Tag: Business Analysis

10 Essential Apps for the Business Analyst

Written by Josh Maxwell, CBAP on November 16, 2015. Posted in Articles.

Let’s face it, a career in business analysis isn’t one where you’re at your desk from 9-5. It requires you to be out in front of people, having conversations, and collaborating. It requires you to be mobile, both from a physical sense and technological sense. People often laugh at (and maybe get a little annoyed) when others have their faces buried in a phone, but the reality is that most of us have our phones in our pockets at all times. Some of you are reading this on your phone at this very moment.

As I began pondering this world of “always-on” mobile connectivity, it became clear that there has to be greater value in having that phone in your pocket than just simply playing Candy Crush in your free time. In my quest to find value, I have identified 10 apps that can increase your productivity and help you collaborate and engage your stakeholders in a mobile world.

BA Glossary – This app is a great reference for definitions of BA tools, techniques, and terms. It’s helpful when you need to look up a new term quickly or if you simply want to browse and review. It features an intuitive search function that narrows the results as you type which is helpful when you don’t know exactly which word you’re looking for. Its simple layout and multitude of terms makes this app an efficient tool for any BA. Available in the Apple App Store.
MindTools – If you want to take your reference materials to another level, MindTools is right for you. This app features extensive material on many different techniques from strategy tools to communication tools to time management. You’ll have access to over 100 useful tools such as impact analysis, value chain analysis, and emotional intelligence. The app goes far beyond just providing definitions; it provides pages of information on each tool including links to external sources and videos that are relevant to the topic. Available in Google Play and the Apple App Store.
Smartsheet – Ok, this app is more oriented for the project manager role but many business analysts perform both roles to some degree. With Smartsheet, you’ll be able to create project schedules, budgets, feature roadmaps, task lists with Gantt layouts, and more. A nice feature included with the app are templates so that you aren’t starting from scratch (although that is an option). One other great feature is that the app allows you to export and send documents in both Excel and PDF formats. Available in Google Play and the Apple App Store.
SurveyMonkey – Surveying stakeholders is a classic tool for business analysts, but the SurveyMonkey app lets you quickly and easily create custom surveys that have meaning for whatever your topic is. The app lets you add many different question types such as dropdowns, multiple choice, matrix/rating, and more. Once you’ve created a survey, you can email it straight to your target audience from within the app. Recipients of the survey can complete it either in their SurveyMonkey app or online. The app collects and displays the results as they are received. Available in Google Play and the Apple App Store.
Polaris Office – This app allows you to view, create, and edit Microsoft Office products such as PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. You can also view PDF documents. Using share capabilities, you can send documents to cloud storage services like OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox. The app also syncs to multiple mobile devices. Available in Google Play and the Apple App Store.
CamCard – This app eliminates the need to save business cards by allowing you to categorize them in custom groups. It uses your phone’s camera to capture the card, extract the name, title, and contact information so that it can be stored in the app. It also retains the image of the card. You can also choose to export the information directly into your phone contacts. Available in Google Play and the Apple App Store.
Paper; Notes, Photo, Annotation, and Sketches – Are you the kind of person that likes to capture an extensive whiteboard session via your phone’s camera so you don’t lose the information? This app allows you to create an idea board and add notes, photos, and annotations pertaining to the idea that you’ve created. This is a great way to capture a photo and add some notes to help you recall the conversations and important decisions that stemmed from your whiteboard session. Available in the Apple App Store.
Sunrise – Sunrise is a calendar app that aggregates all of your other calendars into one. You can add Google, iCloud, and Office365 calendars as well as events from Facebook, Eventbrite, and many other apps. It’s a great way to see what’s really happening in your life in one view. Available in Google Play and the Apple App Store.
Moxtra – Moxtra is a team collaboration tool that allows teams and workgroups to connect and communicate with each other. Chat, share files and images, assign work items, and schedule meetings with your team. The app can send push notifications to alert team members of new content. You can create multiple groups to help manage all of your teams. Available in Google Play and the Apple App Store.
DrawExpress Diagram Lite – This app is great for creating diagrams when you don’t have access to your computer. Using touch controls, it’s easy to draw shapes and connections. The app will transform your imperfect scribbles into beautiful shapes. You can also select from a multitude of stencil kits including workflow, Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), network, and wireframes. You can export your diagrams via email, Dropbox, and Google Drive or save it to your phone’s photo library. Available in Google Play and the Apple App Store.

