BA leaders, and case studies from across the professional community. https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-lovelock

Impostor Syndrome: Business Analysis Is NOT Just Common Sense

Written by Christina Lovelock on April 8, 2020. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Impostor Syndrome: Business Analysis Is NOT Just Common Sense

Impostor Syndrome seems to be particularly prevalent within the Business Analysis community. It’s time to consider why that might be, and how we can overcome it together.

Impostor syndrome is characterised by:

feeling like a fraud (“When are they going to figure out I don’t know what I’m doing?”)
believing success is unearned or just ‘lucky’ (“I was just in the right place at the right time”)
being plagued with self-doubt (“Who am I to do this?”).

When BAs hear about Impostor Syndrome, we experience a lightbulb moment. (“I thought it was just me!”).

BAs often down play our skills and effectiveness, we say things like “I didn’t really DO anything, I just got the right people together and asked the right questions” as if this is not an incredibly valuable skill!

Do not mistake the logical and sensible outcomes we are able to reach, due to many years of experience and developing our skills, as ‘common sense’. We have trained ourselves to be objective and see different perspectives. We have learned a wide range of techniques for engaging people appropriately, obtaining information and conveying that information in the best way possible.

Business Analysis is a professional discipline, is growing in size and expanding around the world, it is supported by recognised qualifications and professional bodies. If some friends and colleagues don’t know what Business Analysis is – that doesn’t mean it’s not real or not valuable.

Here are some of the factors contributing to widespread BA impostor syndrome:

It’s just common sense:

Application of logic and evidence driven decision making can look like common sense, especially if our approach and techniques are not made visible to stakeholders. We forget that the tools we are familiar with, and the logical process we apply are not personality traits – they are our professional skills, honed and improved over many years of practice, and not everyone has these skills.

Anyone can call themselves a BA:

Unfortunately, anyone can start calling themselves a BA, and anyone who has ever facilitated a workshop or written some requirements can believe they have the BA skill-set. As a profession we can make it easier for employers to differentiate between genuine BAs and BAs-in-name-only by having membership of BA professional bodies including IIBA and BCS, by undertaking professional qualifications, by engaging with the professional community online and at events and we can encourage the BAs-in-name-only to up their game as well!

Just fell into it:

Most of us did not set out to be BAs. In fact, when we were making critical life choices about what to study and where to live, we did not even know the role existed. The fact that we have become BAs by accident doesn’t mean that we have to apologise for it, or play down how much we enjoy it or excel at it.

Not a ‘real’ BA:

Some genuine BAs feel that they have come to the profession from circuitous route, or had a different path for them selves in mind. These BAs have often locked-in their professional identity to their industry, rather than their profession. For example, BAs in the financial sector who started their career in branch of a bank may believe it is their business knowledge, not their BA skill-set that allows them to do their job. If you have the skill-set and responsibilities of a BA, it may be time to allow yourself to see this as your professional identity.

What does a BA do?:

The BA role can look very different in different organisations and even within the same organisation. The BA role is no longer ‘new’, but there is still a great deal of role ambiguity [1]. Constantly having to explain the BA role can be tiresome, and make us question why it is not understood.

Not technical:

Many BAs have a role in IT-enabled change, and can feel they have to apologise for not having a technical background. This can lead to a feeling of ‘anyone could do my job’ because we don’t have specific technical skills, like writing code. The skills we do have are just as valuable, and often more scarce within the tech industry!

There is no role for the BA in agile:

Some organisations and individuals, sadly, still hold this view, and BAs can find it crushing. BAs have consistently proved our contribution in all software development approaches, and the core of our professional discipline is strong enough that we should not feel pushed out by other specialist roles, such as UX, UR and PO.

The business have written their own requirements:

The implication here is that a group of business users can figure out what they need, document it and convey it to developers and or suppliers. We know that 9 times out of 10 this will not end well, but instead of feeling offended or excluded, we need to work with them to build the trust they need in our profession.

So what can we do about it?

Understand that impostor syndrome exists, and the majority of people experience it at some point in our lives [2].
Consider which of these BA impostor-factors are effecting how you see yourself and how you behave.
Talk about it! Find someone you trust, or engage a coach, and discuss your feelings in relation to your role and profession.

Conclusion

By allowing ourselves and our stakeholders to believe that ‘business analysis is just common sense’, we may become valued as individuals but we will never demonstrate the value of the professional discipline. This occurs frequently in organisations when certain individuals are constantly requested within a BA Service, as it is the individual BA who is valued and trusted, not the application of business analysis.

