Tag: Strategic

Business Rules and the Importance of the Business Analysis Discipline

Written by Sandra Sears on October 11, 2017. Posted in Articles.

For most organizations introducing a new product or application system or responding to a policy or regulatory change can be a daunting process.

Add to this the fact that rule changes or additions are often externally imposed (by government or regulators), and organizations face significant risks associated with complying with such new or changed rules in an efficient, effective, and timely manner. Similarly, most system replacements or “legacy system modernization” efforts fail, usually after the expenditure of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.

If an organization understands, captures, and documents its business rules, the understanding of the impact of any change is much simpler; impact analysis is clear; and, the road to implementation of a change can be planned and managed successfully.

According to the International Institute of Business Analysis, “a business rule is a specific, practicable, testable directive that is under the control of the business and that serves as a criterion for guiding behavior, shaping judgments, or making decisions.”

How do we identify business rules and where do we find them?

Business rules guide behavior, shape judgments, and drive decision-making. Thus, we can extract business rules from company policy statements, procedure documents, product descriptions, filings, and operational documentation.

Certain business rules may be maintained only through “tribal knowledge” and thus exist only in the heads of employees. There will be knowledge loss associated with staff attrition if an organization has not taken the time to explicitly document business rules.

Many business rules are hidden in application code. This may be due to the complexity of many insurance application systems and to the fact that those systems may be undocumented or poorly documented (or the validity of any documentation may be in question). Staff members may not even be explicitly aware that these business rules exist.

Because of the siloed nature of many organizations, conflicting business rules may exist in different areas of the company, again increasing risk to the insurer of undesirable outcomes.

The products of business analysis and the use of a business rules approach can provide clear direction for the discovery of business rules and the ability to trace business rules to the processes, events, roles, and data that they impact. Business process models have “decision” points (indicated by a diamond). For all but the most rudimentary of decisions, these indicate the application of a business rule. The creation of a use case description generates questions that are answered by the discovery of business rules. The analysis of data entities and their attributes trigger the discovery of business rules through the exploration of “how does A relate to B?” Assessment of a business role (possibly through the creation of “personas” – Sally is a twenty-something, tech-savvy individual who hates to have to “look things up”) can also trigger discovery of business rules.

A business rule example

Let’s use a completely hypothetical example of an external event triggering a change to a business rule for a disability insurer.

Most disability insurance policies will provide monthly income in the case of a disability only until age 65. This rule provides the insurer with (1) a clear limit as to how long disability payments must be made, (2) protection against disabilities that occur after age 65 (when disability is much more likely to occur), and (3) the ability to price policies based on actuarial information for a population of age 65 and below, whose risk of becoming disabled is far less than for a population in excess of age 65.

However, today most Americans are working beyond age 65, and Social Security’s full-benefit retirement age is slowly increasing. As a hypothetical, let’s assume that the government passes a law that disability insurance must cover insureds until the age of 70. What is the potential impact of this change?

How disruptive (and therefore risky) can the assessment of a change in a business rule be?

This “minor” change in disability rules would have a sweeping impact on a disability insurer. What are all of the processes, procedures, calculations, documents (such as contracts), and roles that are impacted by a potential change to the rule concerning when disability payments will cease? How many insurers are likely to have immediately available information to answer this question?

The likelihood is that few insurers could respond to this question without undertaking a great deal of research. A change to the simple rule expressed above will impact virtually every area of a disability insurance organization. Constraints imposed by both internal and external stakeholders, such as time constraints for implementation and the need to conduct actuarial analyses based on the change in underlying product assumptions, complicate the situation even further.

The need to adapt quickly to change

To ensure an organization can respond to market, regulatory, and desired product and application changes, the ability to adapt quickly and accurately must become a core competency. This means that the lifecycle for change must be measured in days or months, not years. For many organizations, this seems a truly unattainable goal, leading to the necessity of continuing to deal with the costs of rework and lost opportunity. In the disability insurance example above, it could even lead a company to withdraw from the sale of an entire product line.

The inability to respond rapidly, efficiently, effectively, and accurately to change (particularly change with a fixed deadline imposed upon an organization by an external entity) is a risk of which most organizations are aware, but are uncertain how to address.

