Tag: Team

Becoming a BA leader

Written by Maksim Haurylik on July 29, 2020. Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on Becoming a BA leader

Being in the business analysis profession for more than a decade, at some point in my career I’ve noticed that many experienced BAs prefer to work alone rather than to lead a team.

They say it can be so difficult that it is easier sometimes to get the work done just by yourself.

But the business analysis profession keeps growing and getting mature. And developing leadership skills is one of the key things allowing an analyst not only to grow professionally, but simply to stay on track.

So, in this article I would like to share some thoughts about the specifics of leading a team of BAs, certain typical difficulties inexperienced BA leaders can face, and several ways to make leading a BA team more efficient and (what is important) less tough.

Talking about specifics of leading a BA team, we need to take into account the following key areas: people, environment, amount of work and solutions’ complexity. Well, everyone knows that, as a rule, BAs are bright, highly educated and enthusiastic people with broad mindset, environment BAs work in is usually quite creative, scope of work can be really huge, and the solutions can be quite complex so it requires some time to dive in and get to the details.

Now having that in mind, let’s take a step aside and look at leading a team of BAs from a different angle. So, perhaps the most important thing that you realize when you start leading other BAs is that now you are responsible not only for your own work and deliverables ‑ but for the way other people do their job and for the artifacts other BAs create. And many experienced BAs promoted to lead a team keep acting as they were still to do everything by themselves: diving into every tiny detail, or acting as a single source of truth when it comes to defining various BA processes or practices to be used.

No wonder, that these and many other difficulties can be faced in such situation:

Too many things to be done
The time is not enough
People do not always do what and how they have been told to

Taking into account the specifics of leading a team of BAs, it is easy to understand that quite often these issues come out as a result of not optimal way of leadership selected and leading/guiding practices used. For example, using authoritarian patterns may not always be the best idea in a creative environment of independent and well-motivated professionals. Or, as a person leading a team of several BAs sometimes you just cannot afford to spend time on diving too deep into every single detail.

Not even mentioning the possibility of delivering low quality results, these difficulties, if you are facing them long enough, can put you on a risk of burning down and, furthermore, getting disappointed with the profession. Hence, they should be addressed immediately. Good news is that these difficulties in BA leadership can be overcome!

But how to do it in the right way? How to avoid all these negative impacts? I think there are three key ingredients:

organize teamwork properly,
build productive working relationships,
spend time on educating and developing other BAs.

Organizing teamwork properly

Talking about organizing work of multiple BAs, it should be mentioned that it is always better to divide the scope of work and any regular responsibilities taking into account your fellow BAs preferable options and capabilities. Obviously, it would be better to start doing it from the very beginning of the project. But what is more important – try to do it in advance. That would help you to manage people’s expectations and hence keep your team more motivated.

Also, always discuss the processes with your team, and make a mutual agreement on them. That would unite people, make each of them feel as a valuable part of the team, and help them to grow professionally.

And it is always important to analyze your team’s actions and outcomes on a regular basis. It helps you to define the possible gaps at the earliest convenience and make the necessary adjustments when required.

Tips

Please note that it always takes some time for the people to get used to a process. So, expect that a single discussion may not be enough: setting up BA cooperation processes is a process in itself, and it will require you to make the necessary adjustments when needed.

Also, when setting up the processes and/or assigning responsibilities, please try to make sure there is always Second-in-charge – a person capable of taking responsibility for something in case the primary owner is absent, the one who can quickly step in and help out when needed. That is an important thing inexperienced leaders may miss 🙂

Make sure you are not all about the BA daily routine – note that now you should have enough time for the leading activities.

Building productive working relationships

Creating a productive working environment can be successfully achieved with the help of the following principles:

1. Make sure people can see the whole picture, so they will be able to understand the reasons behind your actions, and hence both work more productively and develop themselves more efficiently.

2. Be open for ideas. It is impossible for a person to always be right, always see the best way. So, be open to fresh ideas!

3. Encourage and motivate. Encourage your team members to come up with suggestions, to propose solutions. Remember that it would not only motivate them, but help them to grow and mature as well.

