Tag: Tips

I Am Not David Blaine

Written by Elizabeth McKellar on November 3, 2014. Posted in Articles.

“Hello. I am not David Blaine. Nor am I Penn and Teller or Miss Cleo. I am a Business Analyst, and I am here to ask questions and get to better understanding of your business and needs. I am not here to read your minds or predict your requirement changes 72 months from now.”

Do you ever feel the need to start conversations off like this with your business partners? I feel that way all the time. And I certainly do not think I am alone in that feeling.

Like anyone else, business partners tend to be completely caught-up in their own world. They know their business like, well, the back of their hand. Skipping steps, information or needs that should be a factor in future design or program functionality happens and it is not done on purpose by any means. This is just a side effect of knowing an area so well and forgetting that outsiders do not have the same tribal knowledge. Remember, often times, Business Analysts are brought in to work on a singular project and business owners often have multiple projects going on at once. What might be majority of a Business Analyst work may be a tiny part of the business partner’s day. This is true of any industry and any methodology. Being Agile or Waterfall or Kanban is not a free pass on experiencing these pains.

Is there a way to avoid this situation? The short and true answer is NO; requirements will be missed and you will not find out every possible detail of their job that you should probably be aware of. Unless you are in fact a magician with telepathic powers. If that is the case, then please set-up a conference and teach us all your skills! So how can Business Analyst work to combat this inevitable situation? Among the many different tips or tricks, below are the three most common.

Job Shadowing

One way to overcome this is to job shadow your business partners. Not just speaking with the SME (Subject Matter Expert). Sit down with the actual business end user of the software or program. Who uses the application every day? Who would notice a change the most? Sitting down with the SME’s is critical and should never, ever be overlooked. But often times, our conversations tend to stop with the SME’s and leadership. Take a few hours at the beginning of the project and get into the weeds and get the perspective and opinions of the end users. I ask to be trained like a new person joining the team that you want doing the job on their own in the next 48 hours. Ask ‘why’ and ‘how come’ often and keep strategy and future state in-mind. Ask them thought provoking questions that they might not have ever thought about. Go back to them throughout the project and get their opinions. Show them mock-ups and story boards. An awesome side effect of doing this is you can end up with a person or a team that will be more than willing to help QA work later. And – BONUS – you get some nitty-gritty information that SME’s and leadership might have overlooked.

Write it Down

Sometimes, business partners need help remembering what they said was a ‘must have.’ This can be especially true if you use the Waterfall methodology. They may remember a conversation having Outcome A when you remember it having Outcome B. How can this be avoided? Take. Good. Notes. Do not rely solely on your memory or the memory of those around you. Write it all down. Things to consider in your notes:

The meeting or discussion date
The attendees and contributors
The topic at hand
Key pieces of information and decisions made
Who is following-up on what and when are the follow-up’s due back to the group

This does not mean you have to write down everything that was said. Remember, you need to be listening and participating more than writing. After you have cleaned-up your notes a bit, email them to the group. That way they can help correct any confusion and they have a record of the discussion and decision too. This will be a win in your corner when business changes their mind or contradict themselves down the road when discussing requirements and acceptance criteria. In a way, having all the information written out, shared with the group and saved allows you to be a pseudo Miss Cleo. I mean, you are predicting that they will forget what they said six weeks ago.

Ask..and Ask Again

More often than not, we are put on a project that covers a business area we are not familiar with. This is especially true if you are a consultant going into a new client every six to nine months. The great thing about this model of work is that you learn a lot about many different areas. Your breath of skill gets wider and that can lead to more opportunity for long term growth in your career. At the same time, it can leave you feeling a bit frustrated. It is important to keep in mind that you are learning another group’s work (or multiple groups work) and having to understand a job they have taken years to master. Always ask the questions until you truly understand. Never assume something works one way or is there for a certain reason. Do not be afraid to admit to your business partners ‘I do not understand. Can you please explain it to me again?’ They will be willing and, if they seem irritated, just reassure them that the better you understand this in the beginning, the better their technical solution will be. You cannot write requirements, acceptance criteria, project charters or anything else unless you have a firm understanding of the business and their needs.

