Tag: Leadership

Business Analysis Amalgamation with Product Management

Written by Neethu Nair on March 2, 2023. Posted in Articles.

In today’s fast-paced business environment, organizations constantly seek ways to improve their processes, products, and services. Business Analysis and Product Management are two key areas essential to achieving these goals. Traditionally, these functions have been viewed as separate disciplines, with Business Analysts focusing on identifying and analyzing business requirements, while Product Managers focus on the development and management of products and services.

However, there has been a growing trend towards amalgamating these two functions to create a more integrated approach in recent years. By combining Business Analysis with Product Management, companies can benefit from a more holistic understanding of customer needs, more effective use of data, and improved collaboration and communication between teams.

An Overview of Business Analysis and Product Management:

Business Analysis is the process of identifying, analyzing, and documenting business requirements, processes, and workflows. The role of a Business Analyst is to help organizations improve their processes and systems by identifying areas of improvement, gathering and analyzing data, and making recommendations for change. Business Analysts often work closely with stakeholders and other teams within an organization, including IT and project management.

Product Management, on the other hand, is focused on developing and managing products or services. The role of a Product Manager is to identify market opportunities, define product requirements, and work with cross-functional teams to bring products to market. Product Managers must have a deep understanding of customer needs and market trends and/ or the ability to manage budgets, timelines, and resources.

Benefits of Amalgamating Business Analysis and Product Management:

While Business Analysis and Product Management are distinct roles, there are many benefits to amalgamating the two functions. Here are a few of the key advantages.

Better understanding of customer needs:

One of the key benefits of amalgamating Business Analysis and Product Management is the ability to better understand customer needs. By working together, these two functions can create a more complete picture of customer requirements, preferences, and pain points. This can lead to better product design, more effective marketing, and higher customer satisfaction.

Alignment towards Business Goals:

Amalgamating Business Analysis and Product Management also improve team collaboration and communication. These two functions can ensure that everyone is aligned on business goals, product requirements, and timelines. This can lead to better project outcomes and faster time to market.

More practical use of data:

Another benefit of combining Business Analysis and Product Management is effectively using data. Business Analysts are skilled at collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data, while Product Managers deeply understand market trends and customer needs. These two functions can leverage data to improve product design, pricing, and marketing decisions by working together.

Faster problem-solving:

Amalgamating Business Analysis and Product Management also lead to faster problem-solving. By having a team of experts who can analyze data, identify issues, and recommend solutions, organizations can respond more quickly to changing market conditions or customer needs. This can help companies stay ahead of the competition and achieve their business objectives more effectively.

Better outcomes over outputs:

Finally, combining Business Analysis and Product Management can improve project outcomes. By working together, these two functions can ensure that products are designed to meet customer needs and that projects are delivered on time and within budget. This can lead to improved customer satisfaction, increased revenue, and a stronger competitive position in the market.

The amalgamation of Business Analysis and Product Management can benefit organizations looking to stay ahead in today’s competitive business landscape. By combining these two functions, companies can improve collaboration and communication, better understand customer needs, use data more effectively, and achieve better project outcomes. Whether a small start-up or a large enterprise, an integrated approach to Business Analysis and Product Management can help you achieve your business objectives more effectively.

What Do Business Analysts and Rockstars Have in Common?

Written by Jamie Toyne on February 15, 2023. Posted in Articles.

Well, quite a lot actually. I’m not saying we’ve all got the swagger of Liam Gallagher, or the Ziggy Stardust fashion sense of Bowie. Nor, do we all play guitars, or know our way around a recording studio (although some do). And I’d confidently say, none of us are going around with diva-like demands or are smashing up hotel rooms. Most likely we’ll be littering the walls with post-its, hand-written using Sharpies.

But there are many aspects of being a Rockstar, that BAs do share in common. So much so, at Herd Consulting — we refer to ourselves as a Rockstar business analysis consultancy.

Here’s our top 5 reasons to convince you that good business analysis, really is rock ’n’ roll.

You wouldn’t see a Rockstar, ditching their genre. They love what they do. And that’s no different for most BAs. Sure, we could easily go on and become the next CEO of a major global firm, as many do. But they’re still using their inner BA and BA mindset day in, day out. Organizations, and the world around us is constantly evolving in its complexity. That means lots more challenges, and lots more opportunities. With our change know how, curiosity, and BA toolkit — we’re often best placed to take on the role of lead singer in any delivery team, as well as providing the backing rhythm when needed.