There you have it. Using these apps will enable you to leverage your phone, a device that you always have readily available, to continue to innovate and engage your stakeholders even when you don’t have access to your computer. I am sure there are many other great apps out there that I’ve left off of the list, and I’d love to hear about them. What are your favorite apps?

Your Backlog Might be Broken If…Part 2

Written by Angela Wick on November 10, 2015. Posted in Articles.

How does your project team build and manage their to-do list? Is your current process working well or does your backlog need a reboot?

One of the most overlooked factors of project success or failure is the health the project’s backlog.

Poor backlog management yields inefficient and ineffective projects. Your team’s sense of direction will suffer, objectives will be murky, requirements will churn, and value will be lost. Successful organizations give their backlog lots of TLC. They approach their backlog with strategic purpose—continuously reevaluating what’s most important and shifting it to the front of the queue. The items in the queue shift and evolve but the overall goals and objectives are clear, the process is transparent and teams gain efficiency.

Strong backlog management practices:

Keep teams focused
Deliver value quickly
Inspire innovation and creativity

It can be quite difficult for organizations to objectively assess the health of their backlog management processes and even more difficult to implement changes.

In Part 1, I wrote about prioritization and inside-out backlogs.

In Part 2, we continue our journey by highlighting a few more characteristics of broken backlogs.

Your backlog might be broken if…there isn’t a guard dog.

Who builds, prioritizes and monitors the backlog? Is it a business analyst, project sponsor, product owner, project manager, development team manager or scrum master? Honestly, the mindset matters so much more than the title! The team can even manage the backlog together, as long as there is a clear decision maker.

Is anyone able to just throw something on the backlog? If so, do you have a guard dog that determines it’s priority, relevance and value? This person needs:

Knowledge of organizational strategy, goals and objectives
Understanding of feasibility and rough cost of features
Knowledge of stakeholder needs
Knowledge of end user needs and priorities
Authority to make decisions
Authority to modify the backlog

The guard dog should be vocal throughout the project lifecycle and shepherd team members to solution value. They need to advocate for organizational value and end users while helping team members understand how project decisions impact various domains, solutions, users, and the organization as a whole.

Related Article: Your Backlog Might Be Broken If…Part 1

Your backlog might be broken if…there are multiple backlogs.

Successful project teams put ALL of their incoming work into ONE queue. You can’t effectively manage priorities, time, cost and resources if there are multiple backlogs.
If you maintain multiple backlogs, how do you decide which work is most important? How do you clearly communicate priorities to the project team? How do you get the team focused on the most important stuff? Multiple backlogs create confusion and teams easily loose focus as they try to manage and work on multiple things at once.
If you value focus and efficiency, don’t derail the team’s work with competing incoming pipelines. Build one queue!

Your backlog might be broken if…there is too much detail.

Even if you do have a single backlog, it still might be broken! We need to address the idea that a single backlog of 100s of items is ridiculous to mange and prioritize. So, what gives?
Well, the backlog needs progressive decomposition! What does this mean? It means that items, as they are put on the backlog, and if not prioritized at the top, go into a larger category or larger feature. So, the further back in the priority, the larger, more ambiguous, more conceptual the item or feature is. This helps teams continue to see the big picture and prioritize based on value without managing 100s of items.

The backlog should not be a detailed requirements document! Only the items coming up in the next couple of iterations need detail. The other items can be loose categories and higher level items until they are prioritized to the top of the list. Once prioritized, we can decompose them to the point that they are estimable into a sprint.

For example: A backlog item may say something like, “Add the shipping amount to the cart total when customers view their cart totals while shopping.” Once this is prioritized, and the team determines that this is too big for an iteration or sprint, we can decompose it into further detail to multiple items like:

For US shipping purchases and USPS shipping method, add the shipping amount to the cart total when customers view their cart totals while shopping.
For US shipping purchases and other shipping methods (FedEx, UPS), add the shipping amount to the cart total when customers view their cart totals while shopping.
For FedEx global purchases outside the US, add the shipping amount to the cart total when customers view their cart totals while shopping.
And so on…..

