Tag: Business Analysis

5 High-Impact Questions Every BA Should Be Using!

Written by Angela Wick on November 14, 2016. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on 5 High-Impact Questions Every BA Should Be Using!

Success or failure often hinges on the questions we ask throughout the project lifecycle.

It sounds a bit dramatic, but I’ve witnessed it many times—a single, thought-provoking question that changed the trajectory of a conversation, opened a floodgate of new ideas, or magically simplified a complex problem.

Great business analysts fill their toolbox with high-impact questions! BAs use these questions strategically. They figure out the right way to ask the question and the right way to gather the answers. They also consider the best time, place and audience for each question.

High-impact questions:

are difficult to answer
create moments of silence
inspire responses like, “Hmmmm, let me think about that…”
stir up emotions and politics
spark analysis
encourage stakeholders to provide context, solve problems, make good decisions
generate deep, meaningful, interactive discussions that spawn high-value systems, processes and products

5 Excellent High-Impact Questions

Tell me about your pain points and challenges with the system/process/product.

Yes, I know this is not in the form of a question, but this phrasing indicates your interest in details and deep discussion instead of a short, off-the-cuff list. Starting from a place of pain gives people a chance to get their frustrations on the table right away. It inspires storytelling that gives context to stakeholder concerns and creates a shared understanding of each stakeholder’s priorities.

If this system, product, process worked as good as it could, what would that look like?

This question approaches pain points and challenges from a positive angle and promotes problem-solving. Stakeholders will reveal their solution priorities and their definition of success. Use this question to brainstorm enhancements, features, or to diffuse disagreements about priorities, needs or decisions.

What are the top 3 things you would change?

This question can be used in multiple ways throughout the project lifecycle. You can use it in discussions about systems, features, products or processes, or you can use it to focus on internal processes and issues. This question works in the initial stages of the project when you are defining needs, and is equally useful during a retrospective or “lessons learned” discussion. It also works well evaluating how a current or newly implemented solution is working regardless of if changes are being asked for.

Asking users to limit their change list to 3 items, forces stakeholders to prioritize and focus on what’s most important. Be sure to spend time diving into the why for each item. When stakeholders reveal their top 3 things and explain why, you will begin to understand their values, priorities and pain points. You’ll also begin to see how each stakeholder is connected.

What things would you make sure not to change?

This question works well when you need your team to focus on the positive. It reveals what each stakeholder appreciates about the current process, system or product. You begin to understand stakeholder values and priorities. You discover stakeholder fears and define innovation boundaries. Digging into the why of each “please don’t change this” item, will uncover stories (requirements in context) of what’s working well and might spark ideas for enhancements or new products/processes/systems. You might also find conflict here…things in this list might also be in the top three that others want to change, which generates good discussion.

If the project or enhancement does not happen, what impact would that have for you?

This question, when discussed in a group setting, pulls each stakeholder out of their silo. They begin to discover gaps in their understanding of the big picture. As the stakeholders reveal their needs. Some may discover they do not need to actively participate in the project. Others may discover they underestimated their impact. This question often generates meaningful examples and scenarios that stick in people’s minds much longer than words in a giant requirements document.

Benefits of High-Impact Questions

High-impact questions provide multiple benefits that tip the project balance to success. Here are just a few:

Silence: High-impact questions allow the stakeholder or group to think, go back in their mind, come back and be with a space in their mind to really process thoughts and come to conclusions. Silence helps us get better requirements that are better thought out. It reduces the risk of changing requirements by giving stakeholders time to dive below the surface requirements earlier in the project.

Trust: High-impact questions build strong relationships with stakeholders and users. Deeper dialog makes them feel connected and understood, which creates trust and boosts morale.

Ownership: High-impact questions help our stakeholders own their involvement in the solution. Rather than cast blame or incite conflict, high-impact questions help stakeholders communicate and articulate the real problem they want to solve.