Educating and developing other BAs

Developing other BAs will allow you to make sure that your team performs as expected and provides the artifacts of high quality (and that is really important) without your direct participation, but just under your supervision. Plus, it can allow you to save your time significantly 🙂

Use this commonly known pattern proven to be the best practice: explain the subject in detail first, then do it yourself and allow your mentee watch and learn. Afterwards, let them practice it, then perform it under your guidance. And finally, your mentee will be able to do it on their own in time and in required quality:

Explaining
Shadowing
Practicing
Performing with guidance
Performing independently

Do not expect people to have a complete understanding by default, always explain Why (Why something is necessary, Why it is needed in this particular way, etc.) And at the same time, do not hesitate to play a mentor role – allowing people to find the answers by themselves but under your guidance can be really beneficial.

So, many typical difficulties that can be faced while leading a BA team are caused by inappropriate leadership practices used. And taking into account the specifics of leading a team of BAs, those issues can be successfully leveled with the best practices listed above.

BA Evolution: New Leadership for New Times

Written by Traci Onkst on May 14, 2020. Posted in Articles.

The pace of change has been a topic of conversation the last few years.

We talk about digitalization and our need to constantly innovate to meet the expectations of our customers. At some point, we are those customers and must learn how to consume that flow of innovation. Add in the financial facing component and our need to respond to that ever-changing landscape and you can see why change is the topic of many conversations. But, did you for one minute ever expect a pandemic? A crisis of this magnitude wasn’t even part of our wildest consideration as we started to think about the changes facing us in 2020. In hindsight, the magnitude of the changes we thought were going to overwhelm us almost seem trivial in comparison to what we face now.

The way people react to all this will vary substantially. Some will be stoic and persevere as if little has changed, some will panic, and others will see it as an opportunity. Maybe I’m more of the latter. Change is here and we will probably be forever changed in so many ways going forward. The families experiencing loss of a loved one will surely never experience their old normal again. For that I am sad to my soul.

As we respect the threat this virus presents to our health and lives, we do have some choice in our overall response. It’s been said that in a time of crisis you can identify the true leaders. We need and appreciate people that provide vision, organize tasks and help us move forward. But leadership is so much more, and I have forever maintained that BAs are leaders by definition.

At the heart, leadership is service. As BAs, our service is to help solve problems by applying creative thinking and analysis and present those insights through visualization so others can gain clarity and collaborate around the issue. As the questions about the future mount, we need that service now more than ever. As a BA we should be reflecting on the future. Analyze. Be creative. Think outside the box. Where are the new needs, what are the new gaps and what will we do to fill them? Every time in history, major threats and change left new opportunities to provide service. Where are our new opportunities to serve? What outcomes can we influence for the better? Where can we add value to people and their new way of working? How does the BA role evolve in response to all this? While our BA purpose has not changed, the way we execute the role may. How will you serve and demonstrate your BA leadership as we march forward into our new tomorrow?

Tailored Governance: including the right people at the right time

Written by Ali Raza on April 2, 2020. Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on Tailored Governance: including the right people at the right time

Inclusion is often used as a blanket term. In this article, I argue that there are different models of inclusion with their own advantages and disadvantages.

In a previous publication (1), I proposed a role for ‘Functional Communities of Practice (COP)’ in nurturing a culture of innovation within organisations.

I believe this COP cohort helps create the conditions for all members of an organisation to participate in strategy development. Crucially, this model of inclusion seeks to tie informal communities to the executive, thereby permitting decision-makers to harness the power of organisation-wide inclusion into concrete action.

However, it’s important to recognise the potential shortcomings of this model of inclusion. With voluntary membership, informal communities may not possess the relevant expertise to deal with specific threats (or opportunities) faced by an organisation at a given time. Hence, they may not be the most suitable reservoir of knowledge for leaders to draw upon in a crisis situation requiring a swift and considered response.