We must continue to stand-up for the activities we know need to happen that contribute to the successful delivery of software, projects and change initiatives. We must leave every stakeholder we encounter with a better understanding and appreciation for business analysis that when we met. And finally, we must value our skills, believe in our role and not see ourselves as impostors in our industry.

Be a Better BA Through Reflective Practice

Written by Christina Lovelock on February 19, 2020. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Be a Better BA Through Reflective Practice

Self-reflection is easy to say but hard to do. As BAs we love a framework, and here is a great one to guide us on how to really reflect and learn from ourselves.

In a world of constant input, so much to read, listen to and watch, and so many people to learn from it seems almost impossible to believe that we can learn from ourselves with no input.

Are you really allowing yourself to learn from your own actions and experiences? Are you quick to judge your experiences? When we feel under constant pressure to maximise value, spend so much time in meetings, constantly consuming inputs and producing outputs, time for reflection can look like a luxury or a folly.

Make learning the ultimate goal of every activity and interaction.

The Gibbs Reflective Cycle (1988) is in common use in many professions across the world, it has six straightforward stages:

Description: of the experience
Feelings and thoughts: about the experience
Evaluation:of the experience, both good and bad
Analysis: to make sense of the situation, your own actions and responses
Conclusion about what you learned and what you could have done differently
Action plan: for how you would approach/change your approach to similar situations in the future.

The cycle is equally relevant to help us to reflect on a major event or timeframe (such as “My last 10 years in this job” or a small event or encounter (such as “Two minute elevator ride with the Chief Exec.”).

We can use the framework to reflect on all common BA activities, such as workshops, interviews and outputs we produce.

1. Description

This is the narrative without commentary. No value judgements, no evaluation, just what happened.

What was the situation and context?
Who was involved?
What did I say and do?
What did I see and hear?

2. Feelings and thoughts

This what was going through my mind at the time, how the situation made me feel. This is not about asking ‘why was I so nervous?’ or ‘what made me angry?’ just identifying the thoughts and feelings.

What was I thinking at the time and now?
What where my expectations?
How did I feel?
How do I think others felt?

3. Evaluation

This stage allows us to make judgements about the experience. Was it good/ great/ ok or terrible? But we still don’t try to answer why we feel that way about the experience.

Did I enjoy it or not?
What was good and bad?
What went well/ not so well?
How did the reality compare to the expectation?

4. Analysis

Now for the why.

Why did I feel that way?
Why did I act that way/ say that/ do that?
Why did things go well/ not so well?
Why did that happen? (What else do I know that helps me to make sense of the situation?)

5. Conclusion

This brings together all the previous questions, a chance to summarise and create key take-ways from the situation.

What did I learn?
How will I recap the situation to others?
What skills do I need to develop to get a better outcome next time?

6. Action Plan

So what, if anything, needs to happen next? This stage allows us to identify a range of actions, which might be ‘keep doing what I am doing’ or might indicate a different approach in future.

What will I do differently/ the same?
How will I develop the skills I have identified?
How will I put into practice the conclusions I have made?
How will I apply what I have learned?
How will I celebrate success?

Worked Example

A common question BAs are asked (and ask ourselves) is “How was the workshop?”

Common answers might include:

“Long.”
“It was great, thanks for asking.”
“The room was hot.”
“OK.”
“I think everyone enjoyed it. We got some good feedback.”
“I’m exhausted.”
“We had some last minute drop-outs.”

These answers are a scatter-gun of thoughts, facts, feelings and evaluation. We are better than this! Let’s take a logical approach:

Description: There were 15 people, from 4 departments. 3 people sent their apologies on the day. We had a mix of whole-group and break-out sessions, and the workshop lasted 3 hours with a short break. A couple of people had to leave early.

Thoughts and feelings: Before the session I was nervous, and then a bit frustrated when I found out some key people weren’t coming. I hoped people would come with the right attitude, and also worried we had a lot to cover in the time. I knew I was well prepared for the session.

Evaluation: I enjoyed it, we did manage to stick to time, but it was a bit rushed at the end. People seemed to be happy to contribute. The groups worked well, and I was pleased to see a range of different people give feedback. It got a bit noisy with three groups all working close to each other. Once we got started I wasn’t nervous anymore, but I found it difficult to bring the room back together after the break-outs.