Be Strategic

To maximize the benefits of high-impact questions, use them strategically. Consider the following:

Why are you using the question? What do you hope it reveals? How will it help your team boost end-user value?
Who should be answering the question? All stakeholders or just a subset? Users or management?
How will you ask the question and how will you gather the answers? One on one, small group, large group? Do you need to allow opportunities for introverts by using surveys or individual brainstorming on sticky notes, then sharing with the large group?
Can you use the questions to help stakeholders focus on the end user’s perspective rather than the team’s perspective?
If you are in a group when you ask these questions, take the time to observe body language. Who is agreeing with the speaker, who is disagreeing, who looks angry or frustrated? What does body language reveal about your stakeholders’ needs, values and priorities?

High-impact questions encourage teams to talk early and often—minimizing the risk of identifying expensive, show-stopping issues late the project. Use them strategically to help your team build the right solutions, faster! Test one of these questions in your next elicitation session and let me know what happens, or share your favorite high-impact questions below.

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

Written by Richard Lannon on November 14, 2016. 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.

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

Defining a Business Analysis Operating Model

Written by Edward Hun on November 8, 2016. Posted in Articles.

So you have a BA practice (or a team of BAs) in your organization, you may be asking yourself, what is my Operating Model? What should it look like? Do I even need one?

The growing importance of business analysis (BA) in projects and organizations has led to the need for a standardized operating model for BA Practices to have a simplified and common view of BA governance, processes, engagement, services and development. All these areas must work together in unison to provide effective and efficient business analysis and enable successful project delivery.

Related Article: The Teamwork Model

This is the first of two articles in designing and assessing a BA Operating Model. This article focusses on designing the BA Operating Model. A second article to be published later describes the development of a Maturity Model used to measure the areas that make up the BA Operating Model.

Why do you need an Operating Model?

An Operating Model will provide a simplified, clear and common view of your working environment including services, processes, engagement, governance and people. It can be used as an effective strategic planning tool to help you identify key priorities for improvement within your BA Practice . As your organization is evolving, including the project being delivered, the BA Practice needs to be flexible and adaptable to ensure BA professionals are provided the right level of support to achieve value and benefits to the organization and customers. In addition, it serves as an effective communications tool as a common reference for the BA Practice, internally and externally to the BA Practice.

What is an Operating Model?

An Operating Model describes the vision and the value proposition of the BA practice, but also:

Who you are: the vision of your practice and the value that your practitioners bring to the organization.
What you do: The analysis services that you offer and the value you provide.
Who your business and delivery partners are: Who you work within the organization to deliver outcomes for your customers (e.g. Project Management professionals, business stakeholders, etc.).
Who your customers are, and their needs: Defines to whom you provide your offerings.
How you are engaged: Details how customers can acquire BA services.
How you are measured: Key performance indicators for the BA practice and individuals.
Your cost structure and revenue streams: How the BA services are charged to the projects and BA resources and learning and development costs are funded.

Your value proposition and vision for the BA practice should be a simple but powerful statement that defines what your BA practice is about, to your BAs and to your customers. It will also help you consolidate and create priorities within the areas of the Operating Model.

There are some general assumptions in creating this Operating Model that it should:

be scalable to accommodate future change and growth
have the ability to gauge and track maturity of the overall Operating Model and its individual areas
have the ability to highlight easily any gaps in the current model

Diagram 1 below shows all the components of the Operating Model. These are grouped into four main areas, based on their relevance and relationship within the Operating Model, and is explored further:

Organization
BA Professional Services
BA Standards and Tools
BA Development

Diagram 1 – BA Operating Model

Organization

Governance Framework – A governance framework is required to ensure continuous improvements to the Practice. It includes the organizational structure to manage the BA community. This will outline whether your BA Practice structure has a ‘pool’ model or whether your BAs are aligned to a business, or a project, program or portfolio.
Engagement Model – A single process for stakeholders and customers to engage the BA Practice for BA resource requirements. It outlines roles and responsibilities of stakeholders, customers, and the BA Practice.
Resource Management – A system to allocate BAs to projects based on skill sets and development needs. This should have the ability to identify and capture skill gaps based on project demand and forecast needs. This area also includes any internal or external recruitment process.
Cost Model – Standard and appropriate cost model and revenue streams to manage BA Practice. This should include how BA development is funded by the Practice.

