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Tag: Business Analysis

Demystifying MVPs, Prototypes and Others in the BA Landscape

Let’s get some confusion out of the way. There are many different concepts and related acronyms that aren’t always used in the best way. Let’s try to clarify them.

Terms like MVP (Minimum Viable Product), MMF (Minimum Marketable Feature), MLP (Minimum Lovable Product), prototype, and proof of concept are all concepts used in product development, but they serve different purposes and have distinct characteristics. Here’s a breakdown of the differences between them:

  1. Prototype:
  • Purpose: A prototype is a preliminary version of a product used for design, testing, and demonstration purposes.
  • Focus: It primarily focuses on illustrating the product’s design, user interface, and user interactions.
  • Development Stage: Prototypes are created early in the product development process to visualize ideas and concepts before full-scale development begins.

 

      2. Proof of Concept (PoC):

  • Purpose: A proof of concept is a small-scale project or experiment designed to verify the feasibility of a particular technology, concept, or approach.
  • Focus: It concentrates on demonstrating that a specific idea or technology can work in a real-world scenario.
  • Development Stage: PoCs are often done at the very beginning of a project to assess technical feasibility.

     

     3. Minimum Viable Product (MVP):

  • Purpose: An MVP is the most basic version of a product that contains just enough delivery work to satisfy early customers and gather feedback for further development.
  • Focus: It focuses on delivering core functionality to test the product’s intended value to the customers.
  • Development Stage: MVP comes after the idea and concept but before extensive development.
  • Goal: The primary goal is to validate assumptions and learn from user feedback with minimal development effort.

 

     4. Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF):

  • Purpose: MMF is a subset of features within a product that is sufficient to make it marketable to a specific target audience.
  • Focus: It concentrates on delivering features that are essential to meet the needs of early adopters and generate sales or user adoption.
  • Development Stage: MMF typically follows the MVP phase, where you refine the product based on initial feedback and prioritize features for marketability.

 

     5. Minimum Lovable Product (MLP):

  • Purpose: MLP aims to create a version of the product that not only satisfies basic needs but also elicits an emotional response from users.
  • Focus: It goes beyond functionality to provide a delightful user experience and build strong user loyalty.
  • Development Stage: MLP often follows the MVP and MMF stages and is focused on making the product more appealing and engaging.

 

In summary, while MVP, MMF, and MLP are related to the development and release of a product, each serves a different purpose in terms of features, user experience, and market readiness. Prototypes and proof of concepts, on the other hand, are more focused on testing and validating ideas and technologies before committing to full development. In IIBA’s Guide to Product Ownership Analysis (POA®), the concepts of MVP, MMF, and Minimal Marketable Release (MMR) and Minimal Marketable Product (MMP) are introduced in terms of decision-making on what to build. The figure below is from the POA Guide and orders these four concepts. To know more about MVP with PoC and prototyping, check out a great article (with a video interview) with Fabricio Laguna (“The Brazilian BA”) and Ryland Leyton here.

Fig. 2: MVP, MMF, MMP, and MMR in the POA Guide

 

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Business analysis Behind Proof of Concept (PoC)

We may use a PoC when the goal is to make a very small experiment around a business idea, from which we need to assess its feasibility.

A well-known way to explore ideas in an early phase of design is by conducting Design Sprints.

Business analysis work within this process is of extreme importance. First of all, a BA professional may use their facilitation skills to facilitate the entire workshop. When framing the BA scope to the ideation process, their work starts when applying the “How Might We” technique. If you want to know more about the “How Might We” technique, you can check it out here.

 

After ideating a range of “How Might We?’s, the BA work includes facilitating the following workshops, from which the ideas are refined until a (possibly very bad) prototype is built and tested with users. BAs are usually comfortable with conducting the tests. At the end, they gather the insights from the tests and assess the PoC.

 

Business Analysis Behind MVP

When planning to build an MVP, don’t forget you’re targeting and validating if a business idea, through a product, has value for customers that you believe it has. However, before investing in a solid product, the mindset is that you’re making the least effort possible to have something that technically works.

