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Author: Richard Lannon

Strategy Spotlight: 6 Ways Analysis Produces Strategic Insights for Business Success

Written by Richard Lannon on . Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Strategy Spotlight: 6 Ways Analysis Produces Strategic Insights for Business Success

This is one of the topics I have struggled with over the years.

Not because I don’t feel I understand it but because I meet professionals in the business analysis and project management fields who say, I don’t create the strategy or provide insight; it is given to me. What a load of bull. The reality is you create strategy and insight just by the nature of what you do. Here are 6 Ways Analysis Produces Strategic Insights for Business Success.

1. Stop It!

Strategic thinking is an individual’s capacity for thinking conceptually, with imagination, systematically and opportunistically as it relates to the attainment of future success. There are many times through the application of business analysis, and project management approaches that you use your spidey senses to engage your ability to think strategically naturally. To think someone else is more strategic than you is nonsense. To quote one of my favorite lines from an old Bob Newhart Show on YouTube – Stop it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow0lr63y4Mw

2. Past, Present and Future Insight

Every organization I have ever worked with needs the same three things no matter at what level you are working. Those things exist at the senior, middle, and operational level of every organization and are written clearly in the various industry’s body of knowledge. They are the present state, the future state, and insight into how to bridge the gap between the present and future. That is about it. You are doing problem-solving at its foundation. Chances are you do think about the present and ask yourself what the future should look like. Then somewhere your mind says, OK, what needs to happen to get there. Wow, a strategic insight that can provide value to the organization. You just applied the IIBA Body of Knowledge Chapter on Strategic Business Analysis.

3. The Brain Finds a Way

I completely believe the human brain will always find a way when a problem is presented to be solved. It sometimes comes across as a flash like a camera taking a picture you can post on social media. There is a whole neurological science around the brain that has suggested we need to balance thinking with detachment to create insight. I’d have to agree. I think when you are emotionally connected to a subject matter it is far more difficult to provide objective insight. So that is why when you are too connected to a topic you should hand it off to someone else or at least talk to someone who is less emotionally connected. It might help. From business analysis consider the standard approach prepare, define, capture, analyze, integrate, refine and present your insights. Create a feedback loop. It helps.

4. Know What Insight Looks Like

I guess you can say good insight in business has some common traits. I think there is some truth to that statement. I know you can create a list of what insight might look like and then see whether your thinking holds the test at the time. Consider whether your insight has an impact, are practical and relevant, are based on facts, data and other evidence, deliver a picture beyond the surface, and there is little room for interpretation and people can easily understand them.

5. Personality Traits Matter

I was once asked by a CEO whether some personality types are more strategic than others. I said “Yes” and went on to explain I believe some people are more “What and Why” and others are more “How To” or tactical. That does not mean the latter does not have strategic insights. If everyone on your team were strategic all the time, nothing would get done. So it requires a balance of people with the right combinations of traits and personality to work together to have impact and team with success. There is another part of this puzzle. The ability to apply their expertise, have a purpose, be analytical, use intuition where needed, be willing to experiment, listen and drill deeper when needed. I do think it is also important to not think you should always have the answer. The answer should come through discovery.

6. Gain Insight into Purpose

Strategy insight is done to achieve a purpose. No clear purpose, poor insight. It is that simple. It becomes the “Fish on Land” syndrome. Sad but true. So this means you must have a focus or provide a focal point. I think this is where good leadership and definition of a problem comes in. Are you looking to implement a new system, expand your market, save on the bottom-line? There is a lot of literature providing approaches to help you gain strategic insight and develop a clear purpose for the organization, for a team and even for an entity of one, an individual. The greater the understanding of purpose, the better the strategic insight, solution, and implementation.

Final Thoughts

This is one of those topics that puts the hair on the back of my neck up a bit. I see so much potential business brainpower not being tapped in organizations. Even this morning I was reviewing career posts for an organization curious as to what people were saying. The pros were salary and benefits, and the con is that it was a death sentence of the brain. All I could think is that if you are looking for the strategic insight, it was not going to come from within this organization. If strategic insight were presented, nothing would move forward. People need to be strategically engaged in their thinking it is how we solve problems. Insight happens at all levels, not just at the top. As a professional know the ways you provide strategic insights.