The key to rapid adaptation lies in truly understanding one’s business. While the initial investment in business analysis and the documentation of process and rules may seem significant, the long-term payoff to the business is an ongoing return on investment every time a business faces a change – be it a regulation, a new product, the need to modernize technology, or even a changing customer environment. Technology alone cannot solve the problem of change, but the products of business analysis do provide the key to success.

Achieving The Elusive Work-Life Balance

Written by Neal Whitten,PMP on August 9, 2017. Posted in Articles.

I have personally wrestled with my own work-life balance issues for most of my adult life. In my younger adult days, I could easily have been categorized as a workaholic.

I was divorced after a 17-year marriage and did not see the break-up coming. I’m not saying that a better work-life balance would have saved the marriage, but a poor work-life balance sure didn’t help it any. For me, the integration of my work life and my non-work life has been a rough ride at times but—as a senior-aged person—I have learned a massive amount of knowledge and, dare I say, wisdom, about the highly important subject of finding a satisfactory harmony across all aspects of life. My mission here is to present you with some starter ideas that can fit into a relatively short article—ideas that can help you not only better understand your work-life balance but to give you ideas that can help you achieve the integration that is most important to you.

Work-life balance can mean something different to each of us. For purposes of this article, work-life balance is about achieving an acceptable harmony or integration between your work life—or career—and your personal life.

Studies show that a poor work-life balance can result in unhealthy levels of stress and unhappiness. At risk are your personal relationships, your career and your development as a person, to name a few. Moreover, too much time spent working has its own problems. You run the risk of burning out and hating your job, maybe even yourself. You wake up one day and realize you’re not happy with your life.

What does matter is that you create a personally meaningful life that helps you feel happy and healthy overall. While balancing work and non-work life might not be easy early in one’s career, figuring it out is necessary to lifelong satisfaction. Almost everyone wishes that they had realized the importance of life balance at the beginning of their career. Doing so would have meant less regrets and a more deliberate life. But whatever your age, you can still seize control and drive towards the balance you most desire.

I have created an assessment instrument—called the Questionnaire for Self-Assessing Your Work-Life Balance—to heighten your awareness of the behaviors that are affecting your work-life balance. The questionnaire will also provide a means to rate your collective behaviors and present a score that can give you insight into your effectiveness in achieving work-life balance. You can download the PDF and take the quiz now or later at your convenience.

Let’s examine eight important actions and behaviors that can help you in your quest to achieve the elusive work-life balance.

1. Create a Vision for What You Would Like Your Life to Look Like

Ask yourself what you would like your life to look like both from a career perspective and a personal perspective and how you see these two major components integrating. Then define what you envision a typical, desirable day would look like beginning from the time you wake up until you call it a day. That day could have interaction with family members, time for exercising, eating healthy, of course time for work activities, personal chores, special events and some downtime to compose and reenergize yourself. Use this vision as a baseline to ensure that you steadfastly adopt actions and behaviors that move you towards your vision. Then define the priorities in your life that are important to support this vision—including those priorities that are non-negotiable except for emergencies; examples could be special family events, sleep and exercise. The bottom line is that in order to improve upon your work-life balance it is essential that you have a vision of what you would like that integration to look like. If and when you would like to create a vision, I have created a sample vision to give you an idea of what a vision could look like.

2. Set Your Priorities Each Day

At the start of each work day, create a to-do list that includes the identification of your top three priorities to focus on for the day. If you have timeframes available of 30 minutes or more, do not work the bottom items of your to-do list, focus instead on the top three. Your top three items are so important that they define your overall value, contributions and success in your job. Work off your top three priorities every 2-3 days and replace them with your next set of priorities. If your top three priorities may take weeks or months to resolve, then, within 2-3 days, put a detailed, trackable plan in place to deal with the priority. Then remove that top-three priority from your list and routinely track your new plan until it is complete.

If occasionally you experience a day that is so hectic with fire fights and please handles that you never get around to working on your top three priorities, that’s okay; you work in a complex, demanding environment. However, if you frequently have days where you do not focus on your top three priorities, then you are the problem and need to seek help to effectively manage your workload.

If your personal life is as chaotic as your work life, consider creating the to-do list for non-work activities as well.