The team can again assess the estimates to complete these newer decomposed items and determine how much can fit into a sprint/iteration, de-scope, update priorities, etc.
Your backlog items only need enough detail to define the user goal and help the team prioritize the work. Don’t worry about the details until the item approaches the top of the backlog or until it has been assigned to be developed. On many agile teams the further details of the story get worked out once the sprint starts with the team through experimentation, prototyping, and conversation and feedback loops. This strategy will minimize rework and the need for detailed change control while the project evolves.

Your backlog might be broken if…there is not enough detail.

Does your team ever have features or stories that don’t get done in an iteration or sprint? It might be because the backlog did not have enough detail. Your backlog items should be more detailed as they climb in priority and get closer to entering a sprint.

However, many teams struggle to define “detail.” In this case, detail is enough information to allow the team to commit to getting the item done in the time allowed (i.e., a single sprint). If the team talks about the item and does not think it can be completed, it needs to be sliced further. Slicing further does not mean dividing it up into tasks, components, or technical design details! Instead, slice by decomposing the item into smaller, but still user-valued pieces, without getting into technical design details or team tasks.

Need a few slicing strategies that will help you avoid tasks and technical design? Try:

Process sub-steps
Scenarios
Business rules
State changes
Personas
User roles
Exceptions

Rephrasing can also help teams hone in on value. For example: An item that says, “upgrade the server” could be rephrased as “in order to use the new ‘profile update’ functionality, we need to upgrade the abc application to the latest version.”

Backlog items should not require multiple iterations to complete. SLICE THEM and DICE THEM, but make sure you break needs and features into distinct, logical, user-focused chunks of work. Getting backlog items to the right level of detail simplifies requirements, development and testing processes.

Is your backlog broken?

So, let’s go back to the beginning—are you building and managing your backlog strategically or simply building a to-do list without much thought?

Leadership Lessons: Eliminating Workplace Bullying is Good for Business

Written by Paul Pelletier on November 9, 2015. Posted in Articles.

However, despite studies, much publicity, and even expanding illegalization, the majority of organizations throughout the world remain ineffective or unmotivated to proactively prevent or directly confront workplace bullying. Even when they are motivated, business leaders may not know where to begin.

Perhaps the key to unlocking organizational response is to focus on the broader business impacts that could harm the bottom line, program or project success, and wreak havoc within employee ranks. Instead of ethics, let’s focus our arguments on profits, financial incentives, and ROI. Bluntly put, ending bullying is just plain good for business. Second, by providing an action plan for change that is logical and reasonable to implement, we can help our organizations move forward.

Where to Begin?

Bullying can be as harmful to business profits, productivity and workplace harmony as it is in schools and other areas of society. If asked, most business leaders most likely feel a moral and ethical obligation to respond. However, despite studies, much publicity and even expanding illegalization, the majority of organizations throughout the world remain ineffective or unmotivated to proactively prevent or directly confront workplace bullying. Even when they are motivated, business leaders may not know where to begin.

The Costs of Workplace Bullying

The statistics are clear and irrefutable – workplace bullying is costing businesses billions of dollars annually. For every short-term result that a bully might create (i.e. a project completed on time and budget, or a previously struggling unit whipped back into shape), there is a long list of longer-term negative business impacts that far outweigh any temporary benefits. To quote Patricia Barnes, a workplace bullying author, judge and attorney, workplace bullying is likely the “single most preventable and needless expense on a company’s register.”

Many business leaders would likely say that bullying is wrong, but not all recognize that it has tangible and significant costs and where those costs and impacts are created. Putting ourselves in the world of the executives, model the conversation on identifying topics or statistics that resonate in their world and keep them up at night.

Cost caused by bullies can be organized into a series of buckets, each having potentially more significant impact.

Targets: Targets of bullying, who are often the organization’s top performers, often punish their offenders and the organization. Research has shown the punishment includes intentionally decreased work effort and quality, losing time to avoid the bully, reduced loyalty and work commitment and taking their frustrations out on customers.

