Tag: Leadership

A Psychology Tool for the High Performing Business Consultant

Written by Suraj Panicker on December 23, 2020. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on A Psychology Tool for the High Performing Business Consultant

As we know, the Johari window was created by leading psychologists in 1955 as a technique to help people develop a better grip on their relationships with themselves and others.

The concept is simple and intuitive & this article attempts at narrating the view through the eyes of a high performing project Business Analyst/Consultant. The author is inspired by the overarching Blue Ocean Strategy Philosophy of applying learnings from across domains to create unique perspectives; in this instance a classic psychology tool is taken up in fresh Business analysis & consulting domain.

The objective is to trigger unprecedented research and appreciation that can be developed to a powerful perspective tool in the leadership journey of a consulting practitioner. At the least the view will help develop a constructive & compassionate perspective to acknowledge the known and an appreciative curiosity to respect the unknown!
The Johari Kaleidoscope opens to four dimensions:-

Area1:Aspects known to both BA/Project and the World (PUBLIC/KNOWN)
Area2: Aspects known to stakeholders/world but unknown to BA/project (BLIND)
Area3:Aspects known to BA/project but unknown to stakeholders/world (HIDDEN)
Area4:Aspects unknown to both BA/project and stakeholders/world (UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS)

It is worthwhile to note that this view, like that through a Kaleidoscope, constantly changes with requirements shifting between the four quadrants throughout the life cycle of the project! At times it is the Business consultant/analyst’s conscious attempts that shift the quadrants (e.g. a robust stakeholder interview unravels an unstated need and moves it from quadrant 2 to 1!) & sometimes the shift happens through factors beyond the control of project/BA. (E.g. /project decides to drop a requirement but it is yet to be socialised with key stakeholder, a shift from quadrant 1 to hidden quadrant 3)

Let us now dive deeper into interesting insights derived out of the four quadrants,

Quadrant 1: PUBLIC/KNOWN

Quadrant 1 is the “visible to all “quadrant containing entities–that are freely and openly available for verification to the project as well its stakeholders. It is expected that this quadrant will manage 80-90% of requirements in the peak phase. In other words, this quadrant initially exposes just a bit of the whole truth to the curious BA! A Business Consultant starts the journey of acknowledging the knowns and appreciating the unknowns at this juncture.

Diagram1

While this may sound the easiest quadrant of requirements for a Consultant to deal with, the quadrant poses its own unique challenges/expectations:-

Alignment: These “knowns” can be leveraged to seek the much required Alignment early on in the project. Often these are the “ice-breakers” that can precede critical requirement elicitation. As the information is readily known and easily verifiable – it is absolutely essential that the Business Consultant focuses on the accuracy and coverage. This is the quadrant of quick wins with accompanying celebrations and trust building – if all goes right. But all the same is one of quick disasters if the obvious is ignored. ! The Business Consultant makes a strong head start into his journey of exploration leveraging the consensus around quadrant1 aspects.
Trust Build: This is the quadrant of leverage to build trust. In communication around requirements, Business Consultant could use this quadrant to reiterate the knowns and build a strong foundation of trust As most people don’t like surprises a diligent Business Consultant would ensure items are prioritised such that elements of Quadrant 1 form the glue that is required to bind conversations together.
High Cost of Failure: This quadrant has the highest cost of failure in my view as these requirements form the very basis of constructing a robust business requirement pyramid. A failure at this layer could cascade to gross lack of trust and resentment from stakeholders and ultimately affect the downfall of the entire pyramid of trust.

Area 2: BLIND

In my view this is the “thinking” quadrant for the consultant! This quadrant has aspects not known to the consultant//project but known to the world/stakeholders. During structured and unstructured elicitation, the Business Consultant has to uncover these unstated requirements and shift them to quadrant 1 to manage them effectively. Fortunately there are tools and techniques available to help deal with this:-

Appreciative Inquiry

This is a technique widely used in Organisation research consulting paradigms, and in my view, a perfect tool for a Business Consultant to unravel facts and requirements, not so apparent to the naked eye! In short terms Appreciative Inquiry or better known as “AI”, is to weave in conversations that focus on strengths ( not weakness) and possibility thinking( not problem thinking) that travels through the 4-D cycle – Discover, Dream, Design and Destiny. The key trait in this approach is consultative collaboration and imaginative exploration that helps shift the aspects yet unknown to the Business Consultant from quadrant 2 towards more manageable quadrant1.