Now I’m not suggesting we should charge £100 a ticket to come along to one of our gigs (also sometimes known as workshops, show and tells, or presentations). But the most impactful BAs know who their audience is and engages with them. Equally as importantly, they keep them engaged. Maybe even some of their stakeholders and users, end up becoming fans too.

There’s no point recording the best songs if no-one is ever going to hear it. Similarly, business analysis shouldn’t be confined to just artefacts. It needs to be brought alive, it needs to be seen and heard. Without it, how will it ever challenge thinking, solve a problem, or guide and enable decisions to be made. Business analysts at the top of their game, make an event out of sharing their analysis, they make it easy and memorable to engage with. They provide recommendations or calls to action. Dare I say, it might even be the beginnings of a catchy hit.

Lyrics are a subjective topic, so we’ll steer away from the taxonomy of what good lyrics are, other than to say — the best usually tell a story. As professional business analysts, we’re always telling a story albeit likely with more precision and clarity than a song does. We’re discovering and writing a story (not necessarily just user stories), to guide delivery teams on what it is we’re doing and why we’re doing it. To have a clear specification of what’s required, and what’s not. Ultimately to ensure we’re all thinking about the same thing and are heading to the same destination.

Vinyl, cassettes, CDs, MP3s, streaming services. The world of music is constantly evolving. Remember music video channels? Rockstar’s are always having to keep up with the world of technology, and the changing commercial landscape around them. Business analysis is no different. Given most of us work in Digital or Change environments, we’re often at the forefront of progression and new thinking, whether that be Tech led or not. Therefore, to survive and thrive, we’re having to regularly invest in our knowledge and skills, broadening our experience, and expanding our networks.

Part 2 coming soon…

Top Business Analysis Trends To Watch Out For In 2023

Written by Ananya Pani on February 9, 2023. Posted in Articles.

It’s tough to predict the future and same goes towards predicting business trends with certainty. But we can always predict areas which are likely to be of prominence with a fair amount of certainty.

As we all know business analysis is a profession growing at a fast pace and will continue to see this trend of growth for at least next 10 years. If you are a proactive business analyst you must keep watch on the trending topics to stay ahead of the curve and be a futuristic leader.

Here are our top 6 picks for business analysts to watch out in 2023 –

Data Analytics:

Business analysts will continue to use data to have better business insights and drive business decisions. The amount and variety of data have increased tremendously in the last decade. Therefore, it is essential for business analysts to learn about data analysis tools. As data becomes increasingly important, business analysts will need to be proficient in advanced data analytics tools, techniques and be able to interpret and communicate the results to decision makers and stakeholders.

Agile methodologies:

Over last few decades, more than 70% of companies have adopted Agile methodology for their project implementation, as a BA you just can’t afford to miss out on having a sound understanding of Agile concepts, principles, and culture!

This trend is here to continue and grow in 2023. Business analysts will need to be proficient with agile principles since many projects require them to double up as a scrum master or as a product owner.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning:

In simple words artificial intelligence and machine learning is the ability of machines to learn and carry out tasks based on the way it is programmed or instructed to do. It can analyze data and come up with decisions based on data and patterns. Many of the tasks carried out by AI and ML today are those where the inputs and the outputs can be well programmed or put out such as chat bots. Traditionally these tasks were handled by humans.

Some of the key benefits of using AI and ML are

Improvement in efficiency
Predictable performance
Improvement in processing speed
Reduction in human intervention for business processes
Automation in process –
- finding patterns in process and reporting deviations
- reporting financial frauds
- supply chain improvements
- customer experience analysis and further recommendation
- Understanding customer behavior and suggesting products and services based on behavior and preferences

Business analysts are known to be the change makers and to be an efficient one they need to use technology efficiently to deliver better results and improve efficiency hence AI and ML is going to be their primary tech agents to achieve better business outcomes. Business analysts will need to be hands on with these technologies and their applications to make the most of it. They will need to understand how AI and ML can be used to automate processes, and achieve better business outcomes.

Business Transformation:

Business analysts are the ones who primarily bring in business transformation by using technology effectively and as mentioned above AI and ML play a major part in this.

More and more organizations are embracing digital transformation than the past years, be it banks, financial institutions, service organizations or retail. Business analysts are the drivers playing a critical role in helping companies to identify and implement the changes needed to succeed. This might include business process changes, rethinking and redesigning business models, processes, and systems, and implementing new technologies to drive growth and competitiveness.