This means that the work around framing a problem and further elicitation, analysis, modelling, refinements, etc. relies on hypotheses to be validated rather than fixed requirements, allowing for greater flexibility and adaptation to changing customer needs.

 

Business Analysis If You’re Not Targeting an MVP

Sometimes, when building an MVP, it is planned in a way that has a minimum set of features that can be delivered to customers. As already discussed, that’s not an MVP but an MMF instead, so the mindset for building it focuses more on scope modelling to decide which features have to be included.

Also, if the mindset focuses more on delighting customers (sometimes disregarding the business value delivered), that’s not an MVP but an MLP instead. The BA work focuses more on user research, interviews, and partnering (if existing) with UX/UI professionals. Personas and empathy maps are commonly used techniques.

 

After that, you may define your strategy to test your assumptions. There are different techniques, which depend on the testing context. And such contexts have different approaches to use.

As a BA, we can support decision-making about the technique to choose. But also to help in setting up those tests.

 

What Apple’s Vision Pro Tells Us about User Stories

The Verge released a story recently reporting how early buyers of Apple’s Vision Pro “spatial reality” headset were already returning their devices to take advantage of Apple’s 14-day return policy window.

But why?

In this article, I’ll recap the issues sprouting up around this nonetheless revolutionary product in order to make a couple of arguments: 1) How Apple’s approach to hardware development may (to a fault) prioritize perceived quality over functional requirements, and 2) What user stories for a hardware/software product may necessitate to make future generations more viable for widespread adoption.

 

Problems Abound in VR, but Did Apple Put Form before Function?

The key issues cited for returns of the Apple Vision Pro are usability issues coupled with a hefty price tag (i.e., $3,500 MSRP).

That’s not to say buyers aren’t blown away by the revolutionary UI and what the device is capable of. Rather, users’ concerns are that—relative to the high price tag and usability issues—they simply can’t justify the expense for a device that presents these usability concerns. The price isn’t worth the experience, in other words.

Consider some of the tweets on X (formerly Twitter) from users describing their experiences with the device and ultimately their reasons for returning their headsets to Apple:

“Can’t wait to return the Vision Pro, probably the most mind blowing piece of tech I’ve ever tried. Can’t deal with these headaches after 10 minutes of use though,” tweets one user.

“Two hours after unboxing my Apple Vision Pro and using it, I decided to box it back up again and return it. It’s quite cool, but there’s nothing in it for me that I’ll use frequently enough to warrant my keeping it,” tweets another.

Virtual reality headsets are a complicated product category and represent an exceedingly difficult problem to solve considering the technical and physical challenges. I’ve reported on how, for example, ergonomics are a known issue.

Consider the problems a VR headset must address:

  • Weight – Obviously, a perfect solution doesn’t yet exist, but as some reviewers have reported, Meta’s redistribution of weight and use of pancake lenses in place of Fresnel lenses in their Meta Quest Pro represent an attempt to resolve UX problems their earlier Quest 2 presented. Considering that VR headsets aren’t a new category, reviewers may have liked to see a better first showing from Apple regarding the ergonomics issues related to weight distribution.
  • Price – With the $3,500 price tag (compared to $999.99 for Meta’s Quest Pro), price is an issue. Certainly, higher grade materials which play important parts of Apple’s industrial design philosophy and sustainability goals contribute to the heavier form factor compared to other headsets that rely on plastics. That said, alternative materials such as recycled plastics represent another way to reduce costs (e.g., potentially by 25-50%) while simultaneously addressing the weight issue.

 

User Stories and Understanding Evolving Needs

If you’ve seen the 2023 film, Blackberry, about how the once-dominant smartphone predating the iPhone (and later competitive offerings from Samsung), you know that the one thing the titular product from Research in Motion (the company that invented the product category) is that getting there first doesn’t mean staying there indefinitely.

The case of Blockbuster versus Netflix tells a similar story, where a giant who’s become the dominant force in the marketplace is complacent, slow to innovate (due to their complacency), and is disrupted.