Collaborative Games & Business Model Canvasing(BMC)
[(Introduced in BABOK V3 along with other 15 new techniques]

Collaborative game is a technique inspired by game play for the adept facilitator BA, as part of the elicitation activity, to collaborate in building a joint understanding of a problem or a solution. The BMC is a visual depiction of enterprise value creation (how value is created, delivered and captured). A combination of these two techniques could help the enterprise Business Consultant to accentuate the spirit of consultation, collaboration and co-creation required to uncover treasures (aka requirements, facts) in other quadrants(quadrants 2,3 and 4) and shift to quadrant 1 and baseline .

These Techniques present favourable group dynamics whereby astute consultant extracts information by opening hitherto closed mind doors (Elicitation) and also dig within and reveal information of interest to the stakeholders (Excavation). Together the group explores aspects yet unknown to both project and stakeholders and discovers items to be shifted to quadrant 1. (Exploration). Once the requirements /facts are brought over to quadrant 1 the Business Consultant establishes alignment and baseline such information. (Establish)

Diagram2 Note: Above 4E- model (Elicitation, Excavation, Exploration and Establish) is purely author’s hypothesis framework built over Johari window and not traced to any available research. Interested researchers feel free to extend my framework; appreciate siting this original article reference though.
These techniques are applicable to below quadrants as well. At the end of an engaging workshop deploying such techniques it is not unusual that quadrants 2/3/4 shrink as the outlets depicted above floods qudrant1

Area 3: HIDDEN

Quadrant 3 is the “Challenge “quadrant in many aspects. This quadrant contains information /requirements (stated/unstated), risks, challenges, assumptions etc. known to the consultant/project but not yet revealed to the world/stakeholders deliberately or unknowingly. The “Challenge” comes from the extreme demand of Mindfulness and Integrity from Business Consultant to differentiate between the two scenarios and act accordingly. While project confidential or trivial information need not be released to wider audience, a crucial decision regarding a stakeholder requirement could be inadvertently held back!

As an example consider project prioritisation of elicited requirements from various stakeholders. A requirement from a stakeholder group has been down prioritised and might not be met. This decision has not been communicated to the stakeholder group timely through proper re-engagement. This “hidden” project decision could be catastrophic down the line for the project to meet timely deliverable sign-offs & quality acceptance criteria.

While Organizational culture and working atmosphere is of utmost significance to create a culture of “shared wisdom ” – a Business consultant’s proactive leadership can reduce the pile of information /requirement/risks that are wrongly kept in quadrant 3 & must be shifted to quadrant 1 for wider audience reference. A Business Consultant can assist the project in reducing such “incongruence” and help “breaking bad news at right time in proper manner” to audience through various techniques and behaviours. The example below touches upon the example covered in previous paragraph.

Balance Scorecard[ New technique introduced in BABOK V3] to communicate context around “Why a requirement was down prioritised/dropped”

As depicted in Diagram2 the purpose of the shift from Quadrant 3 to Quadrant 1 is to Establish Alignment.

The Balance Score Card (originated by Robert Kaplan and David Norton), in my view, is the perfect tool for depicting the broader context and balance considerations under which the requirement has been down prioritised. Based on the project context the standard Score card parameters can be tweaked to communicate Key project vision, goals and requirement prioritisation dimensions. The standard BSC dimensions are as below:-

The SPIKE Protocol (to break “bad news”)

As a Blue ocean strategy practitioner, I am committed to looking at protocols and frameworks from unexpected sectors of the world that bring fresh perspectives to Business analysis consulting paradigm!

