The practice of business analysis is only 30 years old but already we have mature methodologies, best practices, certification, tools, terminology, competencies. Our craft is in excellent shape!

But then there’s the age-old BA question, the one that always surfaces regardless of the context: what have we overlooked?

Today’s answer is the individual attributes of each and every BA. Just as no two baseball pitchers (starters, closers, southpaws) are identical, neither are any two BAs.

This article talks about why it’s worth delving into the preferences and dispositions of individual BAs; how this contributes to excellence in the work and the product (both when assigning the work, and when ‘framing’ an assignment for a specific individual); the boost to employee engagement and retention that comes from paying close attention to individual BAs, and finally, how to implement these discoveries and benefits in your BA team … or for yourself in your solo BA practice.

Let’s look first at a typical team with the names changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty (the latter would be the author). We have a team lead, Ms. Matchmaker (the author again) and four intermediate BAs, Mr. Melody, Ms. Connector, Mr. Clock and Ms. Fixit.

Over time, as suggested by the names, we’ve discovered a few things about each other.

Ms Matchmaker likes to know what’s going on everywhere and who’s involved in it, so she can connect the dots on short notice. Mr. Melody steps in whenever we run into a ragged process or a situation where there is no process at all. Mr. Clock always has his eye on the finish line and the calendar. Ms. Connector is the first to notice and nudge if anything we’re doing is similar (or contradictory) to something going on elsewhere in the organization. Ms. Fixit positively glows whenever she encounters a good mess, one that needs to be cleaned up, structured and prevented from happening again. Ever!

Later we’ll talk about how we discovered these attributes in our team members. But first…

Why Should We Care?

When new work comes towards our team, we try (when we have the luxury) to assign it to the team member whose disposition is the best fit.

Example: we were recently asked to take on the support and maintenance of a new application from …ummm…an overly agile development project. The application was not well documented, there was no support structure in place for incident, problem and change management, the technical environments were less than robust and there was no governance. This work went to Ms. Fixit, who gathered the team and worked calmly and efficiently through all the issues until the application was safely installed in our

portfolio of well managed services. Mr. Melody provided QA throughout the transition process, and as a result of his work we ended up with a template and a checklist for a standardized transition process going forward. Bonus!

Another example: a few months before she was due to retire, one of our business owners let us know that she had a secret stash of ad hoc reports that only she understood but that executive relied on, and she hoped that we would be able to redevelop these reports, document the meta data and get them implemented in a production environment before she was gone. The reports had been built using SAS (not our standard tool) and no one on our team had SAS experience. Our reports analyst was new and not yet familiar with our old clunky unsupported suite of reporting tools. But, our reports analyst happened to be Mr. Clock, and with both feet on the gas pedal he managed to get those reports implemented three days before our user’s retirement party. The bonus in this venture was that Mr. Clock, backed up by Ms. Matchmaker who had been paying attention to trends in the world of reporting, was able to advocate for and implement a new reporting environment after this project was completed.

Another Thing

Often, we don’t have the luxury of assigning the work to the person for whom it’s the best fit. Availability is the deciding factor. Then what?

Then it’s even more worthwhile knowing our BA’s dispositions and tendencies. The truth is most projects possess most attributes – there is always an element of time, process and integration. We’ve discovered that if we highlight the attribute that particularly appeals to a team member, the person will be much more productively engaged than if we describe the initiative in terms that do not ‘grab’. (To the same degree that Mr. Clock is attracted by a deadline, some of our other team members are repelled).

‘Framing’ is Important

For instance, last year Ms. Connector was assigned the tedious job of collecting our division’s quarterly performance measures. But because the work was ‘framed’ in terms of decision support for executive, Ms. Connector dug in enthusiastically and was eventually acknowledged for having gone ‘above and beyond.’ By the time she was done she had ensured that all our performance measures integrated with measures from other divisions across the organization. Furthermore, like Ms. Fixit, she was supported by Mr. Melody in the development of a repeatable process that has made subsequent rounds of performance measure collection much less mundane.

Anything Else?

It’s fitting that it’s Mr. Melody who makes this case for a team where the members know their own and each others’ strengths so well.