Team members/ Colleagues: Experiments and other reports offer additional insights about the effects of bullying on those around the Target. Productivity, performance, creativity, and team spirit deteriorate. Bullies prevent work from getting done, causing chaos, confusion and a loss of focus. Most executives will listen if you ask to talk about an issue related to productivity.

Human Resource Impacts: There is a direct link between bullying and sick-leave/disability claims. The stress and health impacts caused by bullying impacts not only profits when your top talent takes time off work, but also requires the engagement of HR personnel to manage each situation

Legal Costs: The first place HR often turns for advice is legal professionals. Time spent risk managing, strategizing, and preparing to respond with lawyers involved adds up quickly. Further, courts are becoming more aware of workplace bullying with expected negative results for the companies that are found to have condoned the bully. A single bully can cause hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars in costs, just if one well-founded claim is successful, even before the matter gets anywhere near a court.

Reputation and Executive Job Security: Every executive is concerned about their own and their organization’s reputation. The recent media-frenzy about the alleged Darwinian work environment at Amazon proves that bullying can have serious impacts on organizational reputation. If your workplace is perceived as toxic, people inevitably gossip about it. They share their frustration with anyone willing to listen, which, in the case of Amazon, led to journalist engagement from the New York Times. Think of what such an event costs in public relations, communications, and lost time – a reputational event of Titanic proportions.

Profits and Share Value: Near the top of the pyramid in terms of issues that every senior executive worries about are profit and share value. It bears noting the potential impact that a bullying workplace environment can have on share price. Again, using Amazon as a wonderful illustration of market forces at work, Amazon’s share price dropped from $535.22 a share on Aug 17, 2015 to $463.37 one week later. If that doesn’t get executives sweating, then I don’t know what might.

Customers/Clients: Finally, we reach the top of the pyramid knowing that businesses fail if their customers lose faith in them. Most recently, the world has witnessed Volkswagen fall meteorically from grace losing billions, all thanks to a decision to choose profits over ethics. This is a terrific lesson for all organizations and plays perfectly into the issue of workplace bullying.

People are less likely to do business with a company with an employee they perceive as a bully or rude, even if the bullying isn’t directed at them. Disrespectful behavior makes people uncomfortable, and they’re quick to cease business relations with an organization that permits bullying. People will judge organizations harshly and the tide is definitely turning towards a marketplace that won’t support organizations that condone bullying.

What’s Your Anti-Bullying Action Plan?

As a reminder for both readers and the motivated executives to implement change, it helps to have an action plan, just like any sound project. Business-savvy organizations are taking increasingly proactive steps to confront workplace bullying, reinforcing the value of ethical awareness and policies predicated on building trust, protecting employees and instilling confidence in those who work for the organization and those who do business with them.

Anti-bullying advocates and experts offer tips to companies and managers. Some of the most practical, proactive tips are the following:

Create clear, robust organizational anti-bullying policies and make training mandatory for everyone: All organizations should establish clear and effective bullying policies and procedures for addressing bullying allegations. Training, awareness, and education are critical to the success of such policies. Human resources must be on board and not feel unprepared.
Consider long-term project, program and organization well being when addressing bullying: Since workplace bullies often get short-term results, employers – particularly senior management level staff – too often tolerate them. However, it is far better to proactively and directly address the bullying than to permit spreading poison throughout the organization.
Lead by example: From the organization’s highest levels, it should be made clear that bullying isn’t acceptable. From the CEO, executive team, senior managers and project managers all the way down to lower-ranking staff, the message must be one of zero tolerance for bullying.
Respond to all types bullying behavior: Bullying often begins with small actions such as eye rolling, sneering, or demeaning a colleague, either in private or publicly. While such behavior may seem insignificant, it is unprofessional and everyone in the organization must be trained and capable to address it immediately.
Establish fair, effective and safe methods to report alleged bullying: Bullying isn’t like other conflict in the workplace. It requires specialized processes and methods for conflict resolution. First, an unbiased, safe and user-friendly complaints reporting process is essential. This is works to everyone’s benefit and will ensure impartial, confidential and trustworthy processes.
Bullying investigations must be impartial, fair and fulsome: In order for a staff to feel safe and have faith that it takes this issue seriously, it is essential that investigations are unbiased, free from political interference and result in appropriate responses if allegations are proven. Fair treatment for Targets, bullies and witnesses is needed to engender trust in the process.
Take bullying claims seriously but tread carefully: Take bullying allegations seriously, but don’t assume they’re true – that is for the investigation process to determine.
Normal conflict resolution processes won’t work with bullies: It is naïve to think that you can reason with a bully. Consequently, mediation is simply another opportunity for the bully to misbehave and instill fear in the target. Thus binding arbitration is normally the best process to use.