The SPIKE protocol, as you know, is used by clinical practitioners (e.g. Cancer Australia) – to disclose a bad news to the patient regarding their medical condition. The first reason the protocol is referred is it’s through structured patient“(in our case stakeholder) centric approach. The other compelling reason is the extreme learning aspect .When it comes to braking bad news, it doesn’t get more complex/stressful than the situation where a medical practitioner (in our case the consultant) has to disclose extreme information to a patient in distress (in our case the stakeholder whose requirement has been dropped). The analogy used is – If you learn how to climb the Himalayas, there is a fair chance you are well equipped to climb any other mountain in the world.

Let us look at how the SPIKE protocol can be interpreted to meet the management Consultant perspective & map into a few of the underlying competencies mentioned in BABOK V3:-

Area 4: HIDDEN

Quadrant 4 is the “Mystery “quadrant and hence the Quadrant of “Exploration” and “Innovation”. Research shows less than 10% of projects tap into this quadrant effectively through the life cycle of the project for various reasons! One major reason is the lack of acknowledgement of the very fact that such a quadrant exists; i.e. there is no conscious effort from project or stakeholders to look beyond the obvious and they often end up scrambling repeatedly over the knowns. But for the brave few who venture out on the exploration, challenging the “stated” and “statuesque “ – invaluable treasures await! – such critical information that could make the difference between a good launch with a few glitches & average customer experience vs a great implementation with zero defects and 100% customer satisfaction! . This is the quadrant to challenge the knowns and statuesque to breakthrough to innovative paradigm shift information!

A few consulting tools and techniques that I have come across aiding this collaborative ‘exploration “is listed below (in addition to the”Collaborativee games” & BMC (Business Model Canvasing) listed in previous section):-

Value Chain Analysis

Example provided here is classic Porter’s model. Any value chain analysis is aimed at appreciating the scope of the project in the context of overall Organisational value levers and dependencies. It is often found that such an end-end view based deliberation results in fresh perspectives that ultimately unravel crucial dependencies or information enriching the requirements.

Design Thinking

As we know the term emerged at Stanford in the 1980s, as a way to characterize the broad approach taken toward problem solving. This user centric approach, originating in the world of design, embraces visual thinking. Design thinking can be applied to the world of business consulting, along with stakeholders, to solve problems in processes, business models and strategy. The key idea here is to push the thinking beyond the comfort zones and invent and imagine customer experiences /requirements from Quadrant 4 and move to them to reality in quadrant 1. The Design Thinking stages are:-

Note: Above model is attributed to Tim Brown (CEO and president of IDEO)

The Wild Card Identity of Business Analysis

Written by Kristen Gandier on December 16, 2020. Posted in Articles.

What is your title? Is it the same as your professional identity?

The flexibility of Business Analyst roles tend to vary from organization to organization. It is nothing new that Business Analysts tend to wear many hats. Often, when transitioning from a place of expertise in varying industry roles, Business Analysts are given advice to be open to the many organizational directions. Acrobatics become one of the first training lessons, as Business Analysts navigate dynamics, priorities, relationships and cross-team goals.

It is no wonder that Business Analysis is related to a “wild card” role.

The many titles and hats that Business Analysts wear can be confusing when navigating conflicting interests and priorities within an organization. Loyalty and personal history can be a topic of question, especially if the Business Analyst’s professional history has been deep-rooted in a previous specific area.

Breaking down assumptions and supporting reinvention becomes part of personal branding and professional identity. This can be dangerous when eliciting requirements, as stakeholders may have preconceived notions or implicit bias on your approach from misplaced assumptions or even your time in previous departments.

How does one find neutrality in a world that yearns for categorization?

Analyst or Influencer?

Does your organization see you as an analyst or an influencer?

If you can flex your true “wild card” self, you may demonstrate the abilities as both, and be known as a truly effective catalyst of change.

In a professional landscape drenched in the demand of professional project management, where does the Business Analyst exist? The answer is everywhere, and anywhere!

Business Analysts in many cases have varying degrees of responsibility, leadership and influence. They may be the leaders of your initiative, gather requirements, specify requirements, train, implement or coordinate your most pertinent projects. In true wild card form though, they must be strategically included and value-considered. Including them early on and then not continuously can lead to confused team direction, responsibility and coordination. Alternatively, not including them until the very end can limit their involvement in helping to attain the optimal design option and execution.

