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Tag: Business Analysis

Adventures in Opportunity Canvasing, Part 3 of 3

Written by Kirsten Haglof on . Posted in Articles.

The big day had finally arrived! Thanks to my earlier preparation (see parts two and three), I set up in record time and could sit and worry before everyone got there.

Apart from having the canvas up on the wall, I also decided to print off my template. I placed a few templates on each table so participants could get a closer look and read the prompt questions themselves. I also put pens, sheets of paper, and sticky notes on each table in the event people thought of something to contribute and wanted to write it down before forgetting. Alternately, if we decided to have them fill out the sticky notes and place them on the board themselves, they would need these materials. I wanted to make sure I was ready for a few variations to the meeting as I find once you are in a group you realize you have to change your approach. For instance, if no one was participating out loud, I could ask them to fill out some sticky notes on their own and then place them on the canvas as they talked about them.

To start things off, I had my key stakeholder give an introduction of the opportunity at hand and some background on why we wanted to explore it. Since he was from the business area the others operated in, I felt that he could tell a better story. Once he finished with his introduction, I then presented the Opportunity Canvas as well as some housekeeping rules such as not using laptops, when we will take breaks, and the Jellyfish rule. No one had questions about the approach so, we were off!

Here we go!

I was fortunate to have an active group of people who were willing to talk and share their ideas. I was able to write out sticky notes as they talked and placed them on the canvas. Some areas did require a little prodding, such as users and customers. I got them started with some example users and customers that I had generated during my dry run. From there, they were able to introduce other customers I had not considered, and we found a couple of segments with different problems.

Overall, we came away with many ideas for how to solve customers’ problems. We even had time to do a small exercise to order them in a way that we thought would provide the most value initially (those are the arrows in the Solution Ideas section). We also identified a customer segment that would be good to experiment with. Here is what our board looked like after:

haglof 021317

Would I do it again? What would I do differently?

I would use the Opportunity Canvas again. This technique, in particular, was a good way to focus a discussion, establish a flow, and make sure to hit the important points. There are still a few things I would do differently:

  1. Narrow the scope of the opportunity and present that scope at the beginning of the meeting. I knew this opportunity was large to start with, and I should have picked the part of it to focus on. I found people straying to other topics that were closely related, but not in scope.
  2. Tie the solutions you have today with the problems to help identify additional problems for your users or customers. For instance, if one solution today is calling the company, and you have limited call hours, a problem for customers is finding time during their work day to contact you.
  3. When completing your user and business metrics sections, try your best to put them in the form of a hypothesis. This makes it easier to setup measurable goals in the future when you start to gather data. In fact, having people set up the hypotheses with specific time frames and measurements is even better. Teresa Torres has a good, measurable hypothesis format, you can find it here.
  4. Gather any initial data, statistics, or research you can prior to performing the Opportunity Canvas discussion. There were a few times participants asked about specifics like “How many customers do this?” or “How long does this process take?” I believe having answers could have resulted in identifying more problems or solutions.

More broadly, I have convinced myself to practice new techniques or methods more often, even if it means barricading myself in a small conference room. I read a lot of articles and books every week about lean methods, requirements gathering practices, how to build a roadmap, etc. For everything I read, I lose about half of the knowledge, because I do not try it right away. This was the first time I was able to try something, with a large group, shortly after reading it. Practicing it helped cement the learning.

3 Reasons Why the BA/PM Hybrid Role is So Difficult

Written by Tiauna Ross on . Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on 3 Reasons Why the BA/PM Hybrid Role is So Difficult

There are many variations of the BA Hybrid role, but the Business Analyst/Project Manager hybrid is the most widely discussed.

While there may be disagreement on whether there should be a blended BA/PM role and where the two roles differ and overlap, I think we can all agree on one thing: this hybrid role can be very challenging. It is also a hybrid that is gaining popularity as organizations look for ways to become leaner and more flexible. In this article, I will highlight the top three reasons why this hybrid role can be difficult for many and some suggestions to overcome the challenges.