In the case of Apple, they weren’t there first in the VR category. They also weren’t the first to the smartphone category, but in the case of the smartphone, they completely redefined the category.

Have they innovated enough while addressing known user problems in the category?

Certainly, Apple has created a revolutionary product, but as Mark Zuckerberg points out, the device doesn’t provide an experience so leaps and bounds ahead of its competitors that it warrants the price and the persistent UX problems.

In short: The Apple Vision Pro isn’t to the AR/VR product category what the iPhone was to the smartphone category.

 

 

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What User Stories May Have Detailed: Ergonomics at the Center of Industrial Design to Solve Known User Problems

Chief among the user problems with the Apple Vision Pro is the ergonomics problem.

Considering the Verge report of customers returning their Vision Pro headsets with complaints of discomfort relative to the weightiness of the device for extended periods, it’s safe to say Apple hasn’t cracked the ergonomics problem on their first try.

But it’s also safe to say it’s a problem no manufacturer has truly solved, but Apple’s form factor doesn’t help. Consider, for example, how weight has been a known problem in VR applications studied by scholars.

Future iterations of these devices should seek to address the known ergonomics problems users are experiencing.

 

Example of Ergonomics-First Industrial Design

To stray away from VR headsets for a moment to talk just to ergonomics and how to approach solving real-world ergonomics problems, let me offer an example.

Heavy-duty power tools provide one real-world application where ergonomics are of heightened concern—we’re dealing with workers’ livelihoods and safety in situations that are inherently dangerous, after all. Characteristics of ergonomic power tools typically look to address a combination of weight, shape, and grip to provide a form factor that is as-comfortable-as-possible relative to the application.

Consider some of the common causes of musculoskeletal disorders like trigger finger (e.g., overexertion and repetitive motion) from a person’s finger becoming locked in a bent position as the result of repeatedly gripping and pulling the trigger of a crimper, for example.

Equipped with this known issue, the M18™ FORCE LOGIC™ 12 Ton Utility Crimper introduced a high-capacity muscle testing system to design the tool to require less than eight pounds of trigger release, which is 75% less than other crimpers, while also delivering an improved center of gravity and a significant weight reduction to the tool. What’s more, it requires 47% less muscle effort to use.

The example from Meta’s Quest Pro of redistributing the batteries to address the balance issue in earlier iterations is one that shows promise and Apple may take notice when addressing their own device’s weight problems.

 

Bottom Line

We may not have cracked the ergonomics problem associated with VR applications, but Apple may look at existing heavy hitters in the category, like Meta, as they tweak their own device’s shortfalls.

Outside of consumer applications, AR and VR offer exciting prospects for productivity enhancements in industries that could stand to gain in productivity like AEC: Studies have looked at the use of VR in safety training (e.g., articles have been published in Applied Sciences, additional research has been produced by California Polytechnic State University, and conference talks have been given on the subject).

If Apple can address the ergonomics and cost issues by prioritizing user needs, their Vision Pro headset may be the construction wearable of choice companies use to onboard new employees, train apprentices, and conduct safety demonstrations in the application to provide greater educational outcomes for the next generation of construction professionals.

Connecting the Dots: The Crucial Role of Synthesis

A few years ago, I was working in a fast-paced environment where we very quickly needed to achieve a shared understanding of a particular problem that existed, and then elicit and analyze requirements for improving things.

 

I’d spent a couple of days speaking to some of the key people, largely in back-to-back meetings, and I was working really late in the office, energized by the conversations I’d been having. I’d managed to find an empty meeting room where I could spread my notes over a large table to think things through. Over the past couple of days I’d had countless conversations, been given documents to read, been shown IT systems, processes and more… It was a lot to take in! Plus of course not everyone necessarily agreed on the nature of the problem, or even what a desirable solution would look like. So my thoughts went to “what next… how do I arrange and make sense of all of this ‘stuff’?”