Words from a Wise Captain – Engage!

Approaches to stakeholder engagement can blaze the path to define personal approaches. Personal connections can either limit or leverage your style. Be conscious of your conduct, influence and personal promotions in your organization, as they very much set the tone for where stakeholders suspect your personal interest may rest.

If you do not have a professional network that offers a mutually-beneficial environment, create one. This should be transactional in nature and offer an exchange of ideas, priorities, interests and concerns. These stakeholders are important to your own expertise and context, as you place yourself within projects, focus and organizational priorities.

That is not to say that the only valuable stakeholder is one with high influence. Listening to stakeholders that shoulder the day-to-day of operations can offer valuable insight to where initiatives involving efficiencies are best directed. When considering benchmarking efforts, listen to these voices that offer specifics, knowing that your own interest tends to consider that devil in the details!

Building Bridges

Utilizing efficiency in Business Analysis means accepting the varying contributions they bring to the table. If your organization does not specify the title of “Business Analyst”, consider those that carry the torch to provide the same function – they could be right outside your office door, already leading a herd of stakeholders that support your initiative.

If they do exist in title, consider the careful approaches they take to analyze impacts and create win/win scenarios. These are not easy positions or conversations, and the approach to effective change could exist within a current working and well-developed camouflage! Bridging worlds means understanding them, and Business Analysts have some of the best tools to construct those avenues of travel across dynamic professional worlds.

Break the Mold – Make your own Prototype

Professional development is quick to encourage the creation of up-and-comers for already-defined positions and identities. Do not be discouraged when someone asks you what the next step is and you have trouble articulating it in title but not description. If you can describe what you strive for, you are feeding your professional identity and development. Find a way to incorporate your own model within an existing title with a brand new approach. Forging new paths forward is the very root of innovation. The BABOK even self-defines as a “guide”. Standards do not require narrow lines of the same method. In essence, there is no single formula – and creativity and change often thrive without those restrictions.

Deploying the Wild Card

In a world with a revolving door-appetite of titles and qualifications, it is always useful to regularly scan your environment for your biggest agents of victory.

You may already be holding the best card in the deck.

Leaders, Followers and Trusted Advisors

Written by Christina Lovelock on December 2, 2020. Posted in Articles.

You may be interested in developing your leadership skills as a BA – but have you ever stopped to think about the quality of your followership skills?

We live in a world where the quality of leadership is considered to be absolutely critical to the success or failure of projects and organisations, but almost no emphasis is placed on the concept of followership. The role of ‘followers’ in organisations is often minimised, though clearly good leadership relies on good followership to actually get things done.

There are negative connotations with the word follower, no one wants to see themselves as a follower, we all want to emphasise our leadership skills and qualities. We seem to ignore the fact that being a leader almost always involves being a follower too. Everyone has a boss.

Types of Leaders

There are many leadership styles. Some are adopted consciously by leaders who understand their own values, reflect on their own behaviours and understands the impacts of their words and actions. Others are the product of default actions or inherited approaches. Leadership has been the focus of a great deal of academic research, thousands of books, millions of seminars, webinars, training courses and qualifications. The implication is clear: leadership is a skill that can be taught and honed. Where is the training on becoming a better follower? Who would attend that course?

Types of Followers

Being an effective follower does not mean always agreeing with those in leadership positions, it does not mean blindly going along with any idea or initiative which comes from leaders. It is about taking responsibility, owning problems, appropriately challenging things which don’t make sense or could be improved. Leaders need followers they can count on to tell them the truth in a professional, concise and constructive way.

Being a good follower is something we can take pride in as BAs, as it depends on two skills we already have. The first is critical thinking, the second is active participation.

Critical Thinking

Business Analysts must apply critical thinking skills all the time to be successful in our roles. The term ‘critical thinking’ encompasses the ability to systematically solve problems, construct and evaluate arguments, make logical connections, highlight gaps and inconsistencies. All of these skills can be applied in a positive and collaborative way and ‘critical’ should not be confused with ‘criticism’.