Cross-functional Collaboration:

Business analysts often look at the organization’s internal as well as external facing processes with a critic’s eyes of improvement and redesign the processes to implement all those improvement ideas.

This often involves working with many functions, teams within the organization. They often need to use their power to influence to drive these change initiatives or process improvement initiatives.

This also requires coordinating as well working with various process owners and stakeholders to drive the initiatives to success.

Cybersecurity:

With the increasing digital transformations across all sectors including those involving financial as well as highly confidential data, the threat of cyberattacks have gone up drastically.

Business analysts need to take into consideration the confidentiality as well as the risk and vulnerabilities involved in the applications while designing/solutioning the applications.

They need to be well versed with cybersecurity practices to design robust systems and processes.

They will need to be able to work with security experts to ensure that systems and data are protected from potential threats.

Overall, the trends in 2023 will continue to emphasize the importance of analytics, data, technology, automation, cyber security and collaboration in driving business success. Business analysts who are able to master the skills needed for these trends and implement them to succeed in a rapidly changing business environment will be well positioned for success.

Bad Bosses for BA’s

Written by Christina Lovelock on January 11, 2023. Posted in Articles.

Our relationship with our manager has a massive impact on our work, health and happiness. What makes a good leader for BAs and what can we learn from bad bosses?

Project Managers

PMs are often attracted to their role because they are skilled at delivery. It is very difficult to balance the competing demands of meeting delivery milestones with nurturing and developing individual team members. Having the combined roles of line-manager and delivery-manager puts project managers in an unenviable position, and if the performance evaluation of the PM is primarily concerned with project delivery, it is clear which role will take precedence.

Some of the worst examples of PMs managing BAs include:

Treating the BA as deputy PM
Assuming the BA wants to become a PM
‘Hoarding’ the BA on their project, despite requests to expand horizons and develop
Vetoing analysis tools and techniques the BA wants to apply
Preventing the BA from speaking/presenting to senior stakeholders, reducing the visibility of the BA and unintentionally (or intentionally) taking credit.

If the person doing these things is also your line manager – how can you address the behaviours or find appropriate support?

Learning points

Where a BA is line managed by their PM, there needs to be recognition that there are two different relationships at play. The ‘best’ outcome for the project (BA assigned 100% of the time, forever) is unlikely to be the best outcome for the individual BA. PMs will sometimes have to put the needs of the individual above the project, or risk losing them from the organization entirely.

BAs may want to partition meetings or request separate ‘line management catch-ups’ which have more emphasis on personal development and wellbeing and less on project delivery.

The PM/BA relationship works best when they are a professional partnership. The roles have different skills and approaches, but are working towards the same delivery goals. This can be severely compromised if the PM is the only ‘boss’ for the BA.

Product Specialists

Product managers and product owners sometimes find themselves managing BAs. They may also want to ‘hold on to’ their BA indefinitely. They often value product knowledge over the BA skillset and expect BAs to become subject matter experts. If the only training and development opportunities they can imagine for the BA is ‘more product knowledge’, then BAs are not getting the support and encouragement they need from their boss. They may not understand the breadth of the BA role and skill set, and subsequently only allow the BA to operate in a very narrow role with a constrained set of tools, techniques and relationships.

Learning points

Refer to job descriptions to keep both BA and boss focused on the wide remit of the role, not narrow product knowledge. The BA should build strong relationships with business stakeholders and relevant teams, so they have easy access to business knowledge, but don’t become the keeper of this knowledge. Encouraging regular discussion of succession planning and rotation and re-assignment normalises the idea that a BA will not stay with a particular product for the long term, and what we are providing is a business analysis skills-based service, not a product knowledge-based service.

The Absent Executive

Whilst it may be appealing on paper for a BA to report directly into a CIO or other senior executive, it comes at a price. It can be very difficult to get their time, leading to an inattentive and shallow line management relationship. The BA is often faced with the choice of a distant relationship, with irregular catch-ups and never knowing if something more important may overwrite one-to-one time OR attempting to become the right-hand-man of the exec, picking up a range of problems and projects, but is subject to rapidly changing priorities. Neither of these are particularly appealing situations and neither provides considerate and consistent line management support for the BA.