1. The BA/PM role requires expertise in both disciplines.

The BA/PM role requires highly developed competencies across both disciplines which require education and experience across both to execute well. The problem is, many organizations, whether intentionally or circumstantially, assume that a good BA can quite naturally take on project management responsibilities and the same goes for PMs being able to take on business analysis tasks. The reality is that while one person could do both, there will most likely be a marked difference in the level at which they execute if they are experienced in one and not the other. For example, an excellent PM with limited BA experience will likely get the project done but the value delivered may be less than initially expected by the stakeholders. Why? Because project management focuses on delivering the project according to the project requirements, but business analysis looks deeper at the meaning of the requirements and how the solution will be best implemented. A PM who is inexperienced in business analysis may take the requirements as stated by the stakeholders at face value, something that a more experienced BA would look deeper at and inquire more about. A BA with little or no PM experience may produce well-defined requirements but would likely struggle when it comes to managing multiple project constraints because they do not have the experience needed to make professional judgments that will keep the project on track.

2. This role only works well with small changes.

The IIBA Competency Model states this concerning hybrid roles, “The dual hybrid role is typically associated with small or less complex work efforts, where it is possible for a single person to perform both roles effectively.” This is true when it comes to the BA/PM hybrid and those performing these roles are certainly aware of this reality. This becomes an issue when an organization is immature in either discipline or is undergoing organizational restructuring. While it may be well understood that smaller is better with this kind of role, when an organization is not mature in performing project management and business analysis, the cost of failure and the loss of value is not easily identified. When an organization is undergoing organizational realignment, they often take an “all hands on” approach to getting things done, which may leave one person managing large or risky efforts while holding multiple responsibilities. From the outside, it can appear as a great way to maximize resources because no one truly understands the real costs of having one person doing both.

3. The role may not be well-defined or adequately supported.

Any role that is undefined or poorly defined is likely to cause problems. With the BA/PM role it can be even more evident. Many BA roles already have a lot of presumed tasks that impact the nature of their work. Many PMs have roles loaded with other responsibilities outside of project management. When the two roles are combined into a BA/PM role that is ambiguous and undefined, it can produce a lot of issues, not only for the individual in the role, but also for the organization. Many times, the BA/PM hybrid role is not even officially acknowledged as a hybrid role and appears out of necessity where the person keeps the same job title but assumes more responsibility in the other domain. These situations can also make it hard to find the right person for the role. It is not enough to simply take two full-time job descriptions and merge them together into a double job description. There must be much thought given to what they will be asked to do and what they will not be asked to do. If this boundary is not created, it will set up the BA/PM to manage their work by urgency only, because there won’t be enough time to do everything they are assigned.

Increasing the Odds of Success

To ensure that the BA/PM role is successful, organizations must pay attention to the role and what is needed to increase the odds of success. It is not enough to merely assign additional responsibilities to an existing role. Organizations must take the time to define the role considering the value they expect to receive and the inherent limitations of the role. Once the job is defined, there must be a concerted effort to keep assignments within the size and complexity that will best enable success and have mechanisms in place to measure that.

Additionally, there must be some consideration given to what will be needed to support the BA/PM. Are there other team members who can assist with tasks that would normally be associated with one or the other function? I have been successful in BA/PM hybrid roles where I had an oversight role on the business analysis side and was expected to review and guide the work of other BAs, rather than do everything myself. A successful support structure will also include access to the education, training and mentoring needed to allow those performing the role to sharpen their skills. All of these will increase the odds for success in the BA/PM hybrid role.

Top 6 Critical BA Skills for the Future (and today!) – Part 2

Written by Angela Wick on . Posted in Articles.

When I wrote part one of this article series, I wanted to go deeper and have heard from many that deeper is where part 2 needs to go!

You’ll see the original six critical BA skills below with additional details and questions to help your team think about how to apply these valuable skills. 