Remember: Do your best, invest in the success of others, and make your journey count.

Strategy Spotlight: 8 Things You Must do Better to Make Better Decisions

Written by Richard Lannon on . Posted in Articles.

I have been thinking lately about what it takes to make decisions. Just recently I was presented with a situation where some major decisions will need to be made.

Ones that impact changes in business and careers focus and could mean going into a whole new direction. So you have to make the best decision with the information at hand for your organization. From that perspective I think there are eight things you must do to make better decisions.

1. Invest in decision making skills.

This is something that holds true today as it did ten years ago or more. I see this as a foundational skill that people need to learn, practice and apply. There are many approaches or methodologies that can be applied in the decision making process whether you are a traditional organization, project based, a committee environment or driven by the board of directors. Often the fundamentals of decision making are missing. Look at the environment and create an appropriate decision making structure.

2. Create time to think ahead.

Time, time and more time is something we don’t have. It has become a luxury that most people can’t afford. Yet making good decisions requires time to reflect and look at the road ahead. What if you are considering changing careers and decide to go in a whole new direction? This is a big decision. This applies to a business venture also. Change and transformation are difficult to do on a whim, often you are required to think and plan ahead. But don’t over think long term plans as things change around you quickly.

3. Know who you serve.

This is an important point to answer. I know a lot of business leaders and professionals who I am completely confident in their ability to get the job done, to move forward and make things happen. But, they lack an important insight and clarity of who they serve. Decision making is a whole lot easier if you know who you serve whether it is a specific target market, an organization or something else. I think it provides opportunities to make mindful decisions and improve innovation and creativity in solving problems due to clarity and focus. It does not matter if you upset the market because you know who you serve.

4. Question everything, especially the business.

I often get asked how I would approach a specific problem. I am in a meeting and someone sets up a scenario and wants to know my approach. Any good business analyst, trainer or consultant will know the basics; define the problem, evaluation solutions, implement the approved solution, and measure the results. Part of the process is to question the business model. Recently I had this happen in a meeting with an executive director. I was presented with a question and responded but within that response I placed questions to better understand the business model of this organization.

Turns out they are looking for a change and the business model is suspect. It is always good to question, even when answering.

5. We can all think in a straight line.

Straight line or linear thinking is the a, b, c, of decision making. With so many organizations talking about innovation, creativity and being intentional I wonder what’s the point. There are many theories about what approach you should take. I still think the best approach to decision making and initiative integration is a mix between predictive and adaptive planning. These two approaches provide the best of both worlds, and when blended, often provide an organization an approach that works beyond the mere linear.

6. Create a story around decisions.

Life is a story and you write it yourself. With every decision there is a story that comes from people discussions, thinking, making assumptions, determining impact and communicating the decision. Wouldn’t it be great if you could create a decision narrative that is beyond the old boring business report? People want to be part of the decision story that makes a difference thus bridging organization gaps. You should create decision making stories.

7. We are all moving at the speed of a click.

Over decades my career has been part of the professional consulting and service economy which has accelerated at lightning speed in recent years. When I look at the professions’ value stream I think we need to make better decisions around the downstream business environment. Clients no longer just order or buy stuff they engage now in a very different way where it becomes difficult to determine the ROI on business activities. Margins wither as the need to provide valuable free content increases making business decisions a challenge to make. No matter the business you are in, the accelerated service economy is impacting your business.

8. Find a tool, reduce your risk and get costs under control.

The strategic business analyst looks at the past, present and future of a strategic plan and approach and use financial analysis of NPV, IRR and ROI within your business case. But it is important to go further and look at risk with uncertainty analysis. This is something that I learned over time from various economic adjustments (ie: dot com bubble burst, corporate and accounting scandals, subprime mortgages issue, and resource industry collapse) I think uncertainty needs to be determined better. Business intelligence and uncertainty reducing tools can be used to assist in this analysis. My point, the business analyst can play an important part in helping organizations make decisions through embracing uncertainty analysis approaches and tools to help deal effectively with unpredictable times.