You are not a mind reader that can zap information out of your business partner’s head. You can, however, anticipate certain behaviors. You can anticipate business SME’s and leadership having a ton on their plate and juggling multiple projects. You can anticipate they will not think of everything that needs to go into a project’s requirements and that they will change their minds on requirements, especially if the project is over an extended period of time. Last but not least, you can anticipate you not understanding everything in the business. Do not go out and by a crystal ball. Instead, take the time to implement certain behavior in your own routine that will help you and the project. Talk to more than just the SME; get to know the the end users. Get their opinions and input. This will make them feel more connected to the project and what you are changing. It will also help you find out details that leadership might overlook. Write down your discussions and key information. We cannot expect to keep everything in our brains and expect others to remember conversations in the same way. Be sure to send your notes to the group so that they have the same information you have. And never be afraid to ask the questions to your business as often as you need. The end result will be a better project or product because you have more details to work with. No project or product change is flawless; but following these three simple steps and remembering that you are not a mind reader will go a long way.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

How to Ask the Right Questions Part 1: The Paradox of the Right Question and how to ask it

Written by Steve Blais on August 18, 2014. Posted in Articles. 37 Comments on How to Ask the Right Questions Part 1: The Paradox of the Right Question and how to ask it

In my travels one of the more common questions from new and experienced business analysts is “how do I ask the Right Questions?” There seems to be a belief that expert business analysts have a knack for choosing just the Right Question that will produce the answers that will solve the problem. So I thought I’d write a short piece about asking the Right Question, primarily to remove the anxiety and concern business analysts seem to have about asking the right question. I discussed the concept with a couple of business analysts and during the conversation I realized that the problem was not in knowing what to ask, but rather in how to ask it. My short piece blossomed into a four-part article, first discussing the paradox of trying to determine the Right Question to ask, and tips on asking the right question. The second part addresses what questions to ask to make sure you ask the Right Question. The third part focuses on how to ask the Right Question to get the right answer. And the fourth part deals with avoiding asking the wrong questions, or more specifically asking the Right Questions in the wrong way.

The Right Question. It conjures up a image of the business analyst spends time preparing a list of questions, and agonizing over each one to determine whether this one question is the Right Question for this particular stakeholder at this time in this specific situation.

With that kind of pressure on the business analyst to be sure to ask the Right Question, no wonder one of the business analyst’s more frequent questions is “how do I ask the Right Questions?” The issue is never “how do I ask questions?” but always about the “Right Question“. So let us talk about the Right Question and how to track it down and ask it.

Why is it so important to ask the Right Question?

First of all we need to understand that questions are the mainstay of the business analysts’ process. The business analyst lives on information. The more information the better. The business analyst needs information in order to analyze. The analysis of the information is what produces the problem, the solution, the requirements, and the results. And information is acquired by asking questions: first, of yourself, and then of others.

So what is a right question? As with many things in life. One of the better ways of determining how to excel in a particular area of expertise is to see how those we consider to be experts do it. I have mentioned Sherlock Holmes in the past as a model for business analysts in terms of critical thinking and analysis, but Sherlock Holmes was also a consummate interviewer. He not only gathered information with his magnifying glass, microscope, and keen eye, he also questioned witnesses and his clients, not to mention the perpetrators. A classic plot pattern that apparently started with Conan Doyle has Sherlock Holmes apprehending the culprit and then asking the wrongdoer to explain the details of the crime. This begins an description occupying a good portion of the book or story explaining all the details of Mormon revenge (A Study in Scarlet), stolen treasure (The Sign of Four) and so forth.

Perhaps a more current and non-fictional model for asking questions might be better for us to understand what the Right Question is. David Frost and Barbara Walters are examples of people paid lots of money to ask the Right Question. There are also print journalists of note who break stories by apparently knowing the Right Questions to ask.

So why is there such a focus on asking the Right Question? Perhaps because the literature seems to indicate that there are Right Questions out there floating around and the business analyst simply has to grab one and ask it. For example, the lead sentence in an article written in 2011 by Wilco Charité titled “Asking the Right Questions: Process Discovery” says, “If you are an internal Business Analyst or consultant asking the right questions in a Discovery project is a critical skill.” [1]

And there are further exhortations from various people of note: Actress, activist, and author Vanessa Redgrave says, “Ask the right questions if you’re going to find the right answers.” Entrepreneur Robert Half says, “Asking the right questions takes as much skill as giving the right answers.” And anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss suggests: “The wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions.”