Another model of inclusion which has a unique risk/benefit profile is the permanent representation of particular demographics at board level. A very good example of this is patient representatives who sit on steering groups, providing a voice for other patients at the executive level. Representatives at board level may be empowered through possession of decision-making authority of their own. However, such models of inclusion can also be levelled with the charge of ‘tokenism’. This is defined as ‘The practice of making only perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from under-represented groups in order to give the appearance of…equality within a workforce’ (Encyclopedia.com as cited by Hahn et al., (2017) (2)). Board membership of particular demographics does not necessarily guarantee a fair representation of the wider demographic but can be empowering if representatives (and board members) prioritise the needs of the wider demographic over personal agendas.

One of the most effective ways of dealing with acute challenges and threats is through engendering what I like to call ‘tailored governance’. Tailored governance seeks to unite decision-makers, relevant subject matter experts and impacted stakeholders from across an organisation, to create specific and authorised action to address a new challenge, threat or opportunity. As the issue is likely experienced for the first time, there may not be a set process or governance structure already in place to permit the issue to be tackled or addressed appropriately. Unlike Functional COPs, which are open to all team members and are designed for permanence, teams assembled within tailored governance structures are disbanded once the issue is resolved. In addition to being transient, teams assembled for tailored governance are highly specialised to deal with novel challenges or threats faced by their organisations.

An example of a time when I employed tailored governance was when a third party (leasing space in our hospital) made a proposal for their new entrance into a hospital corridor. With my knowledge of the wider team, I anticipated their proposal requiring input from the in-house site soft services team, Trust branding expert and the site general manager. Table 1 highlights the considerations of these team members in respect of this unique issue.

Table 1. Team members assembled to consider a third party’s proposal for their new entrance into a hospital corridor.

	Governance Role			Other comments
Team member	Requester	Approver	Consulted/Informed	Other comments
Third party	Yes	N/A	N/A	Seeking approval for their proposal
Site soft services manager	N/A	Needs to approve material and dimensions of ramp	Needs to be privy to final proposal	A key member of the in-house operational team
Trust branding expert	N/A	Needs to approve entrance colour scheme and signage	Needs to be privy to final proposal	A key member of the in-house operational team
Site General Manager	N/A	Needs to approve the overall design of the new entrance	Needs to be privy to the final proposal and ensure buy-in from operational team	A key member of the strategic team

Instances of tailored governance can also be the harbinger for developing formal standard operating procedures. An example of this in my line of work was when I recovered fees owed by a third party for project management services provided by my department. The process for fee recovery was originally not clear, however I liaised with a colleague from Finance and eventually achieved this. As this issue was experienced systemically, I helped Finance create a guidance note for project managers, charting the process for fee recovery from external clients.

A comparison of the three aforementioned models of inclusion is provided in Table 2 below.

Table 2. A summary of three distinct models of inclusion.

Model of Inclusion	Summary	Pro	Con
Tailored Governance	Assemble a team to address a specific new challenge or task	Selects the most appropriate personnel for dealing with a specific task	Non-inclusive to the wider organisation; less suitable for innovation and long-term strategy development
Board level representation	A subject matter expert or individual from a specific demographic assists the board with its objectives	Board membership likely provides greater clout through direct access to other board members and executive decision-making authority	Possibly viewed as ‘tokenistic’ as permanent board membership of a specific demographic may not necessarily represent the wider demographic
Informal Communities (e.g. ‘Functional Communities of Practice’ (COP))	Seeks representation from staff at all levels of the organisation, to support innovation and change management	Inclusive of the whole organisation, creating a large bank for knowledge generation	Representation in the COP may not have the required expertise to deal with specific challenges, tasks or threats

Tailored governance relies on an important facet of leadership, which is the ability to identify disparate professionals dispersed within different teams and assemble them into a functional team, in order to address specific challenges. Such resourcefulness can be cultivated from an intimate acquaintance with and natural curiosity for the workings of the wider team.

