Tag: Change Management

So you’ve got the qualifications? Now what?

Written by Richard Yarnold on August 21, 2019. Posted in Articles.

Having a qualification in your specialism is a goal for many Business Analysts and Change Professionals.

They will give you the knowledge and understanding of the key concepts (hands up if you studied Porter’s Five Forces as a BA? Keep your hand up if you’ve ever used it in a role ?).

Whether you’re targeting an ISEB qualification in Business Analysis or Project Management, or getting a Black Belt in Six Sigma, it’s good to add these to your CV because it helps to demonstrate a level of professionalism and an ability to learn and develop.

Most employers have qualifications as essential requirements for their roles. But how important are they beyond playing the job application game? Qualifications will help you get through the door, but what about when you’re in a role?

The best Change Professionals I’ve worked with over the years aren’t the ones that have the most qualifications. They aren’t the ones who know all the details of the PESTLE analysis, or can knock up a perfect bidirectional traceability matrix (yes that’s an actual thing).

They aren’t the ones who have a full page of their CV dedicated to the qualifications and certificates they’ve achieved or the courses they’ve attended.

The best Change Professionals are those that demonstrate proficiency in softer skills. I’ve listed a few here but the list is not exhaustive and not in any priority order.

Listening
Being comfortable communicating with people at all levels of the organization
Tailoring communications to your audience
Being inquisitive
Asking the right questions
Being able to link information and concepts
Taking ownership of issues and deliverables
Fostering good working relationships
Being committed to project goals (but not in an obstructive way)
Challenging the way things are done (again, not in an obstructive way)

All the courses I’ve been on only really focus on the technical concepts and tools that help you do your job – The What, and give very little content, if any at all to the way you implement those tools – The How.

In my opinion, only 30% of the change management role is being proficient in tools and techniques. The other 70% is the softer stuff listed above. There’s no point in being able to pull together a whizzy Gant chart full of milestones and resource requirements when the information in it is incorrect or your stakeholders don’t buy into the vision. There’s a definite gap in the market for a course or module on these softer skills.

Why is Data so Important for Leaders?

Written by Rovena Bytyci on March 19, 2019. Posted in Articles.

The rise of digitisation has had a huge impact upon all industries and organisations and big data is at the forefront of this digital transformation.

Organisations and their leaders now have access to valuable insights into their business, customers, competitors and marketplace, allowing them to make strategic, data-driven business decisions. But why is data so important for leaders and how can it transform their role in an organisation?

‘As data and analytics become pervasive, the ability to communicate in this language, to become data literate, is the new organisational readiness factor’ Carlie J.Idione – Gartner Research

Streamlining the customer experience

Emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) are allowing leaders and businesses to automate certain work processes such as customer service. This not only allows for additional resources to be allocated to strategic business decisions, but it collects valuable data and trends from customer feedback that in turn improves the customer experience. Whilst most organisations will already have a strong idea of their target audience and demographic, it’s important not to stand still and constantly develop innovative products and services for the ‘new wave’ of consumers. A great example of this is Spotify, who used AI to sort through customer data and highlighted the most unique customer trends around the world, simultaneously humanising consumer data and creating a lucrative global marketing campaign.

Strategic Decision Making

Algorithms and real-time predictive data are enabling leaders to make better-informed decisions. These decisions are made on a basis of tangible data and trends resulting in less guesswork and increased accuracy. Predicting future industry trends can put an organisation ahead of the curve, spotting potentially lucrative business opportunities before their competitors. By analysing these trends, organisations can create products and services based on consumer need and desire, rather than ‘educated’ guesswork.

Shaping stronger leaders

A successful leader in the digital era should have a strong analytics aptitude and demonstrate logical thinking and verbal and quantitative reasoning. Rather than resting on their laurels they should always be looking for the next business opportunity and data-driven technologies can make this job significantly easier. Rather than being motivated by emerging technologies, strong leaders and analysts should be motivated on solving problems using well analysed data and algorithms. Leading a business through this era of digital transformation takes a unique set of skills, which can be developed through courses such as a Master of Business Administration.