Perhaps the belief that there is a Right Question comes from the many lawyer shows in which Perry Mason or Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston in Law & Order) always seem to ask the question which causes the person on the witness stand to break down and confess the murder or say some incriminating statement that turns the case around. Or the detectives like Miss Marple, or Hercule Poirot, or Columbo, who seemed to be able to ask the Right Questions that produces an rendering of the crime and catches the perpetrator.

And how does the concept of the Right Question affect the business analyst?

Even when a business analyst feels as though they have done a particularly effective job of elicitation, and have all the information that defines the problem and / or solution, there are “surprises” that crop up after the elicitation phase is theoretically done. And that is when the business analyst commiserates with other business analysts saying, “They didn’t tell me about that! If only I had asked the Right Question!” Business analysts need to get information and it seems that sometimes only the Right Question will get that information.

What is the Right Question?

So with all this concern about asking the Right Question, perhaps we should determine what a Right Question is.

Trying to figure out the Right Question to ask is a paradox. You cannot know if you’ve asked the right question until you have received an answer. If the answer to a question gives you the information that you are looking for then you have asked the Right Question. But you only know that it was the Right Question after the information gathering session is over and you have analyzed the results. And if you ask many questions to get the information you are seeking, how do you know which one is the Right Question?

So, what is a Right Question? The Right Question is the question that gives us the Right Answer. We may never really know what the Right Question is. Only the Right Answer is important.

For example, in perhaps the greatest interview of the 20th century, David Frost got former president, Richard Nixon to say, “I let down my friends. I let down the country. I look down our system of government and the dreams of all those young people that want to get into government, but now think it too corrupt. I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me the rest of my life.” This answer has been quoted and referred to many times and is the climax of the stage play and movie “Frost / Nixon”. But does anyone remember the question that preceded. Does anyone remember the right question? What remember is the right answer. And, in fact, that answer was the result of dozens of questions over several sessions, all asking for the same answer, which was finally given in response to just one question.

The bottom line: we can never really know we have asked the Right Question until after we have all the answers and analyze them to see if we now know what we need to know; we have the Right Answer. But, then, of course, you have to know what the Right Answer is before you ask the Right Question. And that might be the problem.

How do you ask the Right Question? Ask more questions

“Asking more questions reduces the need to have all the answers.”
Donald Peterson, former CEO of Ford Motor Company

The real answer to asking the right questions is simple: keep asking. When you ask enough questions, in and among all the questions you ask are the right ones. As long as you listen well and keep the focus on the problem or the solution, it does not matter which questions are Right. In the end, the Right Questions are those that get you relevant information. [2]

The only true way of asking the Right Question is to keep asking questions and asking more questions. The more questions you ask the greater the chances that you will get the answers that you are looking for: especially the Right Answer.

In addition to eventually asking the Right Question, asking more questions has the advantage of increasing the amount of information we as business analysts have to analyze, increasing our chances that we have found the Right Answer.

Consider our models, David Frost and Barbara Walters who always seem to ask the Right Question . What we see is not the full interview, but an edited version. The editors put the show together for entertainment, cutting out the questions that were not so Right, and adroitly placing the commercials right after a particular Right Question so that it will have the most memorable effect. To get the one hour dramatic interview with Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Richard Nixon, Michael Jackson or Jane Fonda, Frost and Walters had to prepare thousands of questions and probably ask hundreds. Many questions were pedestrian and many probably got answers that are not pertinent, or at least not entertaining or informative.

And those Pulitzer Prize winning journalists have reams of notes from hundreds of interviews consisting of hundreds of questions to produce a single news or magazine or article. A major part of a journalist’s work is the editing of the information gained from interviews and other information gathering into a cohesive whole

Business analysts do have a form of editing: it’s called analysis. The analysis is done after the information is collected, not before. We don’t analyze what we are going to ask so that we produce the Right Question; we just ask as many questions as we can and get as much information as we can so that we can determine the Right Answer afterwards. While there are techniques to getting more information, determining the Right Answer relies almost solely on the ability to analyze. More on this later.