Conclusion: I think three hours might be too long for people, so perhaps split the session down. This would take also take some of the pressure off me, I had to do so much prep work! Thinking about the groups in advance really helped though.

Action Plan: I am going to send a thank you email to everyone, we worked hard today. Next time I am going to book two rooms, so we can spread out a bit, and I am also going to phone people the day before and confirm with them they can attend or send a representative. We will limit it to two hours, and I will have better eye on timings, either by nominating a time keeper or setting a timer.

Applying the logical steps to structure a thorough response takes a little longer than a one word answer – but still only takes a few minutes and the learning is so much greater!

Conclusion

Self-reflection is critical to self-development. Self-awareness and personal development can also be achieved through feedback, but feedback without the power of self-reflection is wasted.

It is hard to reflect, and is even harder to avoid equating reflection with evaluation. Allowing ourselves to make more time for structured reflection can help with every aspect of our lives. Its time to start asking ourselves questions, and finding our own answers.

Further reading: Gibbs G (1988). Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods.

To-Do List/Ta-Da List

Written by Christina Lovelock on December 18, 2019. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on To-Do List/Ta-Da List

Being organised is an important aspect of business analysis, and so is personal reflection and maintaining motivation.

How can these aspects relate to each other?

To-do lists, whether mental, physical or digital (or a combination of all three!) form a key part of our strategy for ‘getting things done’, prioritising and feeling ‘on top of things’.

There is a sense of satisfaction in completing a task, and literally checking things off. That good feeling can be very fleeting, as we look with dismay at the many items remaining on the list, and we tend to take no time to reflect on the totality of things that have been checked-off.

A fact of modern life is that you will never reach the end of your to-do list!

Perhaps there is a way to maintain that sense of accomplishment, to create a lasting record of achievements and have somewhere to turn when a boost of motivation is needed.

When something is completed from your to-do list, take a couple of extra seconds to see if this should be moved to your ‘Ta-da’ list.

This may not be the ‘big-ticket’ items we can put on a CV, but the day-to-day activities we are getting through and instantly moving onto the next task. Items on the Ta-da list might include:

The positive things:

That was great
I surprised myself
I enjoyed that
I’m proud of that
I got great feedback.

The challenging things:

I thought it would take ages but it didn’t
I’ve been putting it off
I’ve never done it before
I was dreading it but it was fine
I was outside my comfort-zone, and I had to really push myself
It didn’t work out how I imagined, but I learned something.

The people things:

We worked really well together
I have a good relationship with that person now
I managed to influence that decision
I really helped that person
They really helped me.

The list may not turn out to be things you can easily articulate as achievements to other people (new job/promotion/bonus/award…) but will grow into a record of everyday activities and successes which would have been all too easily forgotten.

Manging to take note of even one item per month will yield a motivating list to look back on.

EXTENSION TO KANBAN

A physical or digital Kanban board gives us a shared record of what has been ‘Done’. This is a neutral list which does not draw attention to the things the team agree are the major achievements, these achievement’s may or may not reflect particularly significant or interesting features. Extending Kanban to include ‘Ta-da’ moments keeps a celebratory list of the hurdles overcome, the good decisions made and the results that are achieved when the team is at its best.

CONCLUSION

In knowledge based and digital roles, it can often feel that all we ‘achieve’ day-to-day is meetings and emails. To keep up our motivation we need to record and reflect on our wins, successes and feel-good moments throughout the year.

As the year comes to a close, and we enter the new year with resolutions and good intentions, consider how you can make personal reflection part of your routine, as high up on your to-do list as being organised.

Further reading: Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before (2016)

Stop Saying Soft Skills

Written by Christina Lovelock on November 26, 2019. Posted in Articles.

This term has always been at best inadequate, and at worst dismissive and belittling, but there has not been a suitable alternative that everyone could use consistently.

Now there is: Core Skills.

We have clearly been searching for a replacement for the phrase, as there are a range of alternatives in use, including:

Personal skills
Interpersonal skills
People skills
Social skills
Behavioural skills
Communication skills.

None of these options manages to convey the ‘fundamental-ness’ of these skills, they still sound like optional/nice to have/the icing on the cake. The core skills are the cake. Technical skills which are (comparatively) much easier to learn and develop are the icing.

Consider these two statements:

“That candidate was great technically, but is lacking in soft skills.”
How this sounds: they have most of what we are looking for, we may still hire them.
“That candidate was great technically, but is lacking the core skills.”
How this sounds: they don’t have what we are looking for, it is unlikely we will hire them.