With our pyramid of impacts to provide cogent arguments and the recent examples of Amazon and Volkswagen fresh on the radar, it is the writer’s submission that both the readers and the bosses see the true conclusion of this exercise – the opportunity cost of failing to act to prevent and eliminate workplace bullying is massive in comparison to becoming a change leader.

If employers and senior executives take initiative in addressing bullying early on, much larger financial, ethical, legal, human resource and project problems will be avoided. Eventually, these initiatives will lead to wider support for zero tolerance for bullying in the workplace regardless of circumstance, societal norm, or jurisdiction.

References

– Barnes, Patricia G. (2012, updated July 2013) Surviving Bullies, Queen Bees and Psychopaths. United States. ISBN 978-0-615-64241-3.
– Cardemil, Alisha R.; Cardemil, Esteban V.; O’Donnell, Ellen H. (August 2010). “Self-Esteem in Pure Bullies and Bully/Victims: A Longitudinal Analysis“. Journal of Interpersonal Violence (Sage Publications) 25 (8): 1489–1502. doi:10.1177/0886260509354579. PMID20040706
– Einarsen, Ståle (2003). Bullying and Emotional Abuse in the Workplace: International Perspectives in Research and Practice. Taylor & Francis. ISBN978-0-415-25359-8.
– Erickson, Ian. “Bullying in the Workplace A Problem for Employers”. Guardian Newspaper Published February 1, 2014.
– Habib, Marlene. “Bullies Can Make Workplace Intolerable.” Globe and Mail Newspaper Published: Dec. 19 2011. Last updated: Sep. 06 2012.
– Kantor, Jodi and Streitfeld, David. “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace.” New York Times Newspaper. Published: August 16, 2015.
– Kelsey, Lindsay. “The significance of Amazon’s work culture — and how the Times article may impact the retail giant.” Published: August 19, 2015.
– Pfeffer, Jeffrey. “3 lessons from the Amazon takedown.” Published: August 18, 2015.
– Pinsky, Erica (2009). Road to Respect: Path to Profit, Canada: ISBN: 978-0-9811461-0-2
– Porath, Chrisine and Pearson, Christine. “The Price of Bullying in the Workplace.” Harvard Business Review. Published January 1, 2013.
– Project Management Institute (2014). PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. (2006).
– Project Management Institute (2013). PMI Ethical Decision-Making Framework. (2013).
– Project Management Institute. (2007). Project manager competency development framework – Second Edition. Newtown Square, PA: Author.
– Stephens, Tina; Hallas, Jane (2006). Bullying and Sexual Harassment: A Practical Handbook. Elsevier. p. 94. ISBN 9781780631493.
– The Workplace Bullying Institute website including “The WBI Definition of Workplace Bullying“.
– The Workplace Bullying Institute’s list of reference books.

Strategy Spotlight: 9 Steps to Take You From Strategic Plan to Implementation

Written by Richard Lannon on October 26, 2015. Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on Strategy Spotlight: 9 Steps to Take You From Strategic Plan to Implementation

Creating an Execution/Implementation Culture is all about getting things done through people. To do that, you need to get your senior team on the same page in their thinking about management vs. leadership and how it relates to empowering people to get things done.

One of the ways to do this is to work through the process from strategic planning to tactical implementation. As part of your planning process, consider these nine key items to get your senior management team rowing in the same direction.