Leaders should encourage independent thinking from their followers, as leaders cannot provide all the answers and need input and scrutiny for the ideas and strategies put forward.

Participation

When we choose to act or not act, care or not care, volunteer or step back, we are sending clear messages about our levels of participation within our organisations. BAs often rail against the deterministic attitude of “we have always done it that way” or nods around the table leading to no action, and we must be vigilant about these behaviours in ourselves.

‘Activism’ may or may not be in line with direction set by leaders. It is the role of leaders to listen to dissenting voices, if they have applied critical thinking and are actively participating even if it is not what the leader wants to hear, and it is the role of followers to engage in a positive and constructive way even if they don’t like where the leader is headed.

Participation begins with the courage to speak up, and in particular ask good questions, which is something BAs should be well practiced in.

Trusted Advisors

Many BAs do not seek traditional leadership positions, but do want to have a level of influence, feel our voice is heard and make a positive contribution. This utopia is often described as becoming a ‘trusted advisor’. How can we become trusted, so that our advice is both sought and impactful? There is no single route to becoming a trusted advisor, as it is dependent on the organisational context, levels of knowledge and experience, relationships and hierarchies, our attitude and the approach of those around us. But it starts with two skills: making an active contribution and applying critical thinking and (in other words, being an effective follower!).

Conclusion

If we are able to move away from the negative connotations of being a follower, and see the role as equal but different to leadership, we can recognise the importance of both skill sets.

By considering the quality of our followership skills, and prompting conversations about the type of followers that contribute to the success of organisations, we can promote participation, celebrate critical thinking and achieve better outcomes together.

Further reading:

[1https://hbr.org/1988/11/in-praise-of-followers“>https://hbr.org/1988/11/in-praise-of-followers

[2] Goffee & Jones (2019) Why should Anyone be led by you?

Why AI Drives Better Business Decision Making

Written by Nicole Garrison on November 25, 2020. Posted in Articles.

Are you ready to trust AI to make decisions for your business?

If you’re unsure if AI is good enough for this task, you might be surprised by the time you’re done reading. No, I’m not going to convince you to dramatically change the way you make your decision making process, like, right away. That’s not the right way to go.

Instead, you’re going to see how AI is really used to make a difference for businesses. We’ll also talk about how entrepreneurs like you are benefitting by incorporating AI in the decision making process.

How to Incorporate AI in Decision Making the Right Way?

The hype around AI has generated a quite false impression that it’s a complete solution to decision-making. For many business leaders not ready to embrace the technology, this impression has played a final role in making the decision whether to try it.

In reality, things are a little bit different.

AI doesn’t make decision-making automatic. It gives you never-before-accessed insights to make the best possible decisions faster.

In other words, AI doesn’t take away your decision making privileges. It becomes your partner whose ability to generate useful business insights is superb.

Virginie Grandhaye, the offering manager for IBM Decision Optimization, has recently given a great interview where she explained how the process of AI decision making really works.

According to Grandhaye, the primary role of AI is to enable the business to use data “to both analyze and formalize the decision-making process.”

There are five success factors involved in making AI work, says Grandhaye.

AI Decision Making Process Success Ingredients by Grandhaye

A good understanding of the problem faced by the business
A team of experts knowledgeable of AI analysis methods such as machine learning
Close cooperation with the business growth team. AI experts and decision makers should work together on data analysis to come up with the best solutions to a problem
A data science platform to manage data, validate assumptions, and visualize models.
Adequate capability to deploy. Having a platform for deployment makes it easier to monitor and manage the lifecycle of data models.

As you can see, AI experts and decision-makers need to work together to make the best out of the technology. The outcome of the cooperation will be the so-called “ intelligence decision.”

The biggest benefit of an intelligence decision, according to Grandhaye, is the ability to help businesses focus on a business need instead of having them dealing with algorithms and numbers.

Here’s how AI decision making does that.