How do I ask more questions? Redevelop Intellectual Curiosity

One personal characteristic that will help you ask the Right Questions is intellectual curiosity. When you can inculcate a desire to know everything about everything, questions, especially Right Questions, come more easily.

Business analysts possessing intellectual curiosity have voracious appetites for learning. They do not shy away from new or unfamiliar concepts but rather try to incorporate those concepts into their understanding. They tend to be very good listeners who absorb information like sponges.

Life coach, Dr. John D. Skare, Ed. D, defines intellectual curiosity as “a term used to describe one’s desire to invest time and energy into learning more about a person, place, thing or concept””

Are you really interested in the person or persons you are questioning and the information they possess or are you more interested in completing the requirements document? This intellectual curiosity is what drives us to ask more questions. Just as a child is curious about the whole world and his or her part in it, we can be curious about the whole business and our initiative’s part in it.

Developing intellectual curiosity is not difficult. We all are born with intellectual curiosity As children we truly want to know what the world is about, and what our place in the world is. We ask questions and more questions. Children, especially two-year olds, do not have to learn the “5 Whys”. They ask Why automatically without thinking. Over the years as we grow up we are taught not to ask questions. Research shows that young children have hundreds of questions every day, but by the eighth grade those same children ask only two questions a day on the average. Why?

“In school, we’re rewarded for having the answer, not for asking a good question.”
Richard Saul Wurman, original creator of the TED Conferences

Maybe it’s because the adults we are asking don’t know the answers and tell us to stop asking, or maybe we just get frustrated and stop asking. Perhaps it’s because we are conditioned by that age through school to have more answers and to ask less questions. [3]

As adults, especially in business, there is also another reason: we cannot afford to appear stupid by asking questions. People believe that they got their position or place at work because of what they know, their experience, and asking questions will belie that assumed knowledge. The belief is; if you are a “knowledge worker” and therefore paid for your knowledge, asking questions shows a lack of that knowledge and places your job, and perhaps career in jeopardy. And this includes business analysts. Despite the exhortation, “there are no stupid questions.”, Most people appear to believe more ardently that there are Stupid Questions, then that there are Right Questions.. After all, I don’t hear anyone asking how to ask stupid questions, and I doubt anyone that article titled “how to ask stupid questions.”

So what to do to recapture the attitude of intellectual curiosity? Think like a child? Well, yes. Listen naively as though you have never heard the information before, even if it is the eighth straight interview or information gathering session on the same subject. Assess the information you are receiving critically and think about what question you might ask. For example,

Are there any words that might be ambiguous?
Am I making any assumptions?
Is the responder making assumptions?
Can I get more details about what they are describing?
Can what they are describing be construed generally?
Is the information relevant to the question (if not why not? And how do I get relevant information)?
Why is the responder answering the question in this particular way? (e.g. giving closed ended answers to open ended questions)
What else don’t I understand about this answer or this situation?
Why are they not able to answer a particular question? Who can answer it?
Are they answering because they assume I expect an answer and not because they really know?
Do they want to answer my questions now, or at all?
And so forth

Is that all there is to asking the Right Questions?

To ask the Right Questions, you have to know what to ask, who has the information to answer the question, when the question is indeed answered, how to ask the question so that you get the information needed, how to analyze the information to produce the needed answer, where to place the answer among all the other information you have received, and when to go back to ask the question again.

Distilling it down: there are three basic skills to asking the Right Questions.

Know what to ask the Right Question
Know how to ask the Question the Right way
Know how to analysis to determine the Right Answer

Since I’ve run about out of word space for this part of the article, I will end here. The next parts will address

How to ask the Right Question by knowing what to ask
How to ask the Right Question by knowing how to ask it
How to avoid asking the wrong questions

Look for them in upcoming Business analyst Times issues.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

[1] ModernAnalyst.com, March 14, 2011
[2] Blais, Business Analysis: Best Practices for Success, John Wiley, 2011
[3] Coleman, Ken, One Question, Howard Books, 2013. Not only does this book describe the reason why we don’t ask questions and the importance of asking them (in the introduction) but it also contains examples of interview where Right Questions are asked. Remember however, the book and interviews are edited.

Failure to Manage our Time is a Modern Ailment

Written by Michelle Symonds on August 11, 2014. Posted in Articles.