Empowering Employees to Drive Continuous Improvement

Written by Vincent Mirabelli on March 7, 2019. Posted in Articles.

Does this sound like you?

“I want to engage my staff to get involved in improving the way our business operates, but everything I try just doesn’t seem to have an impact”

If so, you are definitely in the majority. Businesses in almost every industry and sector struggle with getting staff involved in their continuous improvement initiatives, and wrestle with how to better engage their teams in efforts to improve business processes. And even if they do get that figured out and off the ground, it often introduces a new set of challenges; sustaining that momentum.

First, the good news. Your employees WANT to be given the chance to improve your business, to have a voice in process improvement. Now the bad news (or at least the harder news); your management team needs to make it easy for their teams to do so.

So then, how can you make the path improvement easier for your teams? Here are my top 10 tips, tactics and approaches to empower and enable your staff (and you) excited about driving business process improvements, and on to becoming continuous improvement ambassadors for your organization.

1. Acknowledge the Room for improvement

Q: Do you know what the biggest room in the world is?
A: The room for improvement.

Dad jokes aside, sometimes just acknowledging to your staff that there are opportunities to improve, not just the business, but their way of working, can be of great help in getting them on board. Every business faces challenges, and ignoring them, spinning them, and sweeping them under the rug does nothing to help. Acknowledge the problems, see them as opportunities, and meet them head on. To really amplify the message, create a safe environment for your staff to bring opportunities forward, and even contribute to solving them.

2. Communicate

One of the best ways to build trust with your team members is to be open and transparent with your intentions, your projects, and your progress. Not only will this keep the idea of continuous improvement it top of mind, but your communication tools can be used as a vehicle to accelerate your efforts and impact.

3. Offer employee training

The impact of offering training to your staff is two-fold. First, it ensures your teams have the proper training, ongoing support and the resources they need to get involved with and contribute to, your continuous improvement initiatives. Second, and likely more important (to them at least), is that it also demonstrates a willingness to invest in them and their careers.

4. Make it a part of everyone’s job

“What gets measured gets done.” While the source of that statement is debatable, the sentiment is not. If you want to drive continuous improvement in your organization, make it personal. Establish individual and team performance outcomes and expectations, including KPIs, to obtain the desired effect. The best way to do that is to include continuous improvement objectives in every job description, as well as annual/quarterly/etc. personal development programs.

5. Have leadership set the tone

Most sustainable business transformations start at the top, and trickle down. So, having your organization’s senior management buy-in to continuous improvement, and in more than words, goes a long way in determining success. Their words must be backed up with actions, and those actions and support should be visible to your entire operation. This ensures a strong and visible network of leaders to generate momentum for process improvement initiatives.

6. Make it fun, but appeal to the spirit of competition

Recognizing that staff engagement in process improvement can be difficult to maintain, many companies have appealed to people’s competitive instincts by holding competitions, both within teams and across their entire organizations. Some businesses have even created games such as process improvement sprints and hackathons, in the spirit of competition.

7. Enable collaboration

Take the “One Company” approach to break down existing silos. The best way I’ve found to do this is to use the customer’s perspective on your business. Do you have a lot of segmented processes, a lot of handoffs, and perhaps overly specific and restrictive job descriptions? Guess what…your customer doesn’t care. They want a problem solved or a need addressed. They see your organization as a single entity, and not a collection of individualized departments and silos.

Further, make sure you don’t squeeze the balloon of pain. In a siloed organization, a lot of problems are solved in one business unit by squeezing the pain up or downstream. Not unlike one of those balloons that clowns use to make balloon animals. When you squeeze the middle, the air doesn’t disappear; it moves to the rest of the balloon. So don’t solve a problem by making it someone else’s.

