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Tag: Best Practices

Embedded BI Changes the Strategic Role of the Business Analyst

Written by Marcus Hodges on . Posted in Articles.

The world of business intelligence (BI) and data analytics has existed for decades; what started as simple Business Analysis reporting in the late 1980s has evolved to today’s near real-time querying.

Departments rely on BI to make daily decisions, and at the highest-level organizations turn to BI and data analytics to make strategic business decisions that can dramatically affect a company’s bottom line and future direction.

Business intelligence is going through a transition. Its evolution combined with new capabilities provided by embedded BI empowers Business Analysts to serve a more direct, visible and strategic role in delivering analytics to organizations. As technology evolves to meet new market demands, departmental, and organizational needs, the functionality offered by BI and data analytics is dramatically evolving. This extends to change who manages BI and data analytics.

As organizations mature and become more sophisticated, business leaders realize that mining the data that already exists within the organization affords them opportunities to influence more effective strategic decision making.

With BI innovations, including new features, functions, and end-user capabilities, Business Analysts can also drive efficiencies with more timely data analysis.

BI Use Comes from Disciplines, Departments Across the Organization

Traditionally the information technology (IT) department was responsible for deploying and managing the BI solution, as well as fulfilling requests to produce reports and delivering them to end users, departmental level managers, and the executives who needed them. Once IT deployed the BI solution, the Business Analyst became the intermediary for end users and IT to develop reports and dashboards that met business objectives. Unfortunately, the process to meet user requests for new reports could take weeks.

Beyond serving as the IT and end user-intermediary, the Business Analyst historically had the pivotal role of dictating the processes and developing business systems, so the organization achieved its business goals. The role of the Business Analyst included:

  • defining business needs through detailed functional requirements
  • evaluating potential solutions to business problems
  • analyzing and evaluating business systems and user needs

Evolving Business Analyst Solutions Changing Roles

While the Business Analyst always worked with end users to understand and prioritize business goals and information needs, that role has now evolved to include understanding the analytics methodology for their organization. The Business Analyst translates critical objectives into the key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics.

In many organizations, IT teams are resource constrained – having to do too much with too little, especially time. The evolution of BI hands more responsibilities to end users, who require greater and immediate access to real-time data.

With this shift, the Business Analyst has moved from the role of facilitator or gatekeeper working with the IT department and end users to a more strategic role. Business Analysts can now directly influence how business applications and their outputs are used by organizations to meet specific needs. In our fast-paced world, end users expect much quicker response times, and now the Business Analyst has become responsible for getting them analytics they need in real time.

Today’s Business Analyst is responsible for the following roles:

  • administrating the analytics experience for all users
  • managing data sources and access rights
  • creating and distributing reports, dashboards and data visualizations
  • performing complex analysis and implement change to improve organizational performance.

The Power of BI Today in Form and Function

Solution providers sensing this shift have responded by offering capabilities that make BI more than just a stand-alone platform. They are embedding BI capabilities in their applications to allow for self-service analytics. Available purpose-built embedded BI capabilities are becoming intuitive functions that end users access as part of their daily workflow.

An administrative graphical user interface (GUI) allows the Business Analyst to customize the BI and data analytics functions, enabling them to set up user roles and permissions. Through the GUI, the Business Analyst tailors the user’s analytics for departments and individual users.

The Business Analyst can also define data sources and blend data from multiple sources, other tasks previously handled by IT. Rather than relying on a database administrator (DBA), the GUI allows the Business Analyst to alias data fields as business-friendly terms – making analytics more approachable to the business user, thereby increasing adoption.

A powerful GUI and embedded BI functionality equips end-users with self-service capabilities to produce the reports, visualizations, and dashboards, which previously required engagement from the IT team and Business Analyst. The evolution of BI and organizational changes shift report writing and dashboard creation from the IT team to the end user.