Learning Points

Reporting into a senior executive requires a high level of autonomy and independence. Some BAs enjoy working in this way so this can work well. However, everyone deserves to have a positive and supportive relationship with their boss and not see themselves as the lowest priority item on a very long to-do list. Investing in other meaningful relationships with more accessible colleagues may help to address the gap if a management void occurs. This could include a mentor, coach or trusted and supportive peer. Developing the community of business analysts helps to provide support and direction if there is an absence of management.

General Manager

There has been a rise in the belief that ‘a good manager can manage anything’. The problem is, this is not actually true and multiple studies spanning many sectors find that:

A manager who has skills and experience of a function leads to a higher performing function
People whose boss has skills in their discipline are happier and are better at their jobs!

A manager who does not understand or value business analysis is the worst possible boss for a BA.

Learning Points

BAs can help managers to understand the role and remit of business analysts and can champion the application of repeatable, rigorous analysis to aid decision making, understand customers, avoid risks, identify opportunities and improve services. It is always worth investing the effort to raise the profile and highlight the impact of good business analysis.

Organizations with sufficient numbers of BAs (5+) should be investing in a BA leadership role such as:

Head of Business Analysis
BA Manager
BA Team leader
BA Chapter lead
Head of profession for business analysis

Having individual BAs reporting to a range of roles and scattered throughout the organization does not allow the consistent application of business analysis, the opportunity to continuously improve or appropriate development and support of BAs.

Successful BA leaders are skilled and experienced in business analysis. They understand how to recruit and develop BAs and enable appropriate utilization and retention of BAs, saving the organization time, effort and money.

Conclusion

While there will be many examples of successful line management relationships from all of these roles, it is important to recognise the potential pitfalls and how they can be addressed. Not everyone is cut out to be a manager of people. Having a boss who cares about us as an individual, is interested in providing support and offering development and values the contribution we make should be the minimum we expect from our line managers.

Having a bad boss is bad for your health and career, so if you can’t change you manager, change your manager.

Are you Losing BAs? C Lovelock, February 2022

The Beautiful Game as a Modern, Event-Driven Business Process Structure

Written by Edmund Metera on December 1, 2022. Posted in Articles.

The Beautiful Game

Whether you call it football or soccer, “the Beautiful Game” as it is widely known, has simple rules of play. But playing soccer is another matter. It is a highly dynamic, agile process. In the flow of a single match, an eleven-player professional team can make more than 500 passes and there can be dozens of game stoppages.

In the eyes of process analysts, quality improvement professionals, and business analysts, who still rely on the more than 100 years-old, strictly procedural notions of a process and on flowcharting notations that were also invented in the last century, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to perceive and model something like playing soccer as a sequential process.

The Modern Business Process Modeling Solution

The most effective business processes are not only structurally sound and efficient but also highly dynamic and agile. A high-quality business process structure today is one that has been conceived, structured, and can be readily configured as a network of specialized, collaborating, event-driven, and outcome-oriented services, not just as a sequential procedure.

If a business analyst, process analyst, quality analyst, or manager adopts that modern business process paradigm and a modeling notation that is aligned with how today’s business relationships and processes work, then perceiving and modeling something as dynamic and agile as the beautiful game as a process, IS NOT ONLY POSSIBLE, BUT ELEGANT.

Universal Business Process Definition[1]

The Universal Business Process Definition is not constrained to a strictly procedural notion of a process. It is an event and outcome-oriented business process paradigm. The Universal Business Process Definition’s four common-sense rules define all processes, workflows, and activities, regardless of a process’s scale, the overarching project methodology, the model’s required degree of abstraction, the modeling participants, and the organizations and the technologies that will implement the process or workflow.

The Universal Business Process Definition, and the Business Process Normalization technique are defined in the Universal Process Modeling Procedure (UPMP), published by ProcessModelingAdvisor.com.

Business Process Modeling and Notation[2]

Business Process Modeling and Notation (BPMN) is a graphical notation for illustrating modern business process elements. It overcomes the limitations of the last century’s procedural flowcharting and process mapping notations.

BPMN was defined by the Business Process Modeling Initiative (BPMI) and is maintained by the Object Modeling Group (OMG). BPMI states that the goal of BPMN is:

“To provide a notation that is readily understandable by all business users.”

BPMN is the best-suited notation for illustrating modern business process and workflow structures. It includes sequential flowcharting elements, but BPMN also includes symbols for illustrating concepts that are relevant to today’s dynamically collaborating systems and business processes. Namely, events and messaging.