Feeling like there are not enough hours in the day can be a major constraint for most business analysts. But what is the answer? Delegate more? Sleep less? Become more efficient? There are plenty of answers that crop up but successfully managing your time when there are so many pulls on that time takes steely determination. How many of us are strong enough to switch off our phones and ignore our emails, even for just a couple of hours a day? And yet that simple exercise could help us reduce the time pressures we are under.

So instead of letting a lack of time overwhelm you, try some of the following tactics to help you become a more organised, more efficient and less stressed business analyst:

1. Focus on the Priorities

A list of tasks or a project schedule without any meaningful priorities attached to each activity and any dependencies between tasks recorded is of little use to anyone. After all what happens when further tasks need to be added; they clearly can’t just be tacked on at the end of the list, especially if there are inter-dependencies.

You may think you do have a prioritised task list, but projects are constantly changing, so your priorities will have to as well. Business analysis and project management are inextricably tied up with change management so changes need to be embraced, whilst at the same time controlled so accept that priorities will change.

Review the priorities regularly (the most appropriate time period will depend on the size and complexity of the project you are currently working on) and be prepared to drop one task in favour of another. However, take the time to really determine what the priorities are; the person shouting the loudest does not necessarily have the most important requirements.

2. Delegate

This is fairly obvious but many of us are still bad at delegation, but don’t try and do everything yourself; others in the project team may actually relish the opportunity to take on responsibility for running a meeting or preparing documentation – after all, it is all good experience that will help them develop their own careers. Concentrate on what you are good at not the minutiae of administration. If you are lucky enough to have a Project Management Office (PMO) then make use of them, that’s what they are there for.

3. Time Box

Allocate time limits for everything from meetings to producing specifications and reviewing documentation and any of the other regular activities you engage in. Meetings, in particular can eat into your time and often with little gain compared to the time expended. By limiting every meeting to an hour or two (or whatever is appropriate for the topic to be discussed) you will ensure everyone present focuses on that topic and does not use the meeting as an opportunity to bring up their latest gripe.

For short, regular meetings, such as status updates, hold a “stand-up” meeting in a room without any chairs. You will be surprised at how quickly and efficiently everyone will discuss what they need to when they can’t sit down (and did you know that standing up is actually good for your health!).

4. Put it in Black & White

Daily or weekly To-Do lists and notes of ideas and inspiration can help clarify your thoughts and objectives so you focus your efforts on what really matters. You can jot things down in a notebook or use a spreadsheet or one of the many apps available for your phone, whatever method you prefer. Treat your notes as an aide-memoir – they are not meant to be a detailed task list or a detailed solution to a problem. And there is something very satisfying about crossing things off a list once they are done.

5. Technology-free Time

I remember a time when everyone thought technology was going to give us lots of spare time, and it does in many situations, but there are other ways in which it eats into our time. Reading emails that we are copied into when really we are not required to join in the discussion, reading the daily newsletters and updates that populate our inboxes; being active on social media networks.

Start to regain some of that time by unsubscribing from all but the essential email lists you are on – with the time you will save you can schedule time to catch up with your favourite sites without all the unnecessary emails clogging up your inbox.

Once you have cleaned up what you receive, set aside a specific time each day or week to ignore your emails – don’t be shocked, in fact, you may be surprised how even “important” emails resolve themselves if you don’t respond, after all what would happen if you were on holiday or in hospital, someone would have to sort out any problems. And if you are worried that you will lose some authority by not instantly responding to emails then your career is built on flimsy foundations anyway.

And as for social media, there are extremely useful tools out there just make sure the benefits you gain from their use outweigh the time invested. And, again, schedule time in your day when you use it rather than constantly checking for updates or constantly posting updates. A well-thought out post/share once a day is just as valuable as constant activity that says little of value.

6. Sit Back and Think

Instead of lurching from task to task or crisis to crisis take a step back from the “doing” and try some thinking – think about what is really important for the success of your current project and your long-term career. Taking the time to think through a problem, rather than rushing into activity, so that it looks like you are resolving the problem, can actually help you to deliver a better solution. Often too little time is spent thinking or planning because this is not perceived as “real” work when, in fact, it is the thinking time that will produce the best results.