Self-service BI empowers end-users and enables the Business Analyst to work as a true analyst, freeing them to create reports and dashboards to ensure the company follows its business model and makes effective strategic business decisions based on real-time data analysis. The Business Analyst can take learnings gleaned from analytics to better forecast and plan for the effects specific actions might have on the business. This makes the Business Analyst’s role more powerful, helping them play a pivotal role in strategic decision-making.

BI’s Evolution Makes These Skills Important for the Business Analyst

As the amount of analyzable data continues to grow, current and future Business Analysts may want to consider strengthening or adding to their skillset. There is certainly no shortage in the growth of data creation, capture, management, and analysis that will require such skills as:

  • Business Acumen – Understanding the industry and its KPIs to create value for the organization
  • Application Proficiency – Mastering the organization’s business application and its BI solution
  • UX/UI Design – Knowing where users need to utilize analytics within the business application
  • Report and Dashboard Design – Understanding what data and reports are relevant to the end user and utilize their eye for storytelling and knowledge of charting to identify the most appropriate visualizations, tables, and charts to help users find insight
  • Methodology and Business Process – Understanding the processes of the organization to identify opportunities to redesign for improvement and apply analytics to improve operational performance
  • Automate Decision-Making – Analyzing and determining which reports and alerts can be scheduled and automated to move users toward additional data discovery and insight

Embedded BI Aids BUSINESS ANALYST’s Strategic Role

The demand for interactive data has helped BI to evolve from a rigid technology managed by IT to a business requirement. Today’s Business Analyst deals with BI as a business function, not an enabling technology. The continued growth of solutions that empower the end user allows the Business Analyst to further cement their role as a strategic asset for the company. Where the Business Analyst once took on the role of a project manager, embedded self-service BI empowers the Business Analyst to shift that role Business Analyst to strategic analysis.

Utilizing Effective Communication to Affect Change – Lessons from the Field

Written by William Sheats on . Posted in Articles.

Whether an organization is embarking upon an enterprise-wide restructuring or changing the flow of patients through a clinical area, the desired result is a change in the way in which work is accomplished.

Achieving this result requires the organization’s customers and staff to embrace and adopt the new ways associated with the change: create a shift in terms of the involved individuals’ behavior. Effective communication is a valuable tool in achieving the desired changes in an organization.

Effective communication throughout the lifecycle of the change initiative is required to enable and achieve a successful organizational change. Communication is the foundation for transferring the knowledge and creating the understanding associated with the specifics of the change. Our experience with a wide range of healthcare organizations indicates that when effective communication isn’t a part of a change initiative, success is difficult to achieve.

Whether on a personal or organizational level, change requires us to move from a relative homeostasis situation to one of chaos before returning to a ‘new’ state of homeostasis. Things may not look the same, the way in which we do things will change, and the environment in which we are now functioning may be different. One’s willingness and ability to accept and adapt to the change improves with an increased level of knowledge and understanding of the rationale for the change as well as the changes in behavior that are necessary to be successful. Effective communication is a powerful enabler to increasing individual knowledge and understanding.

Most successful organizational change initiatives embrace communication to accomplish several goals. The following represents the typical goals of our client base:

  1. Solicit input and feedback from a key constituency that engages them in the change;
  2. Review key aspects of the change and seek approval for next steps;
  3. Share information regarding the change, e.g., progress of the initiative;
  4. Recognize and ‘celebrate’ the initiative’s progress; and
  5. Transfer knowledge to the impacted constituencies of the change.

Most projects or change initiatives will want to develop and execute a communications approach to address all the goals identified above. The specific initiative will direct the scope and level of effort associated with each of the goals. For example, a hospital client that embarked upon a redesign of its clinics’ access process focused most of their communication efforts on the staff within the clinics impacted and their external patient population. Broad hospital organizational communication was limited to periodic progress reports to the senior leadership and recognizing the positive customer satisfaction scores resulting from the redesign. Within the clinics, all the goals were part of the project’s communication efforts. However, broader communication to the other hospital areas was not accomplished, creating confusion among the staff from these other areas when they interacted with the impacted clinics’ patients. Unfortunately, this resulted in the patients knowing more about the access process change than the employees of the hospital’s other departments.