How AI Improves Business Decision Making

1. AI Eliminates Cognitive Bias

Human analysis is inherently prone to cognitive bias, which has them focusing intently on irrelevant or wrong factors. It’s a really big problem just because of the sheer amount of them. Science says there are over 180 cognitive biases that could potentially affect your business decisions and steer you in the wrong direction.

A human decision maker is susceptible to all of them, especially when he or she is stressed, poorly trained, tired, or multitasking.

“Cognitive biases are bad for business,” writes Dr. Jim Taylor, an expert on the psychology of performance. [They’re] “most problematic because they cause business people to make bad decisions.”

AI, on the other hand, doesn’t have this problem. Its algorithms search for all connections and relationships in data, not just the ones that people want or need to see there.

2. AI Helps with Better Content Personalization

Content personalization is a must for online businesses to generate more traffic, leads, and sales. Deloitte says that 47 percent of online shoppers are ready to switch to a different brand after having impersonal experiences with a business.

A business can personalize content well on a small scale, but doing so for thousands of customers might become a challenge. For one, analyzing their browsing behavior to create relevant content becomes incredibly time-consuming.

That’s where AI intelligence decision comes in.

An algorithm can:

Personalize content based on a user’s browsing history, purchases, subscriptions, or other characteristics
Help content creators by supplying them with insights into customer behavior
Create more relevant brand experiences for customers by managing content in real time (content sequencing).

AI decision making can significantly improve digital marketing campaigns.

A company relying on content marketing to attract leads, for example, can use the insights generated by AI to write more engaging and targeted blog articles.

Content marketing platforms like OneSpot use sophisticated algorithms to deliver content sequencing, i.e. showing relevant content at specific points in the customer journey. This approach helps to increase the ability of the content to engage customers.

3. AI Makes it Easier to Understand Customer Journey

The existing AI-powered tools can dramatically advance understanding of customer experience with a brand.

Here are some ways in which businesses are using them already:

AI-powered chatbots automate lead generation and improve customer service by making your business available 24/7 and gathering lots of customer data
Chatbots share content based on a customer’s interactions with a brand automatically through Facebook
Algorithms detect customers’ emotions in social media posts and analyze the brand perception
AI systems conduct up-selling and cross-selling in eCommerce to help to sell more
AI face recognition systems make online payments easier and faster
AI identifies and prevents eCommerce fraud by identifying subtle behavioral patterns in transactions.

The results are already pretty amazing. Amazon’s AI-based product recommendation engine, for example, generates 35 percent of the company’s total revenues.

4. AI Helps to Create Better Emails

Email marketing, the best-performing digital marketing channel, has just got an update thanks to AI. Today, businesses use mostly traditional email marketing tools to send automated messages and get more customers.

With AI, a lot more becomes available:

Write more relevant subject lines. The algorithm can generate personalized email subject lines to increase open rates. It evaluates the performance of previous campaigns and suggests specific line options based on best-performing ones
Automate distribution. AI takes email distribution one step further by allowing to send automatic emails based on the stage a customer is in their journey
Generate emails. AI is good at creating emails that look like they were designed by humans. Already many AI-powered email marketing tools can both automatically generate emails and suggest the most relevant content ideas for specific recipients.

Together, these benefits allow businesses to deliver personalized emails at any scale. Since online customers appreciate personalization so much, chances are good that businesses will see their email campaigns paying off nicely.

AI Decision Making: Faster and More Effective Processes

So, how do you feel about AI decision making now? The technology can clearly benefit your business by giving access to previously unavailable data insights and patterns. By the end of the day, you’re still in charge plus your decision can be much better informed.

Businesses across different industries are already making better decisions thanks to AI. It’s up to you whether your company should join them, but don’t take long to make your mind. Your competitors are exploring AI, too, you know.

5 Trusted Tips to Move Your Business Analyst Career to a C-Suite Role

Written by Ananya Pani on September 16, 2020. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on 5 Trusted Tips to Move Your Business Analyst Career to a C-Suite Role

I am sure you have come across those corner offices, those suave personalities, and aspired to be one like them someday.