Final Thoughts

Big decisions are tough to make, especially when you have invested so much time and effort on your business or focus area. When you work in a space where you are building skills and helping businesses define their future, you start to realize that there are certain truths that exist. One truth, everybody wants to survive and be around a long time. The second truth, that there is always a purpose that needs to be achieved. Third truth, good decisions and core competencies take you a long way to creating a profitable future thus achieving the first two truths.

Strategy Spotlight: 4 Communication Skill Components that a Professional Should Master

Written by Richard Lannon on . Posted in Articles.

I was asked by a participant at a PM/BA World Event hosted by Diversified Communications and the local IIBA Chapter what I felt were the some key areas to study as a new business analyst.

I paused for a moment and said facilitation, documentation, integration and presentation is a good place as any to start. As I reflected on my comment I wondered why those four items came top of mind during a keynote presentation question and answer period. I realized that for years I have been preaching the importance of these skills and capabilities in my three day Business Analysis, Gathering and Documenting Requirements program where communications is the key.

But, what is communications. Well it is more than the words you use. Good or effective communications combines a skill set that includes verbal and non-verbal capabilities and as a professional, it is imperative that you become a communication master. Now, what does that have to do with facilitation, documentation and integration?

Facilitation: To be a facilitator you have to master people and group dynamics on a variety of levels. Often this means attending training, getting coaching and mentoring and practicing a variety of skill sets all aimed at developing your verbal and non-verbal communication skills. There are skill sets that include your ability to:

  • profile people and adjust your behaviors to their needs not yours,
  • actively listen where you focus fully on the speaker from their body language, tone of voice and non-verbal cues,
  • be an improvisational expert and adjust when needed and as required (sometimes entertain),
  • run meetings from the one on one interviews, small group discussions to the larger workshops,
  • know where it is you are starting (problem) and where you need to go (the outcome) and set the course and tone to get there and lots more.

Documentation: This is one of the areas I think is often misunderstood. By definition, documentation is material that provides official evidence and serves as a record. Generally this is not the fun stuff for a lot of people. Documentation is part of communications. From the written text to the depicted requirements using diagrams, it tells a story and brings the audience on a journey from problem to solution.

Documentation that relates to facilitation on a number of levels as it is that skill set that requires you to know how to develop surveys and questionnaires, to create interview questions like a journalists, and to capture that information as factual, authentic as possible to communicate to your respective stakeholders, your audience.

Whether you are writing a proposal, a charter, building a requirements plan, creating a summary of findings, doing a financial analysis or writing a full business case. Documentation is a communication’s vehicle as it about your ability to write and communicate with words on paper, a computer screen or some other medium.

Integration: Bringing it all together is what it is all about and this is called integration. I think this is the hardest part of any professiona’ls work as it is a lot of work. Often called the heavy lifting, you could spend twenty hours communicating with people to capture information and another sixty hours or more putting it all together.

Information integration similar to documentation requires you to know your audience and the key deliverables. You could be writing a summary of findings with no analysis for your peers or maybe the executive team. Maybe you are developing a presentation deck for the executive and you have to determine what information must be made available. You could also be required to create a requirements attribute table or a program roadmap where you need to determine the sequence and wording of requirements for the strategic, tactical or operational. There is also the possibility that you have to integrate the material as business, stakeholder, solution and transformational requirements. The list of possibilities is endless. So studying and building your information integration skills for communications is extremely important. It is not just about you.

Presentations: In today’s world I just can’t see how you can survive as a professional without developing your presentation skills. This skill is about your ability to effectively deliver engaging presentations to a variety of audiences. You need to learn how to structure presentations, design slides, set the tone of the presentation with your voice and body language. It all counts.

To develop this skill consider taking training on thinking on your feet, acting and improvisation, joining a club that teaches you and helps you practice presentation skills, learn the difference between being a speaker, trainer and facilitator. There are differences in the skill set that you apply given the audience.

As a professional developing your confidence in front of an audience is important, learn not to lecture but to engage, develop your ability to profile your audience, find ways to keep things short and simple with repetitive markers, and anticipate questions.