This hospital client example is in contrast to the multi-provider healthcare system that simplified and standardized the process utilized to measure and monitor key patient quality indicators. The communication approach for this initiative embraced all five goals across multiple internal constituencies, including physician and hospital leadership, clinical providers, and patient quality staff. The result was a more comprehensive and faster adoption of the change across the organization.

One of the critical measures of success in implementing change is the degree to which the desired outcome of the initiative is achieved. Increases in staff productivity; reductions in the cycle times to treat patients; and increases in provider satisfaction are examples of planned change initiative outcomes. Achieving these outcomes require a change in the way in which business is conducted and the behavior of staff within the organization. The ability to affect this type of change requires the active engagement of all constituencies impacted by the change initiative, from the executive championing the change to the staff members who will change the way in which they interact with their key customer groups. Effective communication represents a significant enabler to a change initiative.

Our client experience has shown that organizations whose change initiatives embrace a communications effort are more than two times likely to achieve the initiative’s planned outcomes than those who didn’t approach their initiative with a comprehensive communications approach. Clients indicate that the process of communicating with key constituencies is the most important aspect of their efforts, as opposed to the specific means and content shared. Our experience is that simple, straightforward, well-written content produces the best results with constituencies. Elaborate, high-tech presentation methods tend to overshadow the basic content that the individuals need to embrace and adopt the change.

A second critical lesson learned has been the importance of using a variety of communication mechanisms, e.g., e-mails, physical signs or posters, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and face-to-face meetings. Constituencies respond differently to a variety of communication mechanisms, and even within a single constituency, our experience has shown it is more effective to vary the means in which content was shared. During the preparation of a tactical communication plan, ensure it represents a ‘mix it up’ in terms of the communication mechanism. During the plan’s development, solicit input from key constituencies or stakeholders regarding their preferred method of communication.

As a follow-up to this initial discussion with key stakeholders, periodically check-in with them to ensure that the content provided to them was understood in the manner desired. Communication requires more than ‘speaking and being heard’; it is about the listener understanding and comprehending the content provided to them. If it is determined that the communication efforts aren’t working, then adjust them to achieve the desired results.

8 Things I Learned from Being a New Business Analyst

Written by Elsa Ephraim on . Posted in Articles.

I was not very sure about what my role as a BA would look like, what was expected of me and how I needed to go about things.

But reading so many articles online, especially from the BA times (I start my day with the BA times; it’s like my morning newspaper) has helped me gain lots of knowledge which I would have otherwise gathered only with experience. As a newbie BA, I don’t have too much to contribute (yet), but I would love to share my experience on my first project process mapping. I hope this helps other newbie Business Analysts on what and what not to do.

Okay, so my task was to map out the current supply chain process of the company, identify loopholes/ gaps or areas of improvement and suggest fixes. Sounded simple enough – till I actually dived in.

1. Be Confident

Being new to the post and industry, I had lots to learn and gathering information just by observation was not going to help me. I had to conduct one on one interviews. Everyone was busy (or claimed that he or she were busy), and they were not very keen on going out of their way to make time out for me (I don’t think they even knew what I was doing there). So after politely asking them to make time for me, the first few days I ended up sitting at my desk waiting for people to get free. Obviously, I was not proactive or firm (that does not mean you need to be rude). Instead of “Please could you let me know when you are free,” make it “Kindly give me a time and date so that we can set up a meeting to discuss the process.” See, more professional and more chances that they are going to take you seriously. Even better, get that into an email with your boss in cc. Now he knows you are in action.

2. Always Confirm Information Collected from More Than One Person

I made the mistake of gathering information from only one person per department. Big mistake! It is not necessary that the information that he or she is giving you is accurate, so you need to double check. After I realized this and began double checking, I faced instances of getting different pieces of information from different people of the same team! Initially, this was puzzling, and then it started to get hilarious. This pointed out a big gap in their process: lack of complete process awareness.