Luckily, the meeting room had a whiteboard. I instinctively started drawing the ‘problem’ that had been described to me. I drew people, IT systems, data and information flow, customer interactions, bottlenecks, problems.  It was a messy drawing that wasn’t intended for anyone but me.  If you’re familiar with the idea of a rich picture, it was very much like that. Crucially, it helped me make connections between pieces of information that different stakeholders had told me. This act of synthesis—bringing things together—helped gain a more holistic picture of what was going on.

I was midway through pondering whether two concepts were related to each other, when a very senior stakeholder walked through the door. He asked what I was drawing, and I talked him through my messy diagram. He started instinctively adding things to it, not only adding his perspective to the mix but also highlighting things I’d missed (or misunderstood). Even though this happened years ago, I can still remember parts of the diagram now….

 

Analysis Needs Synthesis

Of course, that drawing on a whiteboard was really just an interim work product. It wasn’t a deliverable, and although I recorded it by taking a photo, it wasn’t ever intended to form part of any user stories or requirements documentation. It was really just an exploration of the problem domain and the connections within it. It helped me to get my own head around the situation, so that I could ask better questions and know which areas to examine further. It also helped me to understand which areas and perspectives I was missing.

This highlights the importance of synthesis as well as analysis. Synthesis is described by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary as:

“…the composition or combination of parts or elements so as to form a whole…”

 

There are of course other definitions too, but this sentence is particularly useful for us as BAs. It’s very easy to think that our job is elicitation and analysis, capturing different viewpoints and pieces of information about a situation.  Yet without synthesis, those different pieces of information are of limited use! There will likely be contradiction, conflict, different views and more.  We all instinctively know this, but it is worth highlighting how important synthesis is in what we do.

 

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Synthesis Techniques

Ironically, many of the techniques that we use on a day-to-day basis have synthesis, as well as analysis, built at their core.  I have already mentioned a rich picture, but many other techniques (when used with synthesis in mind) can help in bringing together different pieces of information and viewpoints.  Here are just a few examples:

  • Concept model and glossary: Bringing together (and reconciling) different terms, and the connections between terms
  • Process model: Creating a view on how the work should take place, taking into account a number of stakeholder’s viewpoints
  • Prototype: Bringing together and testing assumptions made, or a set of requirements assembled from varying stakeholders,.
  • Multiple Cause Diagram: After conducting ‘5 whys’ with different stakeholders, creating a combined diagram and presenting it back and saying “what else?” and “what’s wrong here?”
  • Workshops: Bringing people together to synthesis and discuss their views
  • … and many more besides

 

The Importance and Relevance

To do our jobs well as BAs, we need to consider synthesis as well as analysis, and this means making time for it. In my opening example, I mentioned I was working late in the office, drawing on a whiteboard. I was working late that night mainly because I was energized and excited about the project but also because time was so short and I’d focussed on planning the elicitation but less so the synthesis of the information I’d gleaned.

When you’ve conducted a whole number of interviews, read documents, seen processes and systems as they are operated, there are so many sources of information. It’s easy to just jump on to the next elicitation activity, or jump straight to writing a problem statement (or user story) or whatever. Yet, doing so robs us of the opportunity to see the bigger picture.

Building in time for synthesis—the sort that allows us to see connections—will help ensure we don’t implement a change in one area that inadvertently makes things much worse elsewhere. Of course, time is always tight… but if we don’t make time for synthesis, we might end up having to make time for rework. And that’s definitely best avoided!

 

Mentoring For Success

The year 2023 brought about significant achievements in my mentoring journey as four of my mentees successfully secured Business Analyst roles in the UK.

My passion for mentoring was ignited during my transition to the Learning and Development department at the International Committee of the Red Cross several years ago. This transformative experience marked the beginning of my dedication to fostering growth and professional development in others.

Mentoring aligns with the 70-20-10 model, specifically falling within the 20% designated for social learning. In this context, learners engage in collaborative knowledge exchange with peers and mentors, creating an environment conducive to skill development and personal growth. The 70% is designated to pivotal role of practical experience in shaping competence on the role, continuous learning by doing.  The 10% is accredited to formal learning conducted in in either in online sessions or in workshops or classrooms.