BA Professional Services

Service Catalogue – A core list of BA services that BA professionals offer for projects to ensure consistency in approach and outcomes aligned to agreed standards. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of BA services and should provide flexibility to include other project work to enable delivery of project outcomes.

BA Development

BA Competency Model – a clear and defined set of role definitions and proficiencies required for each level of BA proficiency. It provides a method for identifying what capabilities are needed by a BA to be successful in their role. The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA®) sets the standard for the practice of business analysis and technical BA competencies.
Performance Management – Process for every BA professional’s performance planning, assessment of values and objectives, whether time-based (e.g. bi-annual reviews) or by each project or project phase, depending on the size and duration of the projects.
Learning – Training Program / Framework that is determined by the context of the BA Competency Model and skills gap identified within Resource Management. Mentoring programs could also be considered to support BA career development and progression.
Team Community & Culture – The nature and level of community team building and opportunities to maximize capability and diversity. These can encourage collaboration and cohesiveness to deliver more efficient and better outcomes for the project and customer.

BA Standard Practices and tools

Project delivery methodologies – Methodology such as PRINCE2, Lean Six iSgma, Agile, etc. endorsed for projects within your organization
BA Frameworks – Mandated BA approach for specific project methodologies e.g. Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK)
Knowledge Management – Online BA knowledge repository, including a set of references e.g. templates, best of breed examples and other useful information available for the BA community to support projects.
Quality Control – Quality control frameworks and guidelines to ensure consistent and quality artifacts and outcomes for the customer and the project. This could be in the form of artifact checklists or incorporate quality processes and targets within the project delivery phases.

Decomposing the Operating Model this way may highlight areas of focus, rather than thinking that the entire BA Practice requires transformation. Any changes to align to your Practice’s vision and value proposition will become less overwhelming, easier to design, communicate and deliver. An Operating Model will provide you with the framework of how your BA Practice runs and help identify areas that require improvements – which are described in the next article. That article will help you assess the maturity of your BA Practice through the use of your Operating Maturity Model assessment so that there is an understanding of where you are within the set of defined goals for each area.

About the authors:

Momoko McCartney is a Lead Business Analyst at a major financial institution in Melbourne, Australia. She is a project professional with over 14 years with expertise in the business analysis and delivery of complex IT and performance improvement projects across a range of different industry sectors, including Finance, Energy, Health, Resources & Mining and Higher Education.

Edward Hun is an accomplished Senior Business Analyst at a major financial institution in Australia. He has a 10-year record of delivering BA services and deliverables within at all phases of the lifecycle in the finance and banking industries. His commitment to getting project objectives and requirements right at the start of a project has consistently paid dividends. This commitment has given him a strong passion for learning and advocating Business Analysis best practices and techniques.

If you have any feedback or need any tips and advice on BA Operating and Maturity Models, please feel free to contact us.

References

This article was developed with the following readily available materials below, as well as the organization’s BA Practice Roadmap

Strategyzer Business Model Canvas https://strategyzer.com/canvas/business-model-canvas
BABOK Guide http://www.iiba.org/babok-guide.aspx
Establishing and Maturing a Business Analysis Centre of Excellence, ESI International White Paper
Business Analysis Center of Excellence, Kathleen B Hass White Paper

SWOT of Business Analysis

Written by Sharon Bennett on October 31, 2016. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on SWOT of Business Analysis

Out of curiosity about the future of a career path that I have been on for more than 2 decades, I have decided to create a SWOT outline of business analysis.

SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats—and is a structured planning method that evaluates those four elements:

Strengths: characteristics of the entity that give it an advantage
Weaknesses: characteristics that place the entity at a disadvantage
Opportunities: elements that the entity could exploit to its advantage
Threats: elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the entity

In creating the SWOT outline, the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) BABOK definition of Business Analysis will be used:

According to the BABOK Guide v3, “Business Analysis is the practice of enabling change in an enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders. Business Analysis enables an enterprise to articulate needs and the rationale for a change, and to design and describe solutions that can deliver value. “

Let’s get started!

Strengths:

The IIBA has done a great job of promoting and supporting the business analysis profession. It has given it a voice globally. It also supports the recognition of the profession and works to maintain standards for its practice and certification. It has also provided a model for the formation of regional IIBA communities and Business Analysis Community of Practice entities (i.e. BA CoPs) within companies.

Many career options/ paths are often available to business analysts. The nature of business analysis often involves working with the business to identify business needs, problems, and opportunities while also working with Information Technology teams to define, design and implement solutions. Also, they often have to interact with multiple levels of an organization; strategically, tactically and operationally. Therefore, they gain experience in supporting and contributing to corporate direction, the organization’s enterprise architecture, stakeholder needs and business processes. This wealth of access that business analysts have within companies often place them into a position of having a career path choice in the business and/or Information Technology (IT) realm.

Weaknesses:

Even with the formation of the IIBA and the life of the business analysis profession spanning decades, there is still confusion in the business community around the profession of business analysis, even in regards to the basic question of; “What it is?” I consider this lack of knowledge and confusion to be a weakness because in many companies it leads to business analysis not being promoted as a career path but instead business analysts are being encouraged to take other career paths available in the company as a form of promotion. As stated above as a strength, BAs often have many career path options in the realm of business and/or IT, but for those who want to make business analysis a long time career, promotion can be difficult. I will say that things seem to be improving on this front. I think that knowledge is being gained by the uprise of BA CoP (Business Analysis Community of Practice) entities. They give focus to the BA profession within companies and often with this focus comes recognition of the profession as a career path and its value provided to the company.

Opportunities:

Today, more than ever project teams have to deal with customers that are more than likely extremely knowledgeable about technology and their business processes and how they interact. They are also more demanding, wanting more authority and freedom in the decision-making process. This has led to shifts in business models, support provision needs, requirement elicitation methods and solution recommendations. Business analysts have the opportunity to drive accelerated change management in dynamic markets, filling a more strategic role in regards to enterprise architecture, demonstrating value and helping project teams quickly adjust to changing client and market dynamics.

Project organizations also have to ensure project deliverables are validated against both project requirements and the strategic requirements of the business at the business unit and/or corporate levels. This is to ensure a link exists between strategy and execution. The business analyst can be of great value in working with customers and project teams to keep them aligned in regards to business value to be delivered and how.

Threats:

Because threats are elements in the environment that “could” cause trouble for the entity, in this case, business analysis, I am listing agile as a threat. This is “not” in the sense of it eliminating the business analyst functions from the team. The IIBA has added an agile extension to the BABOK guide which provides an outline of how practices, tools, and techniques can be used by business analysts working in agile environments, and I will concur that there is definitely a need for business analysis functions on agile teams. I will say that agile environments often institute changes to the BA functions and/or how they are accomplished. In some cases, the BA functions may be distributed among other members/roles of the agile team. In some cases, the BA could be asked to fill the role of a product owner or coach. Even though the product owner and coach roles may utilize some of the BA core competencies defined in the BABOK, often these roles require more focus on vision/roadmap definition, return-on-investment (ROI), pricing/licensing for the product, which gravitates more toward the use of management competencies rather than BA competencies.

Diagram 1:

The B in BA

Written by Mani Ramasarma on October 12, 2016. Posted in Articles.

We began our tour of ‘Business Analysis’ in my last article with a focus on Analysis (the A) since the Business (the B) part still comes secondary in its role as an adjective.