“A good team”, he says, “is like a symphony orchestra. You need to have a variety of instruments – basses and tubas as well as pianos and violins. You need to appreciate them all and give them their right roles. If you do that, the orchestra goes from good to great. Our team is great and that’s a big part of the reason why.”

It’s worth noting that in a recent re-organization where some team members might have been able to latch onto interesting opportunities in other areas, the members of this team all expressed a preference for staying where they are and staying together.

Uncovering the Strengths and Preferences on Your team. Or in Yourself

The team we’ve been talking about had the good fortune to come together a few years ago when recruiting was competitive and employee retention was a major focus in the organization. As a result, the team had no trouble getting management approval for some overhead ‘bonding’ time in early days.

The intimacy of a team charter day that included a few facilitated exercises like the Personal Crest Exercise (inset below) went a long way towards revealing the team members to themselves and to each other.

A discovery tool that has been used effectively in many organizations is the The Clifton Strengthsfinder 2.0. This inexpensive standardized test (a copy of the book and a single access to an online test costs about $30) is based on the notion that each of us is wise to identify and apply our top five or 10 strengths because these strengths will form the basis of our best ongoing contribution. This methodology also says – in contrast to development models of the past – that we should avoid devoting ‘more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths’. Amen to that.

Meyers Briggs testing is another popular and readily available tool for discovering individual attributes.

Whatever techniques we use, there’s a pay off to knowing ourselves and our team mates well: the reward is a happy team using their best individual skills, supporting and appreciating each other and delivering really good work.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below

Marsha Williams is a Senior Business Analyst and Team Lead in the Shared Services division of the Public Service of British Columbia. Marsha’s three passions in her professional life are: knowing the people and their strengths and assisting them to use those strengths for their own sake and for the sake of the organization; always digging deeper to determine what work really needs to be done and what creative approach will best enable good results; writing whatever needs to be written so we know where we came from, where we are and where we’re going. Marsha can be reached at [email protected]

When I began writing this blog series at BA Times last year, I aimed to focus on the behavioral characteristics of our role as business analysts.  My goal was to go deeper than the science of our role and focus on the softer skills. I wanted to give you my thoughts and concrete ways to separate yourself from the pack of BAs by giving you ideas to up your game as a BA. After 10 months and 20 blog posts I have discovered the one thing, above all else, that is the pillar to your success as a business analyst That one thing is trust. The higher the trust relationships you have, the more success you can achieve.

When It Hit Me

Last week I delivered a webinar, The BA Life Beyond, Charts, Diagrams, & Documents. The purpose of my webinar was to help the attendees understand the importance of the “soft” skills and behaviors needed to be an excellent, desired BA. As I was working on the content with a colleague we both read Stephen M. R. Covey’s book Speed of Trust.  Quickly, trust stood out as the pillar that supports the underlying competencies outlined in the IIBA BABOK® Guide V2.0, the “soft” skills. If you have trusting relationships, communication is more efficient and easier, your ability to lead and influence increases, your teamwork improves dramatically, and the list goes on.

Why Trust?

In his book Covey asks a few simple questions that help you understand why trust is so important.  Take a minute to think about these as I lay them out here. For the purposes of this blog think of a work relationship, although this can be applied to any relationship.

Think about a person with whom you have a high trust relationship. Describe this relationship?  What’s it like? How does it feel? How is the communication? How well do you communicate?  How quickly can you get things done? How much do you enjoy this relationship?

Now think of a person with whom you have a low trust relationship.  Describe this relationship?  What’s it like? How does it feel? How is the communication? Does it flow freely…or do you feel like you’re constantly walking on land mines and being misunderstood? Do you work together to get things done quickly or does it take a disproportionate amount of time and energy to finally reach an agreement and execution? Do you enjoy this relationship or do you find it tedious, cumbersome, and draining?

You can see that in high trust relationships you move faster, communication is clearer, and a team with high trust will be able to solve problems and make decisions more efficiently.

Build Trusting Relationships

Covey provides 13 behaviors of high trust people and leaders worldwide.  One I want to talk about today is “Show Loyalty”.  He talks about showing loyalty in terms of giving credit freely.  Acknowledging the accomplishments of others, shows you the value that person brings.  People want to be on your team if you give credit where credit is due and not take the credit for the work of others. 