1. Define Strategy

If you have strategic items that the senior team must deliver, review them. Get them down to 3 to 5 strategic agenda items and into words that can be remembered by you and your people.

2. Set Initiatives

Start the process of defining your key initiatives that relate to the strategic agenda items. Depending on the size of the organization, these may be referred to as enterprise or program items. No matter which term you use, create strategic initiatives that serve as umbrellas for actual project work.

3. Establish Elements

Establish the big chunks of work that must be done. Work statements should always start with a verb and be action-charged. These are the key elements and are referred to as statements of work. They are not tasks. You should only have 3 to 5 key elements at the end of this step.

4. Create Measurable Outcomes

To create measurable outcomes, use the SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound) or CAR (challenge, action, result expected) models. When writing measurable outcome statements, make sure they are no more than three sentences. The longer and more detailed the information the greater chance you will lose your key stakeholders.

5. Enable Champions

Every initiative should have a champion. Champions are leaders who use vision and influence to get things done through people. A Champion is not the same as being a manager. Managers are operational and get things done through authority. It is important that Champion be empowered to work across the organization and functional lines to lead and support the strategic initiatives, required outcomes and work elements to ensure success.

6. Agree on Timelines

All initiatives should have timelines. There should be an overall timeline for each strategic initiative and separate timelines for work elements. Discuss and agree upon timelines. Not everything has to happen at once.

7. Assign Leaders

Work gets done by leveraging resources. In this case, the resources are defined as people. At this level, the Initiative Champion seeks Project Leaders within the functional business areas to rise and take responsibility for organizing people to get the chunks of work completed. The project leaders must break down the chunks of work, gathering additional resources and creating micro-timelines to meet key milestones.

8. Forecast Costs

The Initiative Champions working with Operational Managers and Project Leaders should work together to define the true costs associated with the strategic initiatives and the associated work. Some initiatives will be operational, and others will be clear projects.

9. Establish Alignment

There should always be an alignment stream associated with your strategic initiatives. The alignment stream should include objectives for creating a common language for communications, establishing awareness and activation abilities, and building collaboration skills.

Not everything happens at once. The senior team will make mistakes. They may become overwhelmed with what needs to be done. Maybe timelines aren’t fully discussed and agreed upon. An execution culture is cross-functional and self-directed. It’s not a clear-cut process. People need a path to follow. As the senior team, give them one.

Question: In what way are you engaging others in your strategic and tactical planning efforts to ensure you achieve successful implementation?

The Innovative Enterprise Business Analyst

Written by Kathleen B. Hass, PMP on October 13, 2015. Posted in Articles.

The Business Analysis discipline is transforming itself in response to the 21st century realities: the Internet of everything is everywhere; change is the only constant, digital, social and mobile spheres have converged; every company needs to be a technology company; competitive advantage is always at risk; software is embedded in virtually every product and service; technology advances are fast and furious and unrelenting. In the midst of these challenges, we strive to reduce costs, do more with less, provide customer value, improve decision making, produce innovations, and advance internal capabilities.

In response to these challenges and to remain competitive, companies are continuously innovating to transform themselves and remain on the leading edge. EBAs are rising to the occasion to foster creativity and produce innovative products and services. Project-related requirements management skills are still needed. However, realizing that creativity is the #1 skill required to succeed in the 21st century, EBAs are continuously exploring their role in fostering collaboration and creativity. EBAs have discovered that deliberate design principles can be used to accelerate innovation of products and services. It is the EBA who is driving the convergence of the key disciplines required by organizations today: business, technology, and design. BAs everywhere are striving to:

Discover the magic of design thinking, and how it is being used in progressive organizations to develop breakthrough solutions to complex business problems.
Examine creativity-inducing tools and techniques used by facilitators everywhere for problem solving and decision making.
Consider how to augment structured facilitation techniques with investigation, experimentation, and creativity-inducing activities.
Learn how to reinvent their team facilitation model often to keep teams engaged in the innovation process, whether working on incremental enhancements or breakthrough technology.
Partner with the PM to work together to insure projects are launched to bring about innovative solutions, value to the customer, and wealth to the bottom line. Make decisions are made with the customer in mind. Seek out changes that add creativity and innovation to the solution design.