3. Track Your Time

For one week, keep track of where and with whom you spend your time during your waking hours both at work and in your personal life. Record in increments as small as 15 minutes. The objective is to identify time well spent that support your priorities and interests as well as time that—looking over the big picture—was not considered put to good use. This exercise is invaluable as you look for ways to fine tune your behaviors throughout each day. Experience shows that you will likely experience some “ah-ha” moments as you look more objectively into your routine behaviors.

4. Limit Time-Wasting Activities and People

This action will free you to spend more time on the important activities and people, and will likely provide you with additional time that you did not realize you had. Not only will your productivity benefit, the quality of your work and the satisfaction you get from your work likely will also increase. Many people spend too much time on things that don’t really matter. Time, arguably, is the most valuable commodity in life: It is the one thing you cannot buy more of. Therefore, don’t waste it.

The last tip we had discussed, “track your time,” can help here. Also, as your day unfolds get in the habit of consciously questioning if the time you are about to spend or the time you just spent is, indeed, an effective use of your time. After a while, this can become second nature and you will more effectively choose the areas where you dedicate your time.

5. Learn to Say “No”

Ensure that your commitments mostly support your priorities. Your inability or unwillingness to say “no” can easily allow you to lose control over your day and those things that matter most to you. If you need to buy some time to think about your final decision of whether or not to say “no,” then do so—even sleeping on it. Use whatever methods will help you better control where you commit your time. If you do not seize control over the commitments you make, your time will be surrendered to others… and you will not like the impact to you. You have far more control over your day and how you spend it than you may realize.

6. Minimize Time in Meetings

Minimize time in meetings, especially unstructured meetings. Most people spend a large portion of their time in meetings. Obviously some meetings are important for you to attend but many may not be providing you a sufficient return on your invested time. For starters, consider only attending meetings if they satisfy one or both of these conditions:1. Information you need to perform your job will be disclosed, or2. You have information that someone else needs to perform their job.

If you have information that someone else needs, consider turning that information over to the dependent person before the meeting starts and don’t attend the meeting. If you feel you must attend the meeting then do so only for the time necessary to disclose the information—say 5 minutes. Work with the meeting leader to determine the specific time when you should attend.

For meetings that you must attend, consider having a buddy who must also be in the meeting cover for you and afterwards inform you of what you need to know. And you reciprocate by covering for your buddy in a different meeting that you both also must attend.

7. Put Yourself First

Take care of yourself. Look out for yourself. Putting yourself first goes against what many of us learned growing up. But think about it: By putting yourself first, only then can you be your best and give your best to others. An example is on an airplane and the oxygen masks drop due to a potential emergency. You are directed to place the mask on yourself before helping someone in need next to you. You must make sure that you are in a position of strength before you can be your best for all that which comes your way and all those who may have a dependency on you.

Another example of putting yourself first is protecting your private time. Don’t be so quick to sacrifice your private time for other work and personal events. Your private time may be essential for catching your breath, recharging your energy and reaching a level of understanding and acceptance with yourself and all that going on around you. If you have serious work-life balance issues, not putting yourself first was likely a major cause of the dilemma you now find yourself embroiled in.

8. At the End of Your Day, Assess How Well Your Day Went

Pause and sit back to catch your breath. Then identify the actions you took that supported your quest for work-life balance. Give yourself some kudos for taking these actions. Also identify those actions that harmed your work-life balance. Imagine how your day could have been more productive and meaningful had you not engaged in the harmful actions. Ask yourself what you could or should have done differently so that you can change your behavior the next time a similar situation arises. See yourself incrementally growing stronger day to day, week to week.

Closing Thoughts

You get to define what work-life balance means to you. Balance is an individual thing and everyone must find their own. It’s not about what others think; it’s about what you desire for you. You achieve work-life balance by first defining the balance you most desire. Then you examine your current life and decide if that balance is being achieved. If it’s not, then, starting with the ideas presented in this article, you can put a plan in place that will deliberately move you into the desired direction. Then periodically revisit your work-life balance situation and adjust your actions and behaviors where and when needed.

Your work-life balance is something that can easily be put off for another day, another week, another year—but you already know that. Now is the time to seize the control over your life and to make it the life you most desire. It’s possible that this article could be the catalyst to change the rest of your life.
Now, become your imagined self!