Final Thought

One of my favorite programs to speak and train on is Gathering and Documenting Requirements because it applies a practical and realistic skill set in communications, facilitation, documentation, integration and presentation that the professional needs to develop for their career success. This skill set can and will be applied throughout your career and life, whether you are working with your peers and other stakeholders solving a problem, researching a vacation, buying a house or hanging out with your friends engaging in conversation around living everyday and succeeding in all that you do or want to do. Yes, I guess you can say these are four skills will make you a communication expect if developed well.

Strategy Spotlight: 7 Common Challenges faced by You, the Facilitator

Written by Richard Lannon on . Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Strategy Spotlight: 7 Common Challenges faced by You, the Facilitator

We all make meeting facilitation mistakes. I know I have made a few. Sometimes you can recover and other times you cannot.

I know that when I make a mistake in a facilitation session, I feel really bad for days. It impacts me personally. There are several reasons why; first, I pride myself on helping organizations discuss issues and come up with solutions; second, I believe my job is to make my sponsor and the people around me look good; third, I prepare like crazy and like to have everything vetted and completed at least a week in advance.

Related Article: Master These 7 Skills to Become an Excellent Interviewer

But sometimes things happen and you just don’t deliver. I hate it when this happens.

I have been thinking lately about the mistakes we make that derail a facilitation session. Here’s what I came up with.

Advanced Preparation

Sometimes I think I spend way too much time preparing for a session. Over the years I have learned that anything that takes you out of your schedule for a day (8 hours) usually takes 40 to 60 hours to prepare. That is why it is so important to have good preparation time and be prepared at least a week before the session starts. Usually, when doing advance preparation, I like to survey a cross-section of the attendees, interview several attendees, get clear on the agenda prior to preparing anything and then only prepare what really needs to be delivered.

Ensure You Have the Right Topics

This goes back to advance preparation. When I reflect back on my best sessions, it was a team effort. Usually at least 2 client representatives, and maybe another subject matter expert, who are fully engaged in the process to ensure we have the right business problem to solve and approach the topic and issues appropriately.

One thing I have learned from experience, if my gut doesn’t feel right about something, then we are going in the wrong direction. When that happens, speak up and have the tough conversation with your preparation team.

Thinking Any Discussion is a Good Idea

Having a discussion for discussion sake does not make any sense. Facilitation is about getting people to participate in the information gathering process, and training is about imparting information to people. These are related but different.

Recently I ran into a situation where I was using the insight of someone else to prepare for a session and ended up in doing a bit of a training session, not a facilitation session. My point for this group was they needed to have a format planning structure in place that focused their organization. But that is not what they needed. Fortunately, between the break I switched gears and in the second half I turned things around. But I was only able to do that because I had prepared backup materials.

It was good to have the first discussion but great that we had the second discussion.

Know the People in the Room and at the Session

I pride myself on knowing the participants before going into a session, especially when there are multiple stakeholder groups present. This is about people and group dynamics. Again this is a preparation thing. But given the opportunity, I meet as many of the participants as possible who have thoughts on what we are seeking to achieve. My preference is to profile the stakeholders ahead of time to get an idea of their working-selves, to make connections and relationships in advance so I have people to call on to help me out and to get a big picture on how the group interacts. I find that when I miss getting a good group profile I am not as sharp and I have to work harder and earn the trust of the people in the room. This is also true if I am out-of-practice.

Connecting with People at the Beginning of the Session

Related to the last point but a bit different. I know name tags, introductions, and an icebreaker game goes a long way to connect with people. Other times it is about grabbing them and engaging them early on, so there is a connection between you and the group you are working with. That’s why I show up early, meet and greet people, chat about common interests and do my best to find out something about the team. Sometimes I am surprised by how energized people are, sometimes how disconnected they are and other times how civil people are.

Recently I had a program to facilitate and was seeking an opener that would allow me to connect with the participants. I sent my sponsor some ideas, but the suggestions got killed. When I asked my sponsor a recommended opener, they did not provide the best advice. So I made the mistake of just diving in when I should have stepped back and simply asked an unusual question and got everyone to give an unusual answer. Now would this have worked for this group, maybe or maybe not?

My point, always start by connecting with people.

Making Sure you have a Feedback Loop

As hard as this might be, I believe it is of paramount importance. Having a debrief session or discussion is the only way you can make improvements or correct any errors you have made or that took place during the session. It is great to do debriefing sessions when everything is wonderful, but when you have missed the mark, that is when debriefing is hard.