 

A mutually beneficial relationship between the mentor and the mentee characterises successful mentoring. The mentee receives individualised counsel and access to a wealth of knowledge, and the mentor finds joy in helping someone progress. This stimulating exchange fosters self-assurance, leadership skills, and a greater comprehension of one’s area of expertise. Consequently, mentoring emerges as a keystone for achievement, bridging the knowledge gap between theory and practice and enabling people to travel with direction and clarity.

Essentially, mentorship spreads like wildfire, encouraging a culture of never-ending growth and success. A mentor facilitates the growth and learning of the mentee by offering insightful counsel, encouragement, and support. The mentor’s experience and skill set serve as a beacon, providing guidance and insight along the way to success. This connection extends beyond traditional schooling, providing insights from the actual world and strengthening abilities that are frequently absent from textbooks.

 

Business analysis is a profession with a T-shaped skill set, it places strong emphasis on personal qualities. These qualities are not only crucial for success in the field but also form the foundation for effective mentorship. Key among these qualities is relationship building, as mentoring thrives in an environment of openness, trust, active listening, and the ability to provide and receive constructive feedback.

Dr. Linda Philips-Jones, in her enlightening article “Skills for Successful Mentoring,” outlines essential qualities for a good mentor, including the ability to inspire, offer corrective feedback, and, notably, open doors. I resonate with the concept of “opening doors” in mentoring, as it encapsulates the mentor’s role in guiding a mentee toward new opportunities. I prefer to frame it as showing the mentee the door, emphasizing the mentor’s responsibility to guide and support the mentee in achieving new skills and heights.

 

A mentor’s effectiveness hinges on maintaining a friendly and approachable disposition. Accessibility and availability are paramount, even in today’s fast-paced world filled with numerous commitments. Mentoring in the professional realm of business analysis involves not only imparting technical skills but also guiding protégés to succeed as consultants within the dynamic field of business analysis.

According to Memon J et al. (2015), mentorship can evolve through various life stages, including initiation, cultivation, and separation. Moreover, there may be a definition stage that facilitates the establishment of a meaningful friendship between the mentor and mentee. Each stage introduces distinct challenges and opportunities, contributing to the comprehensive development of the mentoring relationship.

 

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In the context of actively seeking a role, a mentee should possess the crucial skill of effective networking, a great place to start is LinkedIn. This goes beyond using the platform solely for job searches; it includes joining industry-specific groups to acquire valuable information, knowledge, and opportunities. LinkedIn functions as a tool for recruiters to directly approach individuals for interviews. However, before initiating contact with recruiters, thorough preparation is essential. This preparation involves gaining a solid understanding of fundamental Business Analysis concepts, including requirement gathering/elicitation, analysis, and management.

 

A comprehensive approach to processes is essential, involving the ability to assess and enhance them by understanding the current state and making improvements for a better customer experience. Effective communication with a diverse range of stakeholders, both internal and external, is key, utilizing various requirement gathering methods. Identifying the right individuals to meet with and providing relevant responses often requires creating a stakeholder matrix to map those involved in the project.

Documentation plays a vital role, involving the use of process models to create organizational templates such as requirement catalogues, functional specifications, or Jira boards. Finally, extensive collaboration, active participation in meetings, and volunteering beyond one’s immediate task and job description are important aspects to contribute effectively in a professional setting.

The most gratifying moment in mentoring comes when a mentee reaches out with the news of securing a job, expressing gratitude for the support provided. While not every mentee may secure a position immediately, the success of even one mentee is deeply rewarding, showcasing the tangible results of effective mentorship.

 

Mentoring goes beyond simply obtaining a business analyst role; it encompasses on-the-job coaching as well. It aims to ensure that the mentee grasps the crucial knowledge needed to seamlessly integrate into the role. Nevertheless, many mentees appear to prefer a coach within their organization, as it accelerates their acclimatization, helps them comprehend the tacit knowledge of the workplace, and enables alignment with colleagues who can facilitate a smoother transition into the role.

As I reflect on the successes of 2023, I look forward to continuing my mentoring support to colleagues in 2024.

What’s The Point of Peer Review?