3. Probe and Probe Further

I loved the part where I could interview people but overlooked the very important part of creating unambiguous questions. I realized that when I interviewed them unless I probed further about something, I would not get all the information. Just by sticking to the questions that I had prepared for the interview, I would not get a 360° view of the process. So I learned that after I ask a question, I need to ensure that I cover the who, what, why and how of it too, before moving on to the next.

4. Focus on the AS–IS and Be Objective About It

It was exciting to improve a process but I needed to remember to focus on the as–is first. Many times as I was interviewing them, I would immediately jump to finding gaps and faults in the process. The conversation now steers in that direction and rest of the interview would be a mix of what is and what is not and what could be. Result? At the end of the interview, I was not sure if I had the as–is process or the to–be process or a combination of the two. So just listen, be objective and ask questions about the information that you are collecting, but do not jump into being Sherlock Holmes just yet.

5. Document Your Journey

I am aware that the least amount of time should be spent on documentation, but I must say it actually helped me to document as I gathered information. This helped because by wording out the details as I collected, I found that there were incomplete pieces of information gathered. For instance, I would document part of the process as “The yard foreman informs the warehouse about the collected items” – whoa! Hold on there. How was the information passed? Who was informed in the warehouse? Coordinator? Supervisor? The little details give you a much better idea about the process flow and information flow. So after I gathered my information, my sentence looked like this: “The yard foreman verbally informs the warehouse coordinator about the collected items.” No ambiguity and absolute transparency. Please note that at this stage of documentation the focus should not be on the font and alignment of your document, but content.

The other frills can be looked into at the last stage of documentation and review.

6. Ask!

As a newbie, I found it a good practice to ask the person concerned what problems they face. Handling the same process on a daily basis, they will already have identified loop holes that the management would have ignored or not seen. Also, you need to analyze whether their concern is actually worth taking note of and if it fits into the big picture.

7. Enjoy the Planning Phase

I had jumped right into the project, but what I have realized is, before you take the big leap, take a few days just to plan the entire thing out – who you are going to interview, who is going to read your document, what needs to be included in your document, etc. I think the BABOK v3 chapter 3, covers this nicely. You might have to change your plan along the way, but it’s better to dive in half prepared than not prepared at all. In my next project, I am definitely going to be better prepared. Plus planning is always fun –executing your plan is the problem!

8. Open Your Mind, Be Creative

The person I replaced had been a senior BA who left for a better opportunity. I felt little vulnerable at the beginning and wondered the rationale for hiring me the fresher and not a senior analyst. When I expressed my concern to my project manager, he replied, ”Oh! We decided we needed a fresh mind so that we can have some creativity around here”. All that time I was searching around the net for solutions to problems I had found in the process never once realizing that maybe being creative and thinking for myself was actually is what is more important. With that being said, I valued all the information I gather from the net – it’s taught me a lot (thank goodness for Google). Sometimes all we need to do is take a good hard look at the problem, get our creative juices flowing, get excited about creating something new, and for all you know the solution will be real simple. You don’t have to be worried that you don’t have the experience yet.

Sure, some of your ideas are going to get rejected but it will definitely spark up an interesting conversation, and it will make work pretty interesting. I don’t think it matters at what stage of your BA career you are at. We BA’s have a chance to be creative in our jobs, and that excites me.
Well, I really hope that this helps someone out there. I’m excited about being a Business Analyst. I’m looking forward to a lot more experiences that I can share! Cheers!

10 Traits of the Indispensable Team Member

Written by Neal Whitten,PMP on . Posted in Articles.

If you were building a team and could hand-pick its members, what are the key traits or attributes you would look for?

What are the behaviors and actions necessary for them to perform at their best and the team to perform at its best? In other words, what makes a team member valuable and indispensable?