I believe in structure and engagement. So you need to request feedback about a meeting as a whole and about the facilitation specifically. Hopefully, if things did not go well, it was not completely on your shoulders. But I don’t think that is a reality.

As difficult as it is, one thing I have learned, when things don’t go totally to plan there are usually other factors at play that maybe were misunderstood, not communicated, or misguided.

For example, I once did a half-day session with 40 people. The objective was to discuss ways to improve the organization. No one told me that just before we started, the CEO announced that they were cutting 1/3 of all positions. No one in the session said anything; I didn’t know and I left feeling like I failed. It was only three days later that I found out what had happened. From the ‘get-go’ I was the scapegoat. I found out during a feedback session.

Invest in Yourself as a Facilitator

Facilitation is part science and part art. You need to train and practice. I know for me, when things go wrong I go back to my training and see what I could do differently. When things go right, I go back to my training to see what I could do differently. Good facilitators make it look easy. Investing in yourself as a facilitator can really make a difference, even if you are training, coaching and mentoring others. So find a place to work on your facilitation skills and practice.

Final Thoughts

I am sure I could cover a lot more items for this topic. But I guess this is my confession; after a long career with a ton of experience, there are times I make mistakes.

There are many things that can go right or go wrong when it comes to facilitation. The sessions that worked well often meant that we had the preparation time, sponsor and stakeholder engagement, good direction and clarity on goals, objectives, and outcomes way before the session work began. But that does not mean that every session goes as planned. I have been in many sessions where we got derailed because suddenly the CEO didn’t get it, but the management team did, the Enterprise VP provided poorly defined business problem and driver statements, or the program manager requested a training approach, approved materials only to discover that all these people really needed was a conversation, someone to listen to them, ask questions and create a list of possible solutions and outcomes.

Here’s the thing, success rests on the facilitator’s shoulders no matter what happens. Like Paul Simon said in the song Something So Right, “When something goes wrong, I’m the first to admit it, I’m the first to admit it, but the last one to know.”

I think facilitation is like those words. As a facilitator, it is great when everything goes right, but it’s tough when things go wrong. But you need to be the first to admit it, even if you are the last one to know.

Do your best,
Invest in the success of others,
Make your journey count.
Richard

Strategy Spotlight: 11 steps to strategic analysis, planning and implementation success

Written by Richard Lannon on . Posted in Articles.

Strategic analysis, planning, and management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by a company’s top

management on behalf of the organization.

It is based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization competes. The strategic business analyst has an important role to play in this process.

To be strategic means to provide overall direction to the enterprise and involves specifying the organization’s objectives, developing policies and plans designed to achieve these objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans. All of this needs to be analyzed and the requirements clearly defined.

I think this gets missed by organizations when they are seeking to have their strategic plans translated into requirement reality.

Related Article: 7 Steps To Kick-Start Your Strategic Planning Process

Imperative to implementation success is a proven approach to developing your strategy, management, and transformation needs. This must be in alignment with the strategic business analyst needs for current and future state understanding, assessing the risks components and defining the change strategy to make it all happen. But strategy all starts with knowing the steps you need to take.

Here are 11 steps that are imperative to your strategic analysis, planning, and implementation success.

1. Select the planning model and approach you will use.

This is imperative. I have witnessed many situations where the model and approach were never defined or were highly theoretical negatively impacting the stakeholder’s comprehension and participation willingness. Don’t make this mistake.

2. Identify your key stakeholders.

Proper stakeholder analysis is a must whether you are facilitating strategic planning sessions or reviewing and analyzing presented plans to determine their viability or build business cases for better business decisions.

3. Establish the questions you need to be answered.

There are at least seven key questions that must be asked and answered (see Question Everything About Your Business – 7 Candid Questions That Need To Be Asked), but that is not all. Find out what the outcome requirements are and host a ‘Questions to Ask’ session with your team to create a list of the questions you need to be answered. Categorize those questions by business impact and importance and identify the stakeholder source.