The simple reason for this is that we need to know how to analyze before getting to what to analyze. In “The A in BA” I wrote about the importance of visualization and how it plays a big role in analysis. There is one more method that I normally use to analyze – the building blocks. Let me discuss this before I move into the B in BA.

In contrast to how kids build with blocks (bottoms up!), for this exercise, take heed of this mantra – Always start at the top. In one of my blogs here, I mentioned understanding the forest AND the trees. The building block method starts as a forest and gets to the trees, its branches and ultimately the leaves. Let’s say, for example, we are building the software for an ATM (Automated Teller Machine). This is something most of us are familiar with. Here is the sample ‘forest’ block.

Login
Withdraw cash
Deposit cash
Deposit check or cheque (for the followers of Queen’s English)
Check balances

If you recollect the last time you used an ATM the above, from 2 to 5 is what you may have seen on the screen after you successfully login. But the Login process itself has many ‘trees’, ‘branches’ and ‘leaves’ to contend with. For example, the set of building blocks for Login could be

Within the ‘Tree’ you can list the branches, for example

Login (‘Forest’)
1. Insert ATM Card (‘Tree’)
  1. Customer inserts ATM card the right way (‘Branches’)
    1. If Customer inserts the ATM card in an incorrect way the ATM machine will swallow the card, digest and let out a burp. (‘Leaves’)
  2. ATM prompts the customer to enter the n-digit PIN.

You might notice I followed the forest-tree-branch-leaves path. It is not always necessary to follow this path. Also, a tree can lead to a branch which could then lead into another branch and so on. Depending on the functionality of the process being analyzed, the building blocks can, and most likely will, vary.

Additionally, the required level of granularity in decomposing the process also dictates the path from forest to leaves.

If you notice in the ATM example above, I am discussing B – Business. I am not discussing the technical aspects of the ATM or the usability factors like touch-screen, voice activated etc. The entire focus is on the business needs. For a BA to analyze the business needs he/she must have two things:

Very good understanding of the business and
Creativity

Good understanding of the business

The ATM example is simple, and most of us can relate to as it is something that we use often. How does one gain a good understanding of a business that we are not familiar with, say, for example, structured derivatives? There are BAs who have prior experience versus those that do not. It is easy for the experienced BA to fit in quickly and be productive from the first day. All organizations like business analysts to be productive from day one without spending too much time having to learn the business. (Of course, each day is a learning experience!) It is the inexperienced BAs who have the arduous task of learning the business.

For most the learning curve is long and steep. Now that I have thoroughly scared you off, I am going to answer the question likely in your head right now – how does a BA learn the business?

The process begins even before applying for the job. Before you apply, understand the job requirements. See if knowledge of any business area is essential. If so, research that and try to gain as much knowledge as possible. Some ‘knowledge’ you find in your research might read like rocket science and be impossible to understand in the limited time available – but do not let that be a deterrent to your efforts. You can surprise the interviewer with your freshly acquired knowledge. There may be a few questions in the interview that could be pointers to the areas that you may need to focus on.

Once on the job, get access to any documentation you can lay your hands on. I found the documentation hard to find in some cases. What do you do in such cases? Shadow business users. Talk to them. Ask them to explain things, even those you know well, as they may be used, interpreted or implemented differently. Never assume it is used the way you understand it. A technique I normally adopt is to let the business user assume that I know nothing about what they are about to say, i.e., I am a complete dud. (I had the misfortune of a business user mistaking me to be a real dud until revealed by educational qualifications and experience!!!). This makes the business user generally comfortable, information flows smoothly, and they share a lot more. If you can get access to a test system, do it so that you can play around with it. Document the details in a way you can remember it.

A BA is more employable if he/she is adaptable and can learn the business in the shortest possible time. Never back-off from a business you are not familiar with. Accept the challenge, put in the effort and you shall succeed. In my next blog I will discuss the C in BA. Oh, is that a misrepresentation? Probably not.