THE RISE OF THE INNOVATIVE ENTERPRISE BUSINESS ANALYST

I have written a lot about complexity. Complexity has a direct correlation to innovation. Complexity is everywhere: in our business practices, in our business partnerships, in our digital strategy, in our data and information management, in our projects, and in our effort to achieve business/technology optimization. CIOs are struggling to be able to not only manage, but to capitalize on complexity to bring about the innovations that result in competitive advantage.
The good news about complexity is that it breeds creativity. Complex systems are dynamic, always changing to adapt to transformations in the environment. Complex systems fluctuate between states of equilibrium, which leads to paralysis and ultimately death, to chaos, which leads dysfunction. It is important for EBAs to realize that the most creative, productive state is on the edge of chaos to make innovative decisions to adapt to changes and learnings.

So because EBAs care about creativity and innovation, they care about complexity. EBAs think holistically and therefore they realize that the average lifespan of a company listed in the S&P 500 index of leading US companies has decreased by more than 50 years in the last century, from 67 years in the 1920s to just 15 years today (Professor Richard Foster, Yale University ). What this means is that companies today must innovate to survive. Companies are complex systems, always adapting to changes in the economic, political, competitive and technological fluctuations. Therefore, project teams need to be adaptive, sometimes operating on the edge of chaos, to conceive of the most creative, innovative solutions. The days of the predominance of projects to enhance business-as-usual are ending, being replaced by transformational innovation. As EBAs work with the best minds in the company to design their transformation, they employ sophisticated design-centered creativity techniques to drive innovation.

Related Article: The Transformational Enterprise Business Analyst

TRADITIONAL CREATIVITY-INDUCING PRACTICES

Everyone is creative. Creativity is a skill that can be learned. The 21st century EBA is well positioned and quite proficient at bringing groups of experts together to conceive, test, refine and implement innovative solutions. The key is to get the right people in the room and create a safe environment.

“The skill of generating innovations is largely the skill of putting old things together in a new way, or looking at a familiar idea from a novel perspective, or using what we know already to understand something new. Annie Murphy Paul, author, journalist, consultant and speaker who helps people understand how we learn and how we can do it better. (Her latest book, How to Be Brilliant, is forthcoming from Crown)

The EBA employs traditional and transformational practices to bring about innovation. Some of these practices are common place, some very new to the project scene. EBAs are accomplished facilitators. Skilled facilitation fosters creativity. Creativity-inducing tools and techniques make use of:

Structured, problem-solving and decision-making methods, which primarily prompts activity in the left brain, and then
Cleverly augmenting them with creativity through investigation, experimentation, and a little bit of chaos, using mostly the right brain.

Structured Decision Making and Problem Solving

Problem solving can take many forms; but if you try to solve your problem without any structure, you may end up with a bigger problem. Businesses are familiar with and often use various problem solving structures, all of which all have similar components.

Creativity-Inducing Facilitation

EBAs understand that it is their responsibility to create that ‘edge of chaos’ environment among a small group of experts to arrive at the most innovative solution before launching a transformational project. The key is to make decisions quickly, test and experiment to continually improve the concept, and work iteratively in order to adapt to learnings and changes.
The process goes something like this – first create then innovate.

1. Create: divergent thinking

Generate Ideas
Combine, Refine
Invent, Originate, Imagine!

2. Innovate: convergent thinking

Analyze
Refine
Experiment
Decide!

Divergent Thinking: Create

Use divergent thinking to create. Identify as many options as possible. Think “outside the organization” not just outside the box. Accept all options. Look for unusual possibilities, patterns, and combinations. Combine like ideas, build on each other’s ideas. Encourage participants to challenge each other, experiment, get crazy, be chaotic, and get in the creative zone.

There are many idea generation techniques; brainstorming and Idea Mapping are the most prevalent; brainstorming to identify as many ideas as possible; Idea Mapping to visualize the innovation. But beware. Sometimes brainstorming makes us think we are innovating when we really are just minimally changing the status quo. Sometimes it helps to get out of your environment. Insist on transformational innovation. One team told me they did their best work on a sailboat!