When time is tight and the pressure is on, it feels like ‘peer’ review is a luxury we cannot afford, but what’s the cost of this decision?

 

What Is Peer Review?

Sharing our analysis outputs (whether this is documents, models, presentation slides or feature tickets) with other business analysts before they are shared with any other stakeholders is the essence of peer review. BA peer reviewers should be able to share useful observations and insights about the output, whether or not they have specific business domain knowledge.  If something is not clear to a fellow BA, there is a good chance it will not be understood by customers, suppliers, stakeholders and other recipients.

 

 

Why is Peer Review Valuable?

Many business analysts have a tendency towards perfectionism, and the longer we work on something without feedback, the more disappointing it is to receive any feedback, however constructive. It is much harder to accept and incorporate feedback on a polished final draft than an early rough draft. We need to share our work early in the process to be able to influence our own thinking and approach, and prevent us making significant errors or omissions.

 

Why is Peer Review Valuable?

Peer review is valuable from multiple perspectives.

 

#1 The producer

The person who created the output. We all bring assumptions to our work, whether this is a single piece of acceptance criteria, complex model or large document. The producer gets the benefits of a fresh perspective and the opportunity to catch errors and drive out assumptions. A peer review should be a way to improve quality without any worry of reputational or relationship risk. It also provides the opportunity for increased consistency across BA products and to learn lessons from other business areas.

 

#2 The peer reviewer

There is always something to gain from seeing how someone else works, whether they have more or less experience than us, and wherever they sit in the organisational hierarchy. So as well as making a valuable contribution to our colleague’s work we are likely to learn something through peer reviewing.

 

#3 Stakeholders

Any business, dev team or project stakeholders that will also be asked to review/validate/approve the deliverable will benefit greatly if a peer review has already taken place. Some errors and ambiguities will have been addressed, saving them time and increasing their confidence in the quality of the output.

 

The Review Triangle

This model reminds us that the highest number of errors should be spotted and rectified by the person creating the output, as part of a specific review phase.

 

 

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Self-Review

The model emphasises the need for self-review, which is a separate activity to creating the analysis output, and involves:

  • Standards check (adherences to templates, branding and guidelines)
  • Assumptions check (provide key, glossary etc.)
  • Accessibility check (e.g. readability, compatibility with assistive tech, alt text for pictures)
  • Sense check
  • Error check
  • Spelling and grammar check.

 

Moving from a ‘creating’ to ‘reviewing’ mindset can be achieved by taking a break, and switching to reviewing when we return, or moving to a different device as this often forces us to look at something differently.

 

Peer Review

Peer review is also about adherence to standards, and is valuable even when the reviewer does not have relevant subject matter knowledge. They should be able to identify and challenge assumptions made, spot logic knots and highlight the use of acronyms and jargon. They can also share insights and observations from their own experience, such as level of detail and formats preferred by different internal audiences.

 

Stakeholder Review

Stakeholders should not be faced with errors that we could have easily caught through self or peer review. This does not mean we should only share perfect  and complete outputs, but that we give stakeholders the best chance of spotting significant gaps and fundamental errors by removing low level distractions.

Many stakeholders find it difficult to simply ‘ignore’ spelling and other small errors. This level of error can undermine their confidence in our analysis.

Depending on the number of stakeholders and the complexity of the output, it is often better to do a group review exercise (synchronous) rather than a comments based (asynchronous) review. This is for several reasons:

  • Confidence everyone has actually seen what is being reviewed/validated/agreed
  • Prevents multiple stakeholders making the same (or conflicting) observations
  • Changes can be discussed and agreed.

 

Conclusion

The benefits of peer review, to individual BAs, the internal BA community and to our stakeholders and customers is significant. Attempting to ‘save time’ by avoiding this activity is a false economy. Organisations that aspire to be a truly ‘learning organisation’ encourage and enable effective peer reviews. Where organisations don’t place emphasis on this, BAs can choose to role model this commitment to quality and learning, and lead by example.

 

Further reading

Delivering Business Analysis: The BA Service Handbook, D Paul & C Lovelock, 2019