Well, these are the C-Suite roles like CEO, CDO, CIO, CFO, CTO, COO, etc.

The top executives of the company are its C-suite members. C-suite is a term used to refer to the C-level (senior executive) positions in a company, notably those that begin with the word ‘Chief’.

These are strategic roles in the organization that sets the path, strategy, and often the directions which are being executed by the middle management and the others in the hierarchy. The c-suite is deemed the most important and influential group of individuals and hence the most admired designations. They are the ones who almost always are the highest paid in the organization, ones who yield the maximum amount of authority along with the major responsibilities.

But as they say, “With great power comes great responsibilities”, and so notably the C-suite professionals have the largest portion of responsibility in the organization.

Every professional’s aim is to reach the top echelon of the organization. As a BA if you are good at your work, are creative and innovative, complemented by having a proactive nature, you can take your business analyst career path as far as you would like, progressing through management levels to the topmost level, inhibited only by your expertise, talents, and desires.

Business Analysts are the bridge between the different departments of a company. They are in high demand in every area of business, from finance to IT to corporate management. In today’s multifaceted world, business analysts bring the business needs together with IT resources. BAs are in essence the conduit between business problems and solutions. They, therefore, understand the various areas of the business very well.

Typically, in an organization, the CEO develops the vision and the Business Analyst does the research and groundwork to make that vision more clearly understood. Richie Bello, CEO of White Dove Bird, explains. “In terms of vision, a CEO is the developer while a business analyst is the researcher.” Hence, a BA is already aware of what it entails to be a CEO, they just need to gain the experience, skillset, and knowledge to don the hat of a C-suite level professional.

Business analysts who aspire to the topmost leadership positions and who are looking to expand their career horizons need to be multidimensional professionals with broad business, IT, and leadership skills. They must seek out and create their own opportunities beyond their comfort zones, hone their existing skillsets, and acquire new knowledge and skillsets required for the coveted role.

In this blog, we discuss some broad guidelines which a BA can follow to take their career to the top level.

Business analysts should broaden their cross-functional experience.

According to Andy Salunga from Forrester Research, “Business analysts looking to expand their career horizons must seek challenges outside of their functional heritage.”

For a BA to grow into a C-suite role, they need to deepen their functional expertise and broaden their knowledge of the various departments and domains of an organization. A business analyst already possesses cross-functional knowledge and by honing up these they will be better placed for taking on broader responsibilities.

Business analysts should increase technological knowledge & skills and become familiar with process & IT management methodologies.

A business analyst, to move forward on their career path, requires a higher degree of technological fluency. Executives who neglect their technical skills might be passed over. In a fast-changing global economy, dated technical skills can hamper resource-allocation and strategic decisions.

Therefore, it’s important to learn tools for business process charting, modeling to draw the current and the future vision of the process. Tools like MS Visio, Lucid Chart, BizAgi Business process modeler, etc., come in handy here.

A BA should seek to understand and utilize methodologies like Lean Six Sigma, CMMI, ITIL, etc., to improve processes and enable broad-scale business innovation and to improve IT performance and align IT with the business.

Business analysts should nurture and strengthen their behavioral skills.

Every BA should have a unique blend of interpersonal skills, but some behavioral skills are worth their value in gold as one climbs up the ladder in their career. A few notable amongst those are

Problem-solving Skill
Decision Making Skill
Creative & Innovative Thinking
Analytical thinking Skill
Team Building Skill
Presentation Skill
Questioning Skill
Communication Skill
Listening Skill
Negotiation Skill
Conflict Resolution Skill
Facilitation Skill

While vying for the top jobs in an organization, it is imperative to be good at building relationships with people across departments to be effective. BAs must hone their organizational change management skills, conflict resolution skills, leadership skills, and other interpersonal skills as they envisage leading ever-changing teams and initiatives while climbing up the corporate ladder.

Certification & Training, a sure-shot way of ‘Moving Up the Ladder’

Most successful people, I have spoken to and even read about agree that a continuous thirst for knowledge is one of the key elements in building a growing, and thriving career. Certifications not only increase the professional value of a person but also enhances the skills by making one learn new things beyond their job.