This article reveals a set of key behaviors and actions that every leader would like to see in each of their team members. Of course, members cannot be expected to know already or practice these tenets. These behaviors and actions must be revealed as the team is forming and reinforced throughout the project.

Praise should generously be bestowed on those members who demonstrate these tenets notably. But members not performing to an acceptable level will need coaching and nurturing so they can become proficient as well.

Let’s now look at the behaviors and actions of the indispensable team member.

1. Fully participate

Voluntarily speak up in meetings and get-togethers. Contribute ideas, even if they may be unconventional—many times thinking out of the box brings the team to the best solution. Your opinion is important and can help identify or move an issue closer to resolution. Be forthcoming to both ask and answer questions.

2. Be truthful

Be honest and timely when revealing your progress and issues. When you make a mistake, admit to it and take accountability. When you are faced with making a commitment, make only good commitments.

3. Be reliable

Meet your commitments. Always do what you say you are going to do and when you said you would do it. A team is only as strong as its weakest link—don’t be a weak leak. Consistently provide quality work. Demonstrate personal pride in fulfilling your commitments.

4. Maintain a positive attitude

Adopt a can-do spirit. Be thankful for and even look forward to the challenges and opportunities before you. Place a constructive view on issues—seek out the sun during cloudy and stormy moments. Don’t take or make things personal.

5. Focus on solutions

The most professionally mature members do not engage in finger-pointing and the blame game. Instead, they are busy focusing on solving issues and moving forward. Be a problem solver. Recognize that we all make mistakes and that we need to learn from them and not repeat the same mistakes.

6. Practice being proactive

Don’t just focus on the task at hand, also look at the tasks coming up to help ensure you and your team’s readiness. Make it a standard practice to think one or more steps ahead.

7. Share knowledge

Yes, knowledge is power. But the best performers give it away—they don’t hoard it. They recognize the benefit of this behavior in strengthening the team and raising their own value and reputation in the process.

8. Demonstrate personal initiative

Practice self-reliance when appropriate. Require minimal leadership. Ensure you understand your assignment and domain of responsibility. If you are unsure about taking action, then seek appropriate counsel. Make things happen.

9. Practice continuous improvement

Seek ways to continually improve your skills as well as the processes and procedures that you and your team engage in. Become and remain the subject matter expert in your chosen domain. Be open and accepting of constructive criticism. Don’t just correct a problem; seek to correct the process that allowed the problem to occur. Encourage feedback on your performance. Adapt to change.

10. Promote team success

Place the team first. See yourself as there to serve your team to the best of your ability. Show that you care about the welfare of the team and its success. Look out for the team as if its success is defined by your actions each and every day. Look for ways to make the team and its leader look good.

Shared values

This list could be a great starting point for team discussion as each trait is described and examples shared to reinforce the benefit to each member and the team as a whole. Of course, other traits can be added and discussed. I cannot overstate the importance of a team embracing a set of traits—shared values—that can serve to bond and strengthen the team members along with their journey.

In Closing

I have listed these 10 behaviors and their brief descriptions in a 1-page PDF document that you are free to download and make copies.

Team members who are tenacious and diligent in demonstrating these behaviors and actions will serve as outstanding role models for other members. There’s nothing better than an example to inspire and spur the members of a team to be their best.

Almost all team members want to perform well and to support the success of the team. They want to mimic behavior that will help the team and, in the process, make them look good as well. If you are a project manager or other leader, don’t overlook your personal duty to set a consistent example for your team members.

Now, go become your imagined self!

4 Roadblocks That Prevent You from Delivering Value to Customers

Written by Angela Wick on . Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on 4 Roadblocks That Prevent You from Delivering Value to Customers

Business analysts get cast in many roles on project teams, but one of their most important roles is a customer advocate.

Great Business Analysts understand customer needs and provide the voice of the customer to inform priorities and decisions. When the customer is the focal point of project work, teams deliver solutions that delight the customer.