These are just some strategies that business analysts can try in order to regain some time and some order in their lives. In the meantime I am going to try and take my own advice…

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

Better Tools: Efficient Table Management

Written by Martin Coomber on July 28, 2014. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Better Tools: Efficient Table Management

As a Business Analyst, I know that models and diagrams are the most effective way of expressing ideas, information, and outcomes. However, no matter how much I use visual content, I am often required to prepare text-heavy documents.

Whether it is requirements statements, business cases, service levels, project reports or dozens of other documents, sometimes I need to prepare written content as efficiently as possible.

To present written content, I try to maximise my use of tables, typically using Microsoft Word. I found the that the standard table tools in Word were not as efficient as I needed, so I set out to address these deficiencies.

This article outlines my thoughts on why tables are so effective, and indicates the improvements that I have made to Word’s table management features. I then describe the techniques I used to build them, and provide a link where you can find further details and copies of each of the tools.

What Tables Offer

From a BA perspective, I believe tables provide the following benefits:

Item	Feature	Comment
1	Conciseness	The limited space in a table drives a focus on recording key information. Unnecessary content is discouraged. Bullet points are encouraged. Short phrases, possibly ungrammatical, can be used.
2	Usability	Readers are much more likely to scan a table; large amounts of information can be viewed at a glance. Tables also allow the reader to spot patterns and search for detail that would otherwise be lost in regular text. Tables focus attention onto the key points on the page.
3	Context	The column and row headings provide context to table entries that would be lengthy and repetitive to record in regular text.
4	Structure	The order of rows and their presence in particular sections conveys important structural information. Numbering rows aids the review process and provides traceability.
5	Speed	Tables allow information to be captured and formatted quickly. This is important for BAs working to deadlines.

Renumbering Improvements

For me, the main issue with Word’s standard tools was the lack automated row renumbering. There is real value in having consistently numbered rows, but without some sort of renumbering, inserting a row into an existing numbered table of can be a real pain. For example, when creating a list of requirements, I need to add new entries and move items around. I then want the numbering to adjust accordingly.

In some documents, I need to build several lists, so I need the ability to add a prefix to the numbering in each table, so that across the document as a whole, each entry is unique.

Sometimes I need to reliably lock down the numbering in a given table so that new entries don’t automatically change those that already exist. I can then safely renumber the new rows manually.

Appearances matter too, at times I need to use different numbering styles, from the simple (1,2,3,…) to more complex formats such as (A.1, A.2, A.3,…) or (NF-01, NF-02,NF-03…) that involve different sections within a given table, and using different separators, with or without leading zeros.

Word does offer some basic tools for this kind of formatting. For example, it allows you to use outline numbered lists in the first column of a table. I have found these to be tricky to use, especially with prefixes, and it is hard to lock down the numbering at a certain point, so you can be sure that nothing changes.

To address these issues, I decided to write my own one-touch renumbering process.

Inserting and Deleting Improvements

One of my key requirements is the ability to quickly add new rows. I often need to record several new ideas in a table very quickly, for example, when recording workshop findings during rapid discussion.

Word lets you insert lines, but this can require several keystrokes, and you have to be careful how you do it. In Word, it matters whether you insert above or below the current line. I would often get it wrong, and end up with section or heading row formatting copied into the body of the table, and have to use even more keystrokes to correct this.

I decided I needed a one-touch insert function that reliably inserted (say) 5 blank lines below the current line and positioned the cursor ready for rapid entry.

Creating blank lines for quick entry means occasional empty, unused lines. I decided I needed a table clean-up routine to remove unwanted rows before the renumbering started.

Having a one-touch insert function suggested the need for a complementary one-touch delete, something that would delete rows if rows were selected, or regular text if that was selected instead.

Getting Started with the Build.

Microsoft Office comes with a development tool called VBA. You can get started with VBA by having Word record a series of keystrokes and then see how these actions have been converted into VBA code ready for repetitive use. There is a vast amount of information on the web about getting started with VBA, and most BAs will be productive in just an hour or two.

I decided that my table tools would be launched by shortcut keys rather than by using the Ribbon menu. Ribbon coding isn’t for the faint-hearted, and for speed reasons I wanted to keep my fingers on the keyboard as much as possible.