9 Keen Focus Areas in Strategic Business Analysis

Written by Richard Lannon on August 8, 2017. Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on 9 Keen Focus Areas in Strategic Business Analysis

Recently I was having breakfast with a CEO of a ½ billion dollar annual revenue resource company.

He was telling me how they had a strategic planning session with a former executive where they mapped out their plans for the next five years. As with most companies, the plan is to grow, to expand and explore new worlds and go where they have never gone before. Does that sound familiar?

So being the strategic planner and business analyst that I am, I asked if they had defined, scoped and prioritized their initiatives yet. There was an awkward moment of silence. Sixty seconds when you are not sure if you should begin to pray, cry or buy a lotto ticket. The response was they had not gotten that far yet because they were busy operating the business. But their people will do that, get right on it, right?

Business leaders and professionals often do not take strategic planning to the next level, a situation I know only too well. Companies create great plans and ideas from their initial strategic planning and mapping sessions only to front load everything and not take the time to understand where they should focus, why and what should be the priorities.

This is where strategic business analysis (enterprise analysis) comes in. As in the question, I asked above; strategic business analysis is used to define, scope and prioritize initiatives, a step in the strategic planning process that gets missed. In the real world of business, strategic business analysis is an essential component of every project or change initiative to ensure outcomes align with the goals and objectives the entire organization and its departments.

In a review of the IIBA Body of Knowledge, several books on strategic analysis, my book, SET for Success, and from the work I have done with small to large corporations, strategic business analysis requires a keen focus on the following:

Understanding the business structure, architectures, and people and culture
Conducting capability analysis to ensure the organization can do what it says it plans to do
Ensuring proper strengths and weaknesses are recognized, and opportunity and threats are identified and defined
Business problems and opportunities are analyzed, and solutions are brainstormed beyond the norm of improving processes, increased sales and cut costs
Performing feasibility and risk analysis on the potential solutions and compare the solutions alternatives through success and failure analysis, pros and cons discussions, and cost, ease, benefit analysis and developing decision grids to prioritize solutions
Determining the proper scope change initiatives based on business, structure and organizational parameters and capabilities
Developing the business case to drive out the investments and expected returns externally or internally for the key initiatives.
Creating a communication plan that helps guide the organization through the changes that will take place as initiatives become implemented, and
building a roadmap focused on using project management best practices of implementation with business champions, key initiatives, tactical focus, time and dates and a reporting structure to ensure initiatives are moving forward as originally planned.

There is a lot going on here, and it would be a mistake to think that this is the private domain of business analysts identified on an organizational chart. It is not. Business analysis and strategic business analysis is a set of skills that bridge a position. In today’s business world the CEO, COO, VPs, various Managers, and Professionals must be able to perform these critical tasks at the strategic, tactical and operational levels. Granted there is a difference in the tools and techniques employed, and the expected outcomes and deliverables that exist in the details. The key is that there is a shared vision of success connected to the goals and objectives of the organization. Something many business leaders and professionals miss with a negative impact on the organization.

Effectively implementing strategic plans means using proper strategic analysis and strategic business analysis to ensure you make the best strategic decisions, that you are actually strategic through proper strategic management considerations and that you are focused on the best initiatives and projects for your organization at this point and time. Strategic analysis and therefore, strategic business analysis focuses on factual support of business decisions. Hopefully, in the end, the business has made better business decisions.

Final Thoughts

I have always enjoyed the topic of strategic planning, management, and analysis because it is incredibly interesting to help shape an organization’s future and because learning strategic business analysis is for everyone in business, from the executive to the professional. Granted you may not be working at the strategic level in your career, but you have a business impact at the tactical and operational levels. If strategic business analysis helps scope out the initiatives and projects delivered by mid-level and project managers, then other professionals have to flush out the details to ensure that prioritized initiatives and projects deliver.

The best part is that strategic business analysis is connected to strategic management which is concerned with the overall goals and objectives of the organization, includes multiple stakeholders in the decision-making process, has to incorporate short and long term specifics of initiatives and projects and knows that there is a trade-off between effectiveness and efficiency. If you are going to envision it and plan it, you better make sure you are addressing the right problem, leveraging the best opportunities and you get your priorities straight; strategic business analysis will help. Good luck.
Do your best, invest in the success of others, and make your journey count. Richard

Surviving as a Business Analyst in a Product-Centric world

Written by Faisal Jumriani on July 27, 2017. Posted in Articles.