Once multiple ideas have been generated, step back and build on like ideas, refine, improve. Then visualize brainstormed ideas using a colorful diagram. Build rich pictures. Great visualization techniques use both the right and left brain, clarify thinking, save time, foster ability to organize, communicate, remember, and innovate.

Convergent Thinking: Decide

It is possible that the group is having so much fun that it wants to keep experimenting and creating. But at some point, the EBA needs to determine the moment to decide on the approach to take to move the company forward. First, refine and prioritize the list of ideas. Then determine the feasibility of all high-priority options. Analyze the feasible options, and then decide on the most feasible, least cost, fastest time to market, and most customer-centric ideas. For the most feasible options get physical and visualize by building prototype, mockups, models, story boards, stick figures.

Remember, all facilitation is consensus building. Take the time you need to be truly collaborative, participative, unifying and synergistic. The most important factor is to get the right people in the room. People who are of varying expertise, who love to work collaboratively in ambiguous environments to arrive at places that are unknown and promising.

THE NEXT LEVEL: TRANSFORMATIONAL DESIGNED-CENTERED INNOVATION

The EBA fulfills many strategic roles, essentially putting her finger in the dike for the many areas that have been woefully inadequate in organizations today, from business relationship manager to internal strategic consultant to innovator. Design-driven companies outperform the S&P 500. By 228% over ten years! The most innovative companies in the world share one thing in common. They use design as an integrative resource to innovate more efficiently and successfully. Yet many businesses don’t make it a priority to invest in design – often because the value of design is hard to measure and define as a business strategy. So, EBAs are filling the gap and bringing design principles into their business requirements and solution design processes.

“Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” —Tim Brown, president and CEO of award-winning global design firm that takes a human-centered, design-based approach to helping organizations in the public and private sectors innovate and grow and member of the Mayo Clinic Innovation Advisory Council.

So what’s the big deal about design thinking? It combines empathy for the context of a problem, creativity in the generation of insights and solutions, and rationality in analyzing and fitting various solutions to the company’s context (Tom and Dave Kelley, in their book Creative Confidence) . Design thinking is converging disciplines to meet 21st century challenges. When driving innovation in the face of complexity, design thinking unites three essential disciplines: technology, business, and art. It focuses fiercely on customer value.
For the first time in the history of business management strategies, we are embracing principles of art and design. Design thinking…a methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation… a management strategy…a system that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match:

Peoples’ needs, with
What is technologically feasible, and what
A viable business can convert into consumer value and market opportunity.

It is the EBA role that is picking up the mantel and driving innovation through design principles. Fundamental design principles include the following:

Empathy
Collaboration
Diverse points of view
Integrative thinking
Cross-functional teams
Iteration, Invention
People-centered
Deep user insights
Visualization
Solve wicked problems
Creativity
Efficiency, Efficacy

Design Thinking – a Customer-Centered approach to Innovation

Design thinking is a human-centered innovation process that includes the basic elements that the EBA has in her toolbox. It is the EBA who is most primed to bring design-thinking methods to the business innovation process.

The Genius of Design Thinking

The genius of design thinking is that it integrates innovation, a deep understanding of the customer experience, and business transformation. “Intuition counts heavily, experimentation happens fast, failures along the way are embraced as learning, business strategy is integrated, and more relevant solutions are produced.”

End Notes

Can a company live forever? Kim Gittleson BBC News, New York, 19 January 2012. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-16611040
The Secret Skill Behind Being An Innovator, Mar 26, 2014. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140326034851-84796303-the-secret-skill-behind-being-an-innovator ;
http://www.beyondlean.com/problem-solving.html
http://www.dmi.org/blogpost/1093220/182956/Design-Driven-Companies-Outperform-S-P-by-228-Over-Ten-Years–The-DMI-Design-Value-Index
http://www.ideo.com/about/
Inspiration Lab, inspirationlab.org. http://inspirationlab.org/story/5711#sthash.s2nfzgEd.dpuf. http://inspirationlab.org/story/5711.
http://www.ideo.com/people/tim-brown
Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience, and Brand Value, Thomas Lockwood, Design Management Institute