Certification tells your organization, future employers, and your professional peers that you’re well-qualified and that you take your career seriously. Simply put, certifications can be considered as a ‘stamp of excellence’.

One of the most important reasons to get certified is that it helps you stay ahead of the competition. If you truly want to succeed in your career, you need to stay current in all the technologies and regulations that affect your profession.

For a business analyst, there are a number of industry-recognized certificates that they can acquire. Business analysis certification is a specialized education that works as a credential for a business analyst professional. Several specialized certifications can be pursued as you go ahead in your career.

Read about all the different BA certifications available in the market in this blog – Business Analysis Certifications

The certification space for the BA community has been dominated by IIBA. IIBA has been promoting the business analysis profession and certification for more than a decade now with its certifications ECBA (entry-level), CCBA (intermediate level), CBAP (Advanced level) and specialized certifications like AAC (Agile Analysis Certification), CBDA (Certification in Business Data Analytics) and CCA (Certification in Cybersecurity Analysis), each requiring a different level of experience.

As the C-suite role is the most experienced position in the organization, for a BA, it would be highly desirable if they have the CBAP certification along with specialized certifications like CBDA and AAC under their belt.

CBAP

CBAP is essentially is meant for senior business analysts and is the most coveted BA certification in the world. CBAP certification has proven results in terms of salary benefits, career growth, and opening up new opportunities in the global markets. CBAP exam has case study and scenario based questions based on Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABoK).

IIBA-AAC

IIBA Agile Analysis Certification recognizes the competencies of BA professionals and is ideal for Agile BAs, BA Consultants, Trainers, Project Managers, Testers, etc. The IIBA-AAC exam is closely aligned to the Agile Extension to the BABOK® Guide, version 2 and tests one’s ability to answer questions focused on real-world scenarios.

IIBA-CBDA

CBDA recognizes a BA Practitioner’s ability to effectively execute analysis related work in support of business analytics initiatives and is an indication of one’s commitment, passion, and competency in performing business analysis on analytics initiatives.

Business analysts should hone & develop Leadership Skills

Leadership is all about motivating others to dream higher, do things, and act in ways that are conducive to achieving goals.
In any business, leadership skills are one of the most prized assets that an employee can possess, and when it comes to positions at the C-level, they’re considered an absolute essential.

For BAs, leadership skills are not an unknown territory. They generally use leadership when facilitating discussions, guiding teams through ambiguous situations, articulating and inspiring a clear vision of the desired future state, encouraging stakeholders to think in new ways, and collaborating with stakeholders to work toward common goals. Given this, it should be easier for BAs to hone up their leadership skills.

Business analysts can hone their leadership skills through the following activities:

Taking initiative
Being decisive
Guiding others in their tasks
Setting clear directions and goals
Influencing others
Being an example for others to emulate
Continuously learning from others & situations
Listening actively & Communicating clearly
Having empathy & positivity
Resolving conflicts

At the C-level, knowing the organization’s goal and where to reach is only a small part of the equation – knowing how to get others to follow you there is the harder and more important part. And in this leadership skills of the professional makes a lot of difference.

In short, the skills needed by a business analyst to step-up to the C-level of a company cover a wide range of subjects, from working with and leading others to know oneself and striving to expand skills and knowledge at every career phase.

A business analyst is a generalist who is proficient in functioning completely in different positions. The future of business analyst is prosperous in the global market. Following the steps mentioned above, you can reach as high as your aspirations and diligence takes you. Following a well thought out road map will be a lucrative and rewarding move.

As a business analyst aspiring to reach the top-tier of the organization, you should prepare a road-map and follow it diligently. Mastering business analysis skills, to have the business acumen necessary to ascend to the top, along with following and honing the aforementioned steps & skills will definitely aid in climbing the ranks and become a prized executive.

You can learn more about earning your Certified Business Analysis Professional certification with Adaptive US today by following this link here – https://www.adaptiveus.com/cbap-certification-training You can find a large library of information there as well that will help guide you in deciding whether or not to take the next steps.