According to the IIBA, “a Business Analyst (BA) enables change in an organizational context, by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.”

However, Business Analysts (BA) are often viewed as simply requirement recording machines. Agile methodologies have allowed the BA role to evolve, by limiting the focus on documentation. However, the next step in the evolution of Business Analysts is to don a product management hat to develop stable, scalable and innovative solutions. Here I outline a guide to help analysts create more elegant, effective, creative and expansive solutions using a product-centric approach by keeping the user and business as the core focus.

What If

As usual, you want to start with identifying the needs of your users by articulating and framing the need statements. If you are working on a new product, outline “what if” statements, which test the status quo, such as for e.g. “what if our customers can access their medical records on the go.” These questions enable you to think outside of your constraints and leave you open to all possibilities. Put together multiple statements with your team and consider these your hypotheses. Make sure you involve your stakeholders from the beginning, so you don’t have to convince them for approvals later. With each statement, ask yourself:

Does this help you maximize the impact?
Does the situation work in multiple contexts?

You can use this worksheet to complete your “What If” statements.

Make First, Document Second

Make first, document second may sound counter-intuitive, especially if you are a seasoned BA who is coming from waterfall background; but you don’t have to document anything at the moment. Once you are done with your “what if” statements, create prototypes that will validate your hypotheses. Prototyping is a great way to make your idea tangible. You can get quick feedback from your end-users to help you with capturing acceptance criteria and use-cases. It can also help you get buy-in from stakeholders, who would be convinced by working software. Your prototype doesn’t have to be a finished product. It can range from an image, wire frame, digital mock-up or storyboard that would help you communicate your idea to the end-user.

Just make sure you observe how your end-users are getting engaged with it and what questions it generates. You can use this worksheet to guide you with capturing the necessary data. Capturing this data will help you immensely with your requirements documentation as well since it will be insight driven and you can determine possible use cases as you observe their interactions with the prototype. You can capture your learning on Typeform, Google Forms or Murals. Some of the tools that can come handy for prototyping are POP, Proto.io, or Sketch.

Go Out of the Building

We usually are sitting in front of our screens, playing around with the current systems, creating diagrams and defining processes. This may be effective when we know what we need. Going out of the building is a metaphor used to test your hypothesis with actual users to understand their pain points and get a perspective of the environment your solution will be used in. Connect with your users and ask them, if they would use your product/service and give them your prototype to play around with. Keep a close eye on them while they are playing with your product. Remember you are just validating your hypothesis, so don’t be biased towards it.

Refine and Prioritize

Once you know you have the pain points and solution defined, take a step back and assess the merits of your solutions by questioning the impact of it and what resources would it require to be implemented. This would allow you to get a sense of direction and have a product roadmap by the end. You can connect each concept and feature with a specific set of goals that the solution would achieve for your organization by answering the following three questions:

Viability: If it addresses the long-term strategic goal of the business.
Desirability: If it provides value to the end user.
Feasibility: If it will be viable to develop and what resources would be required.

This worksheet will help you prioritize, refine and put solutions in perspective.

Once you have these questions answered, you will be able to start from the top and implement these features one by one. Our job as business analysts doesn’t end in the solution phase. We need to be engaged continuously in the process to assess the usage of the solution and how it is impacting the business.

Better, Not Bigger!

Written by Karen Schemmel on July 6, 2017. Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Better, Not Bigger!

After working as an IT Analyst in the same organization for over twenty years, it became apparent to me that every year our project load got bigger and bigger.

Just when you thought that someone was going to stop the madness, every new year we ended up out-pacing the previous year’s project load. It wasn’t just the shiny, new initiatives coming on the scene. There was a cumulative effect when a few of the previous year’s projects would spill over, creating a nice overlap effect. Unanticipated architecture changes halted project progress and impacted deadlines. The end-result was an overwhelming dog pile of projects that over-consumed resources and frustrated many.

Year after year, it was like Ground Hogs day, where we relived the same vicious cycle. While strategic planning did occur, strategic project selection was based on which got the most votes by upper management. Most of the time IT resources did not see project requirements until projects were launched.