Most Business Analysts would agree with this in theory, but in practice, customer needs get buried under the day to day quicksand of details, deadlines, politics, and fire-fighting. There are so many things that distract us from our customers. Here are the top 4 roadblocks on our path to customer value:

Roadblock #1: Limiting Our Definition of Customer.

Who is your customer? If you think it’s just an internal customer, think again. Think beyond the silo of your internal customer:

  • How does the internal customer serve the organization’s external customers?
  • Who does the internal customer serve in other parts of the organization?
  • How does the internal customer serve the organization’s external partners?

Even when the project scope appears to be internal, it has an impact on the operation of the organization, which eventually impacts additional end users. Even a tiny database change to an internal system could prevent an internal call center employee from having the data they need to answer a customer’s question.

Avoid this roadblock by identifying your customer chain from start to finish. Understand how their needs connect and help your team keep relevant needs top of mind throughout the project lifecycle.

Roadblock #2: Ignoring the Fact That Our Customers Are Changing

Markets change every day. A new product or announcement from your competitor can significantly change your company’s priorities and objectives. Even customer expectations are changing, rapidly! This means their definition of value is changing rapidly too. If you don’t keep up, lackluster solutions that erode your customer base get delivered.

Think about how quickly our lives are changing—none of us grew up with smartphones and social media, family road trips required an atlas instead of google maps, we couldn’t find good places to eat “near me now,” and breaking news came from the TV instead of Twitter.

Every change brings new demands from customers. In fast-paced, competitive industries, your requirements might be outdated before you get them prioritized!

So, how do you bust through this roadblock? LISTEN to your customers. Be sure you have mechanisms in place to monitor their needs, wants and expectations in real-time and be sure to address roadblock #4. Keep your mind open to noticing subtle changes not only in your project but in other projects around you and even your organization’s marketplace.

Roadblock #3: Only Doing What Leaders Ask Us to Do

What leaders ask for is NOT what they actually want. Their intentions are good, but there’s always more to the story. If the story is incomplete, our customers will receive incomplete solutions.

As Business Analysts, it is our responsibility to help leaders understand the full story. Our leaders want us to challenge scope, approach, and design to discover the full value in their ideas. We avoid this roadblock by intelligently disobeying these requests to implement their intent, not the exact requirement they give.

So, what does it mean to go with their intent and intelligently disobey? It means Business Analysts elicit and analyze to align intent and value. They use engaging techniques to get the team thinking and talking about what is valuable to who. Then, BAs give recommendations and high-value options that align to the leader’s intent.

Dig deeper into expectations of your customers and sponsors. Dig into the data to find data points to support the business vision, goals and objectives more subjectively. Help your leaders and sponsors build robust and thoughtful business cases to support their vision, goals, objectives and expectations. Don’t gather requirements – elicit them. Requirements are not laying on the road around the office for you to pick them up off the floor. You need to ask questions, challenge to gain a deeper understanding and create objective validation of the requirements and link them to the expectations of your leadership and sponsors. Trace and align requirements to the vision, goals, objectives and expectations of your leadership and sponsors. If the requirement doesn’t align – it’s time to red line (or cut the requirement).

Roadblock #4: Using an ineffective and outdated requirements approach.

Old-school requirements include a single requirements phase where BAs write down what stakeholders say they want (roadblock #3) and then hand off requirements to the development team for distant delivery (roadblock #2).

To deliver high-value products that delight customers, requirements of today and the future require a new way of working. Value-packed requirements do not come from scribe BAs who just write down what they’re told. We need to dig deeper to find real customer value.

The products that delight customers are not full of features they asked for, and they are full of features that make them think “wow, that is cool, I wouldn’t have thought of that!”

Business Analysts need to help their team to avoid this old-school requirement roadblock by evolving requirements from “what is stated” to “what will delight.” This evolution requires insight, observation, data, empathy, high impact collaboration, human-centered design patterns, and experiments. This new way of working is paramount to a successful customer centered approach.

Do you deliver solutions that delight your end users? Please post a comment below to share your success story with other BA Times readers!