The Beautiful Game as an Example

We don’t need process models about playing soccer. We’d rather be playing or spectating. But we’ve all observed enough about playing soccer to use it as a commonly understood example. Playing soccer happens to be similar to how modern-day business processes and operating relationships work. Let’s use soccer to demonstrate how to apply a modern business process modeling paradigm and modeling notation to discover and illustrate a sound, modern business process structure.

Event-Driven Business Process Flow

A contextually and structurally sound model of the Play Soccer process can be discovered by answering the Universal Basic Business Process Flow Elicitation Agenda[3] and the Universal Event and Outcome-Oriented Business Process Flow Elicitation Agenda[4], found in The Universal Process Modeling Procedure.

This basic, event and outcome-oriented (non-procedural) BPMN process flow diagram communicates the normal, dynamic flow of Play Soccer as a set of collaborating, specialized activities.

The Play Soccer process is initiated by a kick-off at center field. It is comprised of 4 activities: Tend Goal, Defend, Play Midfield, Play Striker. Activities are performed by the players of two teams. The expected outcome of Play Soccer is that a match has been played to its allotted time limit, according to its rules.

A free kick from center starts a match. Once the match starts all players in their assigned positions maneuver freely, whether they possess the ball or not. The expected succession of the keeper’s, defenders’, midfielders’, and strikers’ activities is determined dynamically, by the players, while the match is played, by receiving or intercepting passes, stopping shots, and by making passes or taking shots.

The player with the ball will pass the ball to any one of up to 10 other teammates or take a shot; Either the intended teammate will receive a pass, or an opposing player will intercept a pass or stop a shot, to possess the ball. Any player that possessed the ball will then maneuver (according to their assigned position level and their own skill) and then pass the ball to any one of up to 10 other teammates or take a shot. This succession of activities continues, until a stoppage in play.

The success of the expected outcome (pass made or shot taken) of one Play Soccer activity will determine the initiating event (pass received/intercepted or shot stopped) of another Play Soccer activity. The actual flow of a game is determined dynamically, by the players who are assigned to perform Play Soccer’s activities.

This basic, event and outcome-oriented process view of Play Soccer is contextually and structurally sound, but still basic. It is upon this solid, defining structure that one can elicit, add and communicate logical details that are relevant to how the Play Soccer process will “flow” and, that this model’s readers likely expect to see. What about conditional activities, like throw-ins, corner kicks, penalty kicks, substitutions, fouls, out-of-bounds, injuries), and delays (like injury time-outs, and half-time)?

Logically Refined Business Process Flow

The logical details about the periodic conditions, activities, and delays in the execution of the Play Soccer process can be straightforwardly discovered by asking and answering simple agendas that are defined in The Universal Process Modeling Procedure[5]. This refined BPMN process flow diagram communicates the conditional activities and delays that are expected to periodically occur throughout the dynamic flow of Play Soccer.

The BPMN process diagram shows that game events, not a sequential procedure determine what and when certain activities are performed in the Play Soccer process.

Even with all those refinements made, the contextually accurate and sound basic structure of the Play Soccer process, that we previously established, has not changed. These refinements can be graphically included or excluded, without any rework of the basic contextual meaning or basic diagrammatic structure of Play Soccer.

Activity dependencies are contextually accurate, without depicting a sequential procedure and sequential flows. Dynamic, alternate activities, paths, and timings throughout the process are accounted for in the model. Undue model complexity, and the analyst’s time that would have been spent on it, has been avoided. Process navigation decisions, and alternate flow paths are in fact modelled, but need not be explicitly illustrated as sequence flows.

Conclusion

The Beautiful Game serves us as a beautiful example of a process that is a set of dynamically collaborating sets of specialized services. It is not a sequential procedure. Modern business processes are not just sequential procedures either.

The Universal Process Modeling Procedure, with its Universal Business Process Definition and elicitation agendas, provides a modern process modeling paradigm, capable of event-driven as well as sequential business process elicitation and modeling. BPMN is a modern process modeling notation, that includes the graphical elements to represent business event-driven, not just sequential process flows.

With these tools in-hand, process analysts, quality improvement professionals, and business analysts, are capable of eliciting, perceiving, normalizing, defining and graphically illustrating structurally sound, modern business process structures.

[1] Universal Process Modeling Procedure – The Practical Guide to High-Quality Business Process Models Using BPMN (Metera, 2018, 2022) www.ProcessModelingAdvisor.com