Moreover, strategic projects did not include system or application upgrades, those of which consumed large portions of IT resources.

The trouble for me was that I knew there were better ways to manage the project capacity load, and thus avoid the relentless chaos. The ways to achieve more was not to add more on to the plate! After spending the past five years learning Business Analysis tasks and techniques, I knew there were recipes and ingredients for counteracting and avoiding the various problems we faced.

Imagine that the organization described above chose to hire a Business Analyst to help address the project chaos. With the skills and discipline that a Business Analyst can provide, this company could have transformed their chaotic project life-cycle into a well-oiled machine. With a revamping of their project processes, this company should be able to better focus on the priority strategic initiatives that provide the most value, rather than spreading itself thin with the vast number of projects. In fact, with proper capacity planning, they might possess a greater ability or agility to act on opportunities, such as offering new products or services faster than their competitors. Furthermore, they may even open up a new window to engaging in process improvements for their operational functions.

You might be wondering how this amazing transformation would take place. What specific tasks and techniques would this Business Analyst use to effect such dramatic change in this company? I contend that the most dramatic changes would come from starting at the beginning in the initiation and planning phases.

During the initiation phase, our talented BA could follow a predictive approach and use the following techniques to minimize uncertainty and mitigate “surprise” architecture changes, as well as better identification of resources needed:

Business Case – this should be used to outline the justification for pursuing the project, as well as the value it will provide. The Business Case illustrates the value a problem or opportunity will bring if realized. The Business Case would also outline constraints (i.e., need to install security equipment, upgrade servers, etc.) before setting the schedule!
Enterprise Analysis – this would compare the current state of the environment to the desired future state, thereby illustrating the gaps.
Requirements Analysis – this will outline the specific needs, and specific technology needed for the solution design. This process will also uncover any non-functional requirements needed, and then ultimately whether the proposed solution would meet the needs. To provide the benefit of proper capacity planning, capture this information in the analysis and design phase of the project rather than at kickoff!
Functional Decomposition –If the project scope was broken down into smaller pieces for analysis, then project resource and timeline uncertainties could be greatly reduced.
Estimation – With the requirements analyzed, a far better estimate of the amount of effort and needed resources for the project will be much accurate.
Prioritization – by identifying the value (or ROI), the complexity, and risks of each project, we could then assign a customized rank to each one. This ranking should guide the company in determining which projects to pursue in the appropriate order.
Stakeholder Analysis – by outlining who might be impacted by the solution or the implementation of the solution, this will guide in resource capacity planning.
Backlog Prioritization and Management – by regularly reviewing the entire backlog of projects to determine if priorities or needs have changed would be essential in keeping the company focused on those projects that bring the most value to them.

There is one final tool that I am certain would have revolutionized the company’s formulation and prioritization of goals and strategies: a Business Model Canvas.

TABLE A- BABOK V3 – BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS

Table B – BABOK V3 – BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS DEFINITION

“A Business Model Canvas can be used as a diagnostic and planning tool regarding strategy and initiatives. As a diagnostic tool, the various elements of the canvas are used as a lens into the current state of the business, especially with regards to the relative amount of energy, time, and resources the organization is currently investing in various areas. As a planning and monitoring tool, the canvas can be used as a guideline and framework for understanding interdependencies and priorities among groups and initiatives.

Business model canvas allows for the mapping of programs, projects, and other initiatives (such as recruitment or talent retention) to the strategy of the enterprise. In this capacity, the business model canvas can be used to view where the enterprise is investing, where a particular initiative sits, and any related initiatives.

A business model canvas can be used to demonstrate where the efforts of various departments and workgroups fit and online to the overall strategy of the enterprise.”

IIBA BABOK Version 3.0

In closing, after enduring years of frustration over the overwhelming burdens, it finally occurred to me that I was not a good fit for this style of operating. Luckily for me, I was recently able to find the perfect new job leading the newly formed Business Analysis department! To be in a position to guide others in using the techniques and framework that the practice of Business Analysis provides is like making it over to the other side of the rainbow! I can’t wait to work on my new organization’s transformation!

References/Bibliography
BABOK V3, A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge. International Institute of Business Analysis.