Here is where the high five comes in.  In the March 15, 2010 Sports Illustrated there is a fabulous article written by Chris Ballard about the high five and all of its variations.  He shared findings from a study that examined the effect of “touch” (high fives, head slaps, shoulder bumps, etc.) in the NBA.  What they found was that the more high fives, head slaps and shoulder bumps, the more wins the team had.  The opposite was also true.  The teams with the least amount won the least amount of games.  And the individuals that high fived the most were the team leaders. 

What is a better way to give credit to someone than a high five?  When a teammate facilitates a great elicitation session, feel free to walk up to them and deliver a high five as you are leaving the conference room.  As you are working on designing a solution and a teammate has a great idea, reach across the table and offer up a fist bump. 

I know some of you are thinking I am crazy.  Maybe you’re right.  People may be a little thrown off if you jump in the air in hopes to connect with a flying shoulder bump or put out your forearm going for a forearm bash.  But, you get my point! Right?  When others do a good job make sure you acknowledge it. 

High fives for everyone,

Kupe

Last week I had lunch with a former co-worker to discuss an improvement plan she was implementing for a team of business analysts.  I told her I would not reveal her name in this blog so let’s call her Wonder BA. Wonder BA is an active reader of this blog, so maybe she’ll chime in with a comment or two on this post and reveal herself. Wonder BA was recently promoted and given the responsibility to lead a BA improvement initiative. As we discussed her approach and things to consider with this initiative, I noticed the conversation did not focus on business analysis. There was little talk about an analysis process, how the BA role was used in their agile environment, or how to organize the BA group. The main focus was on the project team environment, how the team perceived the value of the BA, what their management team wanted to see more of from the BA community, and steps to roll out the BA improvements. It was all about ways to ensure this initiative or more specifically this change initiative would be accepted and adopted in Wonder BA’s organization. We talked about how to assess the change readiness of the organization and the individuals impacted; her thoughts on if the culture in her group was one that will accept and adopt the changes she wanted to implement, and how to motivate the individual BAs to embrace the change.

This got me thinking about the change created with every project we work on.  Too often the project team’s focus is on the features or the new process being implemented as a result of the project. Time is spent worrying about time.  Sleep is lost thinking about ensuring we have the right resources to create the solution.  Once the project rolls to production, the team is happy and moves on to the next round of enhancements.  Teams need to start spending more energy on how to help the users and organization accept and adopt the change created by the project.  Often the business comes to the project team asking for new enhancements or a new application to help them overcome the challenges they face.  But too often, the impact on the business of introducing a new process or application is underestimated. 

As I was writing this blog I called a trusted thought leader in change management, Darshana Patel, change and conflict specialist and founder of SplashMaker LLC.  I asked her opinion on this topic and how BAs can help with adoption. Here is her response:

“With increasing efforts to improve the reliability of project outcomes, a new realization is emerging: a successful project does not equal a successful change.  Project and change are two sides of the same coin.  A project delivered on time, on budget, with targeted scope and quality does not guarantee adoption, institutionalization, and sustainability of the solution.   

With the business analyst positioned closest to the pulse of the people and processes affected by a project, here are five key considerations for the BA in planning for and executing successful change.

1. How will individuals, groups, and the organization be affected by this project? How do we motivate each level to align with the changes required by the project?
2. Which levers do we need to adjust: goals, culture, structure, and process to support ongoing adoption? Who needs to be involved to make this happen?
3. What is the organizational context of this project? What dynamics are at play that may impact the likelihood of success?
4. Politically speaking, who supports or needs to support this project? Whose lack of support can sink the short or long term viability for success? What information can be provided to influence their position?
5. Who can we employ as change agents to actively broaden and strengthen the coalition of support? What is the formal and information communication plan to propagate the themes, messages, and ideas that align conversations and people with the project?”

Early in the project, begin to think about the points Darshana raises. You still need to focus on the features and new processes to be implemented. But does any of that matter if the new features and processes are not adopted?  As a BA you are a leader.  By focusing your attention on planning and executing change you will be acting like one.

To change!

Kupe

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