4. Determine where it is you and your team need to go.

This is all about your company’s ‘Vision of Success.’ It includes key strategic business information of vision and mission, values and guiding principles, and goals and objectives. This information should not be fluff. As a strategic business analyst, you need to know what is on the strategic agenda (goals and objectives) and why. Then you need to help translate that into tactical requirements (if you were not part of the initial planning). This is one place where you bridge the gap from the strategic to the tactical.

5. Focus on the business impact zones.

I have spoken about this for years, written articles about it and a book on the topic. Still, it amazes me that organizations and professionals (I mean business analysts) miss this point. There are generally four business impact zones (process and productivity, tools and technology, business development, and people and culture) with very specific requirements. Each impact zone affects the others through the decision-making process and actions taken. If you push on one you create ripples that impact the others. For example, recently a professional service company was forced to let go 120 of its employees. Externally the market changed (external) and the organization did not adjust quickly enough (internal), revenue declined (business development) and they were forced to let people go (people and culture) and adjust their working parameters (process and productivity) and renegotiate contracts on their working assets (tools and technology) to decrease costs.

6. Create a strategy map outlining focus areas.

Business leaders and teams lose focus, often caused by an external event (market shift, lost client) or people challenges (poor management, lack of communications, not asking the right questions, no alignment). A strategy map provides a visual of the key decisions and focus areas and is an important business artifact for the business analyst. As business requirements go, a strategy map can be translated strategically, tactically and operationally. This is Business Analysis 101.

7. Build an action roadmap to guide your business.

A strategy roadmap is a high-level implementation plan that displays the strategic agenda (goals and objectives), the strategic initiatives (programs), the business champion (the leader or sponsor), the work elements (projects), an alignment path (to keep things aligned), and time and milestone requirements. The best part is it can be a Gantt chart that can be translated and implemented.

8. Establish work plans with key activities.

This is another one of those steps that organizations and senior teams skip because they say they do not have time to do it. Then they wonder why no one is focused on what needs to be done. Simple rule, you don’t work-plan to fail, you fail to work-plan. Can you imagine what would happen if you hired a company to build you a new house and there were not work-plans from the drawings that were created? If the strategy and roadmap are the blueprints, then the work-plans are the tasks and activities, the resources, timelines and costs of making it happen with someone in charge of implementation. Still, someone needs to establish the work-plans solution requirements.

9. Identify the risks through risk analysis.

There is always risk and if you are going to have work-plans to implement the strategic initiatives, then you need to do risk analysis. The level at which you do your risk analysis will be dependent on your role. You will need the standard inputs – objectives, risk results, external and internal influences, future state solution value and requirements priority. There are a lot of factors that play into risk analysis.

10. Create a communication plan to engage people.

This is another activity that is often skilled or misunderstood, or there is a communication plan but no one has communicated that it exists and someone else starts to create a new one. There should be a strategic communication plan for the organization that gets translated into tactical and operational requirements. The communication plan is used in transformations, change and implementation.

11. Go the distance through implementation.

You have gone through the strategic planning and analysis process using a proven approach, and you have created all the supporting requirements, but nothing is going anywhere. This is one of those things that sometimes happens. You need to put a process in place to make things happen whether it is through quarterly reviews, metric dashboards, timeline reviews and status meetings, progress audits and touch points, next level work-plans and resource assignments, communication implementation – the list goes on. The strategic business analyst can have an important role to play in this as does the project manager.

At the senior levels, I have been asked to facilitate ‘Go the Distance’ meetings with the executive teams to help keep them on track and do point audits with project and operational managers who have been tasked with getting things done with report backs to the executives. I guess this is a career development thing for the junior and intermediate business analyst. Still, you need to support the strategic implementation of the key strategic initiatives in the organization.

Final Thoughts

There are many steps to be taken in the strategic business analysis world to shape the direction of an organization. Over the course of my career, I have been privileged to have worked on initiatives that have allowed me to explore each step stated here both horizontally (mile wide, inch deep) and vertically (inch wide, mile deep). It takes a lot of work to define and action an organization’s direction. Unfortunately, the amount of effort is often misunderstood or put aside for bandage solutions. No matter the circumstance strategic business analysis, planning and implementation is important to the success of any organization. Good luck.