I needed a way of making the tools available to any document without having to load code into each. I found that Word allows you to load a template into its startup folder. This gets opened automatically and allows the code within it to be used by any document. In some environments, this code needs to be digitally signed, but there are simple tools available to self-sign the code for each PC you use.

My first major task was to prove the tools could be invoked correctly. I did this by creating some test routines, assigning them to shortcut keys and confirming I could use them whenever a I needed.

I then tested the basic table manipulation tools in VBA. These included stepping through each row, updating text, deleting rows and similar functions. Word has some quirky ways of marking the end of text in cells, so these tools took a bit of getting used to.

I also needed to store information about the tables. For example, which tables allow renumbering, whether a prefix being used, and what separator should applied. To do this, I decided to use custom document properties, and had to build a set of tools to read these values and update them when they were changed by the user.

The basic routines came together fairly quickly, but I did spend quite a while making the logic handle the wide variety of table manipulation tasks that a BA needs.

I also found that my use of tables really took off when I simplified the text styles I used for tables. I recommend taking the time to set up new styles for standard table text, table bullet points and table headers. Keeping these separate from the regular text styles allows easy change of the fonts to fit the changing cell space availability, and assigning these styles to shortcut keys means they can be used quickly and reliably.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

Prepare and be Personal

Written by Kupe Kupersmith on June 16, 2014. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Prepare and be Personal

I want to thank all of you for reading my blog posts and always adding to the conversation. We grow by seeking out information and challenging each other’s thoughts. Well, I want to grow too, so I read other people’s blogs. One of my favorites is Frances Cole Jones. Her latest post, Raising a Glass: How to Give a Memorable Toast made some great points beneficial to BA professionals. In short she says be prepared, make it personal, and make it universal. Even though a toast is short, you can’t wing it…be prepared. The toast should be about the uniqueness of your relationship with the person you are toasting…make it personal. Finally, when telling a story try to connect with the larger audience. Talk about something that everyone can relate too…make it universal. For today’s post I am going to focus on the first two, being prepared and making it personal.

When I talk to people around the world a common area of improvement shared is the ability to think on your feet. So many people get nervous just thinking about bumping into a Director or VP because they are not going to know what to say if they are asked a question. Many people don’t like presenting in front of a group because they feel they may freeze when someone asks a question. The only way around it is being prepared. In reality thinking on your feet is not winging it.

Being able to think on your feet comes from being prepared for any situation and then relaxing so you can recognize the situation and recall the information. For the random conversation with the VP, take a few minutes and think about what he could ask about. Then come up with your answers and practice them. Same goes for a presentation. For the topic at hand, ask yourself what can the attendees possibly ask me? Be ready with answers. The more prepared you are, the more relaxed you’ll be. This will allow you to keep an open mind, hear the questions and respond with an answer that you most likely came up with already.

While you are thinking about your responses make them personal to the audience. If you are talking with your CIO and she asks about the projects you are working on. You may want to think about addressing your CIO’s goals. Does she need to know the specifics of your project or maybe more about the goal the project is addressing? It also does not hurt to ask, “How much time do you have and how much detail do you want?”
How do you really make things personal? The way you make things personal is by building relationships with the people you work with. The better you know the people you work with, what interests them, and what drives them, the more personal you can make the response. I realize it is not realistic to build relationships with everyone. If building a good relationship with the director or VP is not doable, find out who does have a good relationship with them. Ask them to help give you the background you need.

It can seem a bit more difficult to ensure you are “making it personal” when it comes to a meeting or presentation with multiple attendees. When you schedule a group meeting you probably think about and know why you are inviting all the attendees. That’s only a piece of the puzzle. Don’t assume the attendee knows why they should be there. You have to make sure they know why they are invited. For some meetings it may be as easy as sending an email to each invitee explaining why they were personally invited to the meeting. Sometimes it takes a conversation. This is a necessary extra step you must take to make sure the meeting or presentation is personal to them. This step also gives the invitee the option of starting a conversation around why they may not need to be there.

Regardless of the situation don’t shy away from these moments even if you are not prepared. Don’t duck in a room if you see a VP coming. You learn through practice. You’ll gain information on what questions people ask and what makes it personal to them.

All the best,
Kupe