8. Enforce accountability

Sometimes simply giving your staff the autonomy and resources needed to map, review and ultimately own the processes they have to deal with every day is enough to start them down the road of implementing their improvement ideas. That’s not to say they should have the freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want. You should enforce timelines, but freedom, to force accountability. This will help identify who is really interested in contributing. Everyone wants to have a say when there are no consequences, but when I need to own my actions, only the team members that really want to try making a difference will step up. That being said, you want to empower but not abdicate; make it clear when your team should reach out for help or approval.

9. Recognize and reward

As a general rule, good work should be recognized and celebrated. And by that, I don’t mean a party every time someone sends an email. But ensure that you are giving recognition where and when recognition when it is due. For example, I used to hold a “graduation” ceremony from my classes of Lean Six Sigma Green Belts. To me it wasn’t about grad caps and cupcakes, but was more about giving the new Green Belts the opportunity to present their work to their leaders, and be recognized for their efforts. I now make this a mandatory milestone for all training classes. It’s important to acknowledge all of the good work, efforts, failures, and completion of milestones (like completing training). It all creates a virtuous cycle of learning and success.

10. Offer bribes

Consider this one an absolute last resort. It is, at best, a short-term tactic to drive motivation and participation in your staff. Providing small but meaningful incentives like pizza parties, extra vacation days, or event or movie tickets, may give you a boost. But a warning…use of these doesn’t actually solve your engagement problem, and may actually serve to negatively impact it when these tactics go away. And a second warning…use cash bonuses as an absolute last move, as

The thinking on business process improvement has shifted in recent years. It used to be one that focused on the application of rigid tools and methodologies, and that discounted the role of staff, to the more modern approach, which is one that is better at harnessing the real drivers of change in your organization: engaged people and teams, who want to do good work, and are driven to improve and succeed.

When you instill a strong improvement culture in your organization, and equip and empower an engaged staff with the right tools, learning, and attitude, you can turn their efforts into real, tangible improvements that make your business more efficient and effective, and improve the engagement of staff. All that leads to significant, positive changes for your teams, your customers, and your bottom line.

The Experience Age has Arrived

Written by Sharon Bennett on February 19, 2019. Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on The Experience Age has Arrived

What does the phenomenon of the transition from the “Digital” to the “Experience Age” mean for Business Analysis?

Before reviewing the impact of this phenomenon on Business Analysis, let’s review what is involved in the transition from the “Information Age” to the “Experience Age”.

It is said that the transition from the “Information Age” to the “Experience Age” is being driven by a combination of technological advancements in artificial intelligence, chatbots, social messaging, the Internet of Things (IoT) advancements and mobile connectivity. Also, having an impact are the changing dynamics of online interactions being driven by changes to electronic devices — virtual reality, wearables. Also, the rise of in-the-moment data sharing capabilities such as Snapchat and Instagram have shifted use of data towards real time data sharing using experience driven interfaces that highlight interaction.

Along with these technological advancements, the proposal that society has become saturated with information and therefore is becoming selective about where, what and how it consumes information is thought to also be a force in the movement from information consumers to the creator of experiences, transitioning us into the “Experience Age”.

In the “Information Age” the idea of communication was to make information accessible. In the “Experience Age” the primary focus is creating an experience. Society is transitioning from wanting information to seeking experiences relating to the information. When we are chatting with friends and family on IAM or Facebook, it’s not the information we want, it’s an emotional connection. The “Experience Age” is moving us toward connecting people with the experience rather than just focusing on the informational facts.

To declare the end of the “Information Age” sounds like a bold declaration, however, the dramatic evolution of technology that continues to dramatically change our lives, cannot be denied as evidence that information on its own is no longer as valuable as the next experience that caters to our likes and desires which the information can be used to create and deliver.