1. Data Insights: Analyzing Data to Identify Customer Behavior Patterns

What does this look like for BAs in practice? It’s about BAs getting comfortable analyzing and applying customer/user data throughout the project lifecycle. Data insight skills include a continuous process of modifying system behavior based on an understanding of what is valuable to the user.

BAs with great data insight skills understand how customer behavior data can be used to boost the customer’s experience. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself or your team to develop new data insights:

  • How can you use customer data to drive and prioritize your backlog items?
  • What insights does the data give to prioritizing sprints and release goals?
  • What does customer behavior data teach us about how the system should respond to users?
  • What system data can we use to use to adapt (in real time) to user experiences?
  • What data is too large in numbers and complexity for the human brain to process and how can we simplify it for our customers?
  • What value is the customer hoping to receive from the system and which data provides this value? (Are you providing more data than needed to provide user value?)

2. Requirements Anthropology: Observing and Empathizing to Boost Value and Improve the Life of the User

Data insights are critical, but it can be difficult to elicit user/customer behavior data from our typical stakeholders. The difficulty comes because customer needs change faster than we can write a requirements document!

Here’s an example: I signed up for a Spotify account so I could listen to music while working out. On day two, after carrying my phone from machine to machine, I hopped on the treadmill and discovered an immediate NEED: A treadmill with Spotify login capabilities! I wanted the treadmill at the gym to let me access my Spotify running playlist, rather than carrying my phone. A week ago I would not have had that requirements, and now it is something I want bad! I would prioritize it over many other ideas for the gym.

That’s where requirements anthropology skills come into play. BAs borrow the mindset of an anthropologist to keep pace with the changing needs and behaviors of their end users.

Data gathered from customer observations six months ago is out of date. Requirements anthropology encourages real time observations and continuous delivery to meet those changing needs.

How can we observe and evaluate the customer experience AND deliver changes in days? For some BAs, this is easier with agile cadences that include continuous delivery prioritized by end user value. If observations generate system or process change requests with higher end user value than current backlog/roadmap items, they move to the top of the “to-do” list.

For all BAs, agile or not, requirements anthropology calls you to act on what you see when observing users and customers, especially when you can add immediate value. On a recent project, I observed users for 10 minutes and found four quick fixes that were not logged as defects. Once fixed, these simple changes dramatically improved user experience and business operation metrics.

3. Visualization: Using images to explore and learn.

I am not a visual genius and it is pretty hard to find those with the rare talent. But we don’t need perfect, formal, elaborate visuals. Get up from that chair in meetings and sketch on the whiteboard! Draw concepts and connect the dots. In virtual meetings, use that virtual whiteboard! Use basic shapes like stick figures, boxes, circles, arrows, etc.

Visuals create deep, shared understanding that’s more effective than detailed requirements documents; creativity and engagement skyrocket as well. Experiment with various high level models and diagrams and tools connect concepts or data visually.

Did you know the brain engages deeper for the person doing the drawing? Give other people ownership by handing off the marker (or the screen control) and encourage them to add or modify. There is something magical about creating visuals that cannot be duplicated by pure dialog. Our brains crave visuals to enhance the verbal part of the conversation.

4. Forensic Thinking: Evaluating Assumptions and Perceptions to Uncover Facts

Forensic thinking encourages BAs to expand their definition of elicitation and explore techniques beyond stakeholder interviews and requirements workshops. An elicitation approach that includes both collaborative and research-oriented techniques helps BAs fill gaps and connect dots that are not obvious with a single technique.

Use techniques like collaborative games and create workshops that use multiple techniques in the workshop to gather insights. Then, use the questions that come out of these workshops to research, analyze and prioritize the next steps in your requirements approach. Also, use experiments with users, data and/or rules to test out assumptions rather than simply listing assumptions at the end of a document.