References

PM Times (2020). All Aboard! Functional Communities of Practice: a collective model to inform strategy development. Available at: https://www.projecttimes.com/articles/all-aboard-functional-communities-of-practice-a-collective-model-to-inform-strategy-development.html
Hahn, D.L., Hoffmann, A.E., Felzien, M., LeMaster, J.W., Xu, J., Fagnan, L.J. (2017). Tokenism in patient engagement. Family Practice, 34 (3), pp. 290-295.

Collaboration – Shared Documentation

Written by Deena Chadwick on March 11, 2020. Posted in Articles.

I think one of my favorite collaboration techniques is the idea of a shared deliverable, I call this co-ownership.

Today’s technology has grown so much that almost every application you work on has some type of collaborative or shared capability. These applications can reduce the amount of time to take it takes to get things done in a big way. You no longer have to wait to get something reviewed or looked at. Someone can review a part of your document from their phone. There’s no need to wait until someone’s time is available on their calendar and you don’t have to book the conference room with the television that you can present on. The days of waiting until the document is perfect before you print it out and hand it to others is gone.

This is the ability for multiple people to edit the same document at the same time. This allows for great collaborative techniques like co-authoring & co-ownership.

One person can own the scope statement, another person can own the business rules, and yet another person can own the activity diagram. Here is what makes this great, they can all be editing the same document at the exact same time. You thought two heads were better than one, imagine two keyboards or three or four or however many make sense to get the task done quickly and efficiently.

Whether you are in the same meeting, working on the same document, or just taking the time to get sign off. The most important part about collaboration is that everyone is involved in some way. It is almost the opposite of compromise. In compromise everyone gives something up, in collaboration everyone contributes.

To-Do List/Ta-Da List

Written by Christina Lovelock on December 18, 2019. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on To-Do List/Ta-Da List

Being organised is an important aspect of business analysis, and so is personal reflection and maintaining motivation.

How can these aspects relate to each other?

To-do lists, whether mental, physical or digital (or a combination of all three!) form a key part of our strategy for ‘getting things done’, prioritising and feeling ‘on top of things’.

There is a sense of satisfaction in completing a task, and literally checking things off. That good feeling can be very fleeting, as we look with dismay at the many items remaining on the list, and we tend to take no time to reflect on the totality of things that have been checked-off.

A fact of modern life is that you will never reach the end of your to-do list!

Perhaps there is a way to maintain that sense of accomplishment, to create a lasting record of achievements and have somewhere to turn when a boost of motivation is needed.

When something is completed from your to-do list, take a couple of extra seconds to see if this should be moved to your ‘Ta-da’ list.

This may not be the ‘big-ticket’ items we can put on a CV, but the day-to-day activities we are getting through and instantly moving onto the next task. Items on the Ta-da list might include:

The positive things:

That was great
I surprised myself
I enjoyed that
I’m proud of that
I got great feedback.

The challenging things:

I thought it would take ages but it didn’t
I’ve been putting it off
I’ve never done it before
I was dreading it but it was fine
I was outside my comfort-zone, and I had to really push myself
It didn’t work out how I imagined, but I learned something.

The people things:

We worked really well together
I have a good relationship with that person now
I managed to influence that decision
I really helped that person
They really helped me.

The list may not turn out to be things you can easily articulate as achievements to other people (new job/promotion/bonus/award…) but will grow into a record of everyday activities and successes which would have been all too easily forgotten.

Manging to take note of even one item per month will yield a motivating list to look back on.

EXTENSION TO KANBAN

A physical or digital Kanban board gives us a shared record of what has been ‘Done’. This is a neutral list which does not draw attention to the things the team agree are the major achievements, these achievement’s may or may not reflect particularly significant or interesting features. Extending Kanban to include ‘Ta-da’ moments keeps a celebratory list of the hurdles overcome, the good decisions made and the results that are achieved when the team is at its best.

CONCLUSION

In knowledge based and digital roles, it can often feel that all we ‘achieve’ day-to-day is meetings and emails. To keep up our motivation we need to record and reflect on our wins, successes and feel-good moments throughout the year.

As the year comes to a close, and we enter the new year with resolutions and good intentions, consider how you can make personal reflection part of your routine, as high up on your to-do list as being organised.

Further reading: Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before (2016)