The “Experience Age” is one in which people want to experience everything. It is felt that experience is comparable to getting the most out of life. People want to be immersed in the story of the experience creating the feeling of living vs. just serving as a by-stander. Therefore, providing a valuable customer experience has become a necessary requirement for any business wanting to thrive in todays’ business world. Companies must design and deliver a total package of capability, value and memorable time of use where the memory itself becomes the product — an experience. Gone are the days where a business can survive solely on the product or service offered.

How is the Business Analyst (BA) involved in creating the interactive experience of this new age vs the role filled in the “Information Age”?

As stated in the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK)….. Business analysis is the practice of enabling change in an enterprise by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders. Business analysis enables an enterprise to articulate needs and the rationale for change, and to design and describe solutions that can deliver value.

In the Experience Age, The Business Analyst (BA) will continue the practice of enabling change through the definition of need and solution recommendation. As well the target of this effort will be value to the stakeholders. What “will” change is that:

Business Analysts must transition their perspective and others in the company, to the rationale for change being a total customer experience and being able to articulate the change and design solution so that a valued experience is delivered vs. simply an informational product or service.
The BA perspective must shift from looking at business processes from the standpoint of creating higher efficiency and/or quality to the perspective of whether the processes can support the experience to be delivered. Processes should also be looked at with an understanding of a distributed and multidisciplinary environment (i.e. mobile) vs. the context of the environment in which it is formed.
BA’s will be required to have an extensive understanding of their customers’ desires. The BA focus should shift from the often-current operating context of a system and weighing the business initiatives against the technical constraints; to a product development focus aimed at the customers desired experience; eliminating any mental constraints on pushing the boundaries of innovative thinking about product development. BA’s will need to know who their customers are, what motivates them, what their preferences and interests are, and how they want to be perceived. The customer experience must be thought of as a business priority and therefore requires that this be at the center of thinking in conducting business.
BA’s should build into their approach, ways of providing more opportunities for customer interaction and engagement across the product lifecycle. Product design will require true collaboration — from product concept, design, manufacturing, through final packaging and marketing. Alignment is required across the entire organization on the experience they are tasked with delivering.
BAs will be expected to lead the effort to create the desired customer experience as well as maximize business value. The valued customer experience being the delivery goal. The success of business value delivery will now be determined by how well the customer journey and user experience has been translated to offer real and/or even perceived value through the experience’. Therefore, the business analyst will need to challenge solution designs that are not geared towards a user-friendly customer experience in lieu of business value. This will require confidence and negotiation skills – something the business analyst will need to possess.

In summation, the “experience age” requires the delivery of an experience. Features and Functionality in a product can no longer be the center of design focus for the company or BA. The product, processes and any related services must be designed within the context of customer experience. The goal of innovation becomes how to create and deliver experiences that connect with the customer. BA peers lets go create some great experiences!

LEANing into Service Delivery with User Story Mapping

Written by Jason Greatrex on January 23, 2019. Posted in Articles.

Canadian winter weekends bring snow, shoveling, – and those of us with tiny tikes, Little League Hockey.

Nothing says Little League Hockey, like weekend hockey tournaments. During these weekend getaways, travelling along highways to arenas, hotels, cities, and back again we invariably hit a few Tim Hortons coffee shops. (Perhaps, too many, as a successful tournament means several stops a day for the parental coffee fix!) Although each Tim Hortons is a standard franchise, offering the same products, the customer service experience can vary substantially.

Experiencing such inconsistencies and inefficiencies instinctively activates our Business Analyst training. What is the situational problem? How can we re-engineer this process for better service delivery effectiveness? If improving the process, leads to delivering a better service, then immediately, two tools and techniques spring to mind: User Story Mapping and LEAN improvement methodology.

Provide a Customer-Centric Approach

By using a User Story Mapping technique, you provide a customer-centric perspective to the problem. User Story Mapping is about building a narrative from the user’s perspective. This storyline traditionally describes using a product; however, the flexibility in this tool allows the technique to be equally transferrable to describing a process flow or delivering a service like serving coffee and Timbits. For practitioners, not acquainted with User Story Mapping and its approach, an in-depth description can be found in Jeff Patton’s book, “User Story Mapping” is a must have BA resource.

