Tag: Business Analysis

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

Your Backlog Might Be Broken If…Part 1

Written by Angela Wick on October 13, 2015. Posted in Articles.

How does your team build and manage their backlog? Is your current process working well or does your backlog need a reboot?

One of the most overlooked factors of team success or failure is the health the backlog. Success or failure often hinges on the amount of love and attention an organization gives to their queue of needs, features, feedback, bugs, and enhancements.

I am concerned that teams and organizations continue to focus too much on getting items developed faster vs. developing the right items—the items that add the most value to the organization. Traditional and Agile teams alike are experiencing these challenges.

Poor backlog management yields inefficient and ineffective projects/iterations/sprints/releases, and ultimately less value delivered overall. If you neglect your backlog and let it wander off, unattended, into the crowded project circus, it will dart to and fro distracted by every bright shiny object. Your team’s sense of direction will suffer, objectives will be murky, requirements will churn and value will be lost.

Successful teams 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
Mitigate negative risk

It can be quite difficult for organizations to assess objectively the health of their backlog management processes and even more difficult to implement changes. These processes are often unwritten and entrenched years of evolving organizational politics, culture, and values. But admitting you have a problem is always the first step, so I’ve identified a few indicators that might shine a light on your broken backlog. Read and ponder the first two indicators this month and I’ll give you a few more to think about in Part 2 next month!

Related Article: 7 Habits of Highly Effective Business Analysts

Your backlog might be broken if…it is not prioritized.

How does your backlog get prioritized? What criteria are used? A healthy backlog delivers only the right work at the right time to the team. The most important things need to slide to the top and should be prioritized by value to the organization.

Prioritizing the backlog in traditional and Agile environments entails elicitation, analysis, and decision-making. As BAs and PMs, we may be the one facilitating this process, or as Product Owners we may own the decisions on the priorities. Either way, it’s our job to keep the development stream clean! Only items that yield true value to the organization should flow into development. We use tried and true analysis and elicitation techniques to ensure that each item is understood from an end-user and organizational perspective so it can be effectively prioritized.

If you are like many organizations your backlog may be 100s if not 1000s of items long. That seems impossible to prioritize! So, how do you deal with a backlog that is simply too long? Here are a few ideas:

Make sure the backlog is not just something the technical team is managing; it needs to be aligned with the business. The right business drivers should guide the backlog prioritization.
The top 10 (or about 10) items should be known and rank prioritized by value
When an item hits the top 10, elaborate additional details and requirements
The rest of the backlog can be grouped into like categories. Please do not categorize them by technical application, component or task, but rather by feature, process, or something of tangible business value that is understandable to the business decision makers.
Revisit the top 10 as often as needed to always have a top 10 in place.
Track the time something has been in the backlog…. seriously consider deleting/archiving the item if it remains in the backlog and not making the top 10 for six months (or whatever timeframe seems appropriate).
Make sure everyone knows the top 10 ranked priorities and get everyone focused on #1!

Warning: If your team seems to be using FIFO (first in first out) or SWGG (squeaky wheel gets the grease) processes for backlog management, the team is at high risk for not delivering value and spending the organizations resources appropriately.

Your backlog might be broken if…it is inside out.

Does your backlog focus inside out (technology and technical tasks) or outside in (user and business point of view)?

Backlog items should be written from the user or business perspective, NOT from the perspective of the team or the technology components. A piece of technology, all by itself, does not typically provide value to the user, especially in our complex integrated environments.

To prioritize the backlog we need to understand the value each item provides by writing our backlog items in ways that express the value to the organization, end customer or end user.

When a user makes an online purchase, they do not see separate applications. They browse items, make a purchase, pay, and receive items. Users do not get value from the web page alone, the product database alone, or the payment processor alone — the user gets value from the integrated experience. If your backlog items have names like “code profile page” or “write SQL for DB call” or “map data for credit card validation,” your backlog might be broken.

Backlog items should express the WHO, WHAT, and WHY, in terms that the end customer understands and can be prioritized by business leaders.

Some ideas to transition poorly written backlog items:

Item 1: Add a SAVE button at the bottom of the screen.

Rewritten: Give the customers the ability to save an order mid-stream while entering all of the order data so that they do not risk losing information already entered if they step away or get interrupted while entering.