5. Data Security: Balancing Risk and Value

This is where our favorite non-functional requirements pop up! Unlike the past, BAs use value to analyze and prioritize non-functional requirements like data security. The primary goal is to get the right level of quality without compromising value, and it is so tough! The trade-offs between user experience and data security risks usually creates uncomfortable dialog.

If you’re ready to start the conversation, here are a few tips:

  • Challenge yourself and the team to really think about how data security impacts the user and the business.
  • Find the balance between fear and user experience impact. This may mean doing some A/B testing and seeing the difference in user behavior on two different security models.
  • Respect data security needs while also embracing the reality that less security can improve the user experience in ways that might outweigh the risk.
  • Debate where to draw the line. Where are you comfortable trading data security for user experience?

6. UX – User Experience: Collaborating in Short, Informal Iterations to Build an Integrated Experience

Let go of the concept of a UX “phase” with distinct start and end dates. Don’t jump into screen updates and formal mock ups. Instead, encourage your team to let UX evolve as the team collaborates and learns.

  • Start with quick hand drawn screens.
  • Build, and iterate, and iterate more to get to the right balance and experience for the user.
  • Approach UX with an integrated mindset. Look at the user experience and all of the screens as a whole rather than perfecting a single screen.
  • Map screens to user-focused process models. Identify the critical parts of the process that impact the value the user gets.
  • Walk the walk of the user, in real time in a team meeting, rather perfecting a document.

Are these skills on your radar in 2017? I would love to know how your team is integrating value, customer behavior and visuals into your daily routines. Please leave your comments below.

How to Demonstrate Your Value as a Business Analyst

Written by Kent McDonald on . Posted in Articles.

The fifth thing I wish I knew when first starting out was people do not want you on their team just because you are a business analyst.

Many organizations have rules in place that every project has to have certain roles assigned, and many people in the business analysis community suggest those kinds of rules should exist.

That can only get you so far.

Having those rules in place may help a Business Analyst get on a project, but unless you can demonstrate the value you add to a team, you stand a good chance of getting sidelined, and not invited back to the next project.

Here are some ways I have found to demonstrate my value to teams and organizations.

Build a Shared Understanding

In the article “Your Job is Not to Elicit and Document Requirements” I discussed a few lessons I have learned when working with teams. The times that I have had the best relationship with a team is when I follow those lessons. I do not view requirements as my ultimate deliverable, rather I see them as a means to the end of building a shared understanding. Everyone on the team knows what need we are trying to satisfy and the solution we are building to satisfy it.

What I am doing is managing risk – primarily the risk that the team forgets about key stakeholders or overlooks some important data or process relevant for the solution. If you keep your team informed about important data and process, communicate that information in an easy to consume way and help your team maintain their pace they will want to work with you again.

Point Back to the Need You’re Satisfying

You need to keep the team and your stakeholders focused on why you are doing the project. When you start a project, suggest the problem statement exercise I described in the article “Projects Tend to Be Described in Terms of Solutions” or some other technique to make sure you drive back to the real need you are trying to satisfy and how you’ll know when you’ve met that. Then take the output of that exercise and post it where everyone can see it. Then take the output of that exercise and post it where everyone can see it. Then, we you find yourself involved in the inevitable discussion (argument) about whether some feature should be included, or how to go about doing it, point to the problem statement and ask “will what we are talking about help us do that?” Decision Filters can provide the same type of guiding star.

When you are in the process of creating a backlog, do not just dive in and brainstorm a bunch of things to do, but start with your outcome – the need you are trying to satisfy, and then identify what specific things will position you best to reach that outcome. This is the general idea behind feature injection, and a helpful technique for structuring that conversation is Impact Mapping.

If you are in the midst of a project and you sense that the team does not all share the same understanding of the need you are trying to satisfy, or realize you are trying to satisfy a need, suggest that you stop for an hour and create a problem statement. The goal is not necessarily the problem statement itself, but the conversation that comes with it.