At a high-level, User Story Mapping is a collaborative team technique that begins first with individual experiences. Team members express their own personal experiences using a product, performing a process, or delivering service. Describing an individual’s own perspective, each participant writes their activities on separate Post-It notes. These actions take on the structural format of verb-noun or action-object, like “greet customer,” “add sugar,” or “pour coffee.”

Develop a Shared Understanding

After individual experiences are captured on multiple Post-It notes, the team comes together to build a narrative, combining these separate users experiences into a single collective story. Collectively, team members stick their Post-It notes up on a wall. The storyline they create resembles a book, starting at the left and finishing on the right. At this stage, the team works collaboratively to map a “collective” narrative of the service, discussing, and collectively designing and understanding the overall big picture from these various detailed tasks. This activity creates a chronologically organized story, mapping the processes activities and, the outcomes of service delivered, including a shared understanding and agreement among the team.

Apply LEAN Methodology

This collective narrative sets the team up for reflective analysis of the processes they perform and the services they deliver. Standing back, looking at the entire process from end-to-end, both a high-level overview and multiple detailed actions create the stage to apply LEAN methodology. LEAN by its core definition is the elimination of waste. Thus, LEAN methodology focuses on reducing activities that do not add value to the customer, such as unnecessary work, extra work, or rework. For example, when analyzing the process in preparing a customer’s coffee, is the employee’s environment set up with readily available milk, cream, sugar, stir sticks, and lids? Having these items easily accessible means the employees need not move to another location and therefore are not wasting time or energy with additional work. Another key LEAN principle that compliments User Story Mapping is that both methodologies focus on the customer. Applying LEAN improvements always come from the customer’s perspective. In LEAN literature, this customer’s perspective is called the “Voice of the Customer.”

With a service story expressed from a customer’s viewpoint and an eye for reducing and removing unnecessary work, the team is in a position to deconstruct the service. One approach to help the team focus on identifying only its service essentials tasks involves placing a line of tape directly under all the Post-It notes on the wall. Next, team members are asked, if you were limited on time and resources what and how would you provide this service in the shortest and most efficient time possible. Then place those essential actions written on Post-It notes below that tapeline.

Establish a Minimum Viable Process-Service

This tape line acts as a visual separator, or a demarcation point, where all current activities described are above the tape line and, those tasks posted below, are the essential elements needed to deliver that service. The activities underneath the line represent its minimum viable process (MVP) or — in the context of a service — its minimum viable service. This identification and deconstruction process translates as the least amount of effort to deliver a service to the customer. As a unit, the team can step back, observe, communication, and collectively flesh out where excessive work may be occurring in their processes.

This parsing down exercise takes on an iterative and incremental form. Few processes are refined immediately.

Experimenting must occur, physically moving the Post-It pieces around the wall finding efficiencies and improving process flow. The delivery of an effective service is all about improving the process that delivers that service. This collaborative exercise translates value back to the customer, the end-user of the service. The MVP point, although an effective outcome, can also act as the starting point in the processes continuous improvement cycle, a baseline from which a team can incrementally build up their processes and services incrementally, evaluating, analyzing, and adding what is important.
Increasing the success rate for people accepting process re-engineering and adopting continuous improvement techniques are dependent on defining a common purpose and building commitment from those involved. The User Story Mapping technique is a natural and simple platform for facilitating and supporting collaboration between people and teams while deconstructing a process from a customer’s perspective with a common goal focus. If services delivered are defined by their process, then the procedures behind how Tim Hortons staff brew, package, pour and pass coffee to the customer reflects the service provided and perceived by customers. Thus, by refining the process, you can improve the service. Applying the user story mapping technique and LEAN methodology improvements do that.

In improving the process, you improve the service — are you improving your processes to better your service delivery? Buy a coffee and see for yourself!