Item 2: Upgrade the database to the new version

Rewritten: For customers to be able to enter orders after Oct 1st, 2015 we need to upgrade the database to the new version so that the version works on the operating system.

Item 3: Code the server file to add the new volume properties

Rewritten: To serve our expanding customer volumes we need to update the server file to accommodate more users at one time.

Is your backlog broken?

As you evaluate your backlog this month, ask yourself these important questions:

• How are our priorities really being determined?
• Are the items on our backlog written in a way that makes it easy to understand value and identify priorities?

Our backlog health check will continue next month when I share a few more “broken backlog” indicators in part two of this article!

There must be 50 Ways to Write a Great User Story

Written by Judith Mary Khan on October 12, 2015. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on There must be 50 Ways to Write a Great User Story

The user story is the center-point for the Agile business analyst to perform work. From the story, everything else can be facilitated, requirements definition and communication, development and QA tasks that will bring it to completion, tracking and reporting for the team, management, and even the customer, and even knowledge transfer for future team mates. All of this is possible with the well-written story.

During the time that I have worked as an Agile BA, I have seen stories used in a broad spectrum of manners, those that are completely cryptic in what their purpose is, those that read more like random defects recorded by IT and/or non-IT people, those that are largely dependent on tribal knowledge, and those that are concise, clear, and deliver all the important pieces to be truly useful to all the team, as well as non-scrum team stakeholders.

I recently decided that while the story can be used in numerous ways, a good story will have certain attributes. Check the list that follows and see if there are more ways to write a good story. In an Agile team, the flexibility will be built into it by doing what makes the most sense to your unique project and your unique team. The rigueur of waterfall methodologies will not limit the Agile BA to a strict set of requirements to fulfill in getting acceptance of the requirements documentation. It will also expand the BA’s capability to communicate across teams and simultaneously contribute to the library of project documentation.

Keep in mind, as the owner of the user story, seek to communicate efficiently, and with clarity. Do not bury the meanings, purposes, objectives in verbiage that is not readily accessible to the spectrum of stakeholders that will be the consumers of the story. In depth technical details, and even details of business process information can be included in the story, but as a subtask requirement, or an image or attachment to the story. Keep your headline reader ready! This applies to Developers and other technical team members to the business customer and executives. Make your handprint on the story by offering clarity, versus one that furthers confusion.

How you write a great story is up to your own project and style, but make sure it has these qualities.

Here are a few ideas:

A great headline reads like a story, not a puzzling technical paraphrase.
A description that cuts to the chase and is readable by all scrum team members.
Use story notes. If this is available, capture and describe aspects and details beyond the description.
Capture the tasks involved for specifying the requirements, the work of the Developers, and the criteria for QA activities. My current team makes this quick to grasp with prefixes to indicate which team member is responsible, such as ‘DEV’, ‘QA’, etc.
Clear acceptance points or criteria are written so that any business analyst can walk through the deliverable and give it a yes or no to pass for acceptance, or to pick up the workflow. It should be cross-team member ready.
A workflow that makes common sense and uses verbiage that can be readily understood. This workflow should be visible to all users, and permissions granted only for those who are in the appropriate role to select that workflow step.
The right screen shots should be attached, but only if needed.
Attachments can serve as directly related to fulfillment of the story, and become a powerful reference tool in future use when investigating the history of a feature or whatever was important to the story. Meaningful and supporting attachments can also guide the knowledge transfer when new team members join.
Comments should be direct, and to the point. This is all too often overused, for comments that do not need to be captured and reread. Valuable comments are readable, complete, and understandable. Any ‘next steps’ or action items that come out of a comment need to be clearly stated.
Use the story points to track, communicate, and reflect the best estimating available from the team. A lot of skill goes into good estimating and the various team members have a lot to offer. Make sure that all voices are heard, especially from QA and UAT.
Use your story to facilitate prioritization. Keep the ranking within the story itself. This can then be ready to use when reviewed, reported, analyzed for metrics. The PM, and the dashboards that can be created will thank you.
More… employ the elements that will make it valuable to your team and efforts. Agile allows options, and as the BA, you can facilitate it.
More as you can think of them!

All of these pieces work interdependently to define, communicate, and deliver requirements. The Agile BA is the one who ushers the story, facilitates the collection of story components, and gives it a consistent tone, style, and voice.