Remember that other members of the team are focused on other aspects of the project:

  • How will we build it? (developers)
  • What happens in this case? (testers)

While they all may have the reason for doing the project in the back of their heads (and the good ones can hold multiple concerns front of mind at the same time) they are also probably subconsciously counting on you to keep an eye on those things.

They may act annoyed when you bring these questions up, but trust me, in the immortal words of Col Jessup (A Few Good Men) “…because deep down in places you do not talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall…”

Drive Decision Making

I was talking to a friend the other day about her day at work. She had a rather stern conversation with her client because the project she was working on was falling behind; not due to a capacity issue on the team, but rather an inability of the client to make and stick to decisions. To make matters worse, the client frequently hid behind process (oh, well if we have not made those decisions yet it must be because the due dates on the decision log are wrong) rather than taking steps to get decisions made.

She faced a situation that many BA’s face – you do not directly make decisions, but you are certainly impacted when those who are supposed to make decisions do not.

If you want to be in high demand, even if you are not the real decision maker, take it upon yourself to be the person to make sure those decisions get made. There’s a variety of ways to do this. For those of you who like to look at things in terms of a process, here are the key steps in the decision-making process:

  • Determine the decision maker. Before decisions need to be made, encourage your team to discuss who is going to make what type of decisions. It is often helpful to adopt a RACI matrix to remember what you discussed. Having this discussion before the decisions have to be made will increase the chances that decision making is distributed to the people who will have sufficient information to make that decision.
  • Select a decision mechanism Each decider is going to have their preferred decision approach. Know what those are, and also know which situations are better suited for one mechanism over another. Help the decider determine that mechanism.
  • Determine what information is needed. When a decision comes up, ask the decider what information she needs to make that decision, then pull that information together for her. You can have a lot of influence in the way you pull this information together, so be aware of cognitive biases.
  • Make a timely decision. Discuss when the decision needs to be made making sure you are not deciding too early without a good reason or procrastinating too long without a good reason.
  • Build support with peers/ stakeholders. Sometimes the choice of decision mechanism can help build support – the more collaborative the decision mechanism, the more likely you will build support in the process of making the decision.
  • Communicate the decision. Help the decider spread the word about what she decided.
  • Enact the decision. Help the decider determine the most effective way to enact the decision.

If you follow those proactive steps and still don’t see timely decisions happening, you can always revert to polite nagging backed up with a clear explanation of the consequences of a delayed decision. Sometimes people delay making decisions because they do not realize the consequences of not deciding in a timely fashion.

Be a Good Team Member

As I mentioned in my last post How To Learn New Techniques, you often get the opportunity to expand your toolkit by helping your team members out when they get overloaded or hit a bottleneck. Ask “how can I help” more often and try to eliminate the phrase “that’s not my job” from your vocabulary. Keep in mind that anyone can be the bottleneck at any given time. Sometimes you help someone else out, and sometimes you are the one who needs help. Part of being a good team member is admitting when you need help and helping your team members help you by coaching them in analysis skills when they pitch in.

Another aspect of being a good team member especially applicable to BA’s is do not make commitments for your team.

We have all run into this. You are in a meeting with stakeholders, the rest of your team is busy developing and testing, and you get asked: “When will this be done?” Unless your team has already plotted that out, resist the urge to make a commitment to your team.

Wait, you may be thinking, what if you say “well I think we can get that done this week” surely the stakeholders will realize that is just your guess and will treat it with the proper grain of salt. They will not. The minute you, as the team’s representative, indicate any time frame, it is viewed as a commitment, whether you intended it that way or not. It is perfectly fine to say “let me check with the team and get back to you.”

How Do You Show Your Value?

Those are some of the ways I have found useful for demonstrating my value. What have you found that works? Leave your experiences in the comments.

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

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

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

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

1. Stop It!

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

2. Past, Present and Future Insight

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

3. The Brain Finds a Way

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

4. Know What Insight Looks Like

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

5. Personality Traits Matter

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

6. Gain Insight into Purpose

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

Final Thoughts

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

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