Hire for attitude and aptitude, develop for technical skills. It saves organisations a fortune in the long run. Or to put this another way:
“Do not tolerate brilliant jerks. The cost to teamwork is too high.” [Reed Hastings, CEO, Netflix]

It is an adage in HR that “We hire for skills and fire for behaviours”. Hiring someone with ‘the right’ experience and great technical ability may seem like a shortcut to success, but if they demonstrate poor core skills the risk outweighs the reward.

That is not to say that having the core skills with no technical business analysis skills or abilities makes you a BA, but over the course of your career you will be a better BA because of your core skills.

The best business analysts value and continue to develop their core skills.
How do they do this? By:

seeking feedback
identifying role models
practicing self-reflection
increasing self-awareness
attending events, training and conferences
reading and personal research
setting goals
engaging a coach.

Conclusion

Soft skills is no longer a useful term for the modern digital workplace. We can each make the decision to stop using it. This is completely achievable, if you are in any doubt, try to recall the last time you heard the phrase ‘information super-high-way’!
It’s time to adopt a phrase which recognises these skills for the importance they have on effective relationships, team performance and organisational success.

BEWARE: Analysis Kills Empathy

Written by Christina Lovelock on October 30, 2019. Posted in Articles.

‘When the analytic network is engaged, our ability to appreciate the human cost of our action is repressed.’ [1]

Neurological studies have shown that our brains have two completely separate networks that deal with ‘analytical thinking’ and ‘empathetic and social thinking’, and that these are mutually exclusive processes within the brain. To engage one, we must switch off the other.

Analysts often say things like:

“That decision doesn’t make sense…”, “But they are not being rational…”, There is no logic behind it…” and “If you look at it objectively…”. These are things that are important to us, and many of us believe it’s what we are being paid to do for our organisations, but are we missing something?

Knowing that we are biologically unable to engage problem solving and empathetic mental processes at the same time gives us a significant opportunity to ensure we switch perspectives and consider both the ‘logical’ and ‘human’ view-points.

BAs need to use tools as checklists to remind us to properly explore the human side of IT, digital transformation and organisational change. There are some useful techniques which allow us to do this is a structured way such as:

Empathy mapping
SARAH curve
POPIT™ Model
Persona analysis
User journey mapping
Impact mapping
Force field analysis.

Empathy mapping can be used to great effect, not just in the context of business change, customer experience or system implementation, but as a mental checklist in our day to day interactions with others.

Empathy is fundamental to building good working relationships, and to ensure the human impact of our analytical decisions is properly appreciated.

This adapted empathy model allows us to explore a particular person/ relationship in depth, and is especially useful for what we might label as our ‘difficult stakeholders’, where the relationship is not working well.

Sees & Hears

How does this situation appear to the other person? What are they hearing from me? (not the same as what I think I’m saying). Are they getting different messages from others? What do they hear about me/this situation from others? What outputs or deliverables do they see from me? What behaviour do they see from me? What is the impact of my actions on them?

Says & Does

What are their activities and deliverables? How do these relate to what I do? What do they say to me and about me? How do they behave towards me/towards others? Is there a difference? What do I observe in their body language, facial expression and tone?

Thinks & Feels

What might they be thinking about this situation/this relationship? Do they think it’s a difficult relationship? How might our relationship ‘difficulties’ be impacting them? What can I observe that helps me infer their feelings? How do they express their feelings? (choice of words, tone, volume, non-verbal cues, frequency of our interactions, methods of communication).

Pain & Gain

What are their priorities? What do they want to achieve? What are their frustrations and blockers? How am I contributing to these? How can I help them? What would be the benefits of a better relationship with me?

As is always the case with empathy mapping, there is a limit to what can be learned through observation and assumption. At some point we have to speak directly to the person we are trying to understand better, but asking ourselves these questions should help us to empathise and may improve a difficult relationship significantly.

Conclusion

Logical. Methodological. Problem solver.

Many BAs identify with these skills to the point that we see them as personality traits, but we need to understand the warning this research has given us. BAs need to hone our empathy skills to be able to truly understand and represent different perspectives, and to build our working relationships.

‘Empathy is like a muscle: It has to be trained and exercised to become stronger.’ [2]

When we have finished our logical analysis, we need to remember to switch on our empathetic analysis.

References

[1] Empathy represses analytic thought, and vice versa: Brain physiology limits simultaneous use of both networks.(2012)

[2] State of workplace empathy: Executive Summary (2018)