Tag: Training

Updates from BBC Vegas With Angela Wick

Written by Angela Wick on November 2, 2016. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Updates from BBC Vegas With Angela Wick

Angela Wick is at BBC (Building Business Capability) Conference in Las Vegas this week. Be sure to check back often for all her updates!

Update #9 – Emerging Trends in Technology and Critical Skills – Ken Fulmer

Ken gave a talk this morning on how disruptive technologies are impacting the BA work we do. This has been a major theme at the conference; so many sessions talking about this and the conference twitter storm (#BBCcon) is buzzing with tweets about it.

What strikes me about this is how easy it is to think that this is far way, or that it does not impact my org or client?

IT IS CLOSER THAN WE CAN IMAGNE! As BAs we will be impacted VERY SOON and likely already but not seeing it!

Ken covered 3 areas of impact in his presentation.

Cloud Computing and SaaS

Key impacts to BAs:

Move to product vs. project capability and enhancing the value of the product ongoing. Short lifecycles and very frequent releases.
As BAs we need to help the users adjust their process to fit the package and its options without code change

Artificial Intelligence

Decisions knowledge workers make will be automated
New Skill – How to teach a machine how to think?
How much BA work can be automated?
The work left of BAs will be strategic, facilitative, insightful and creative

Automation

Things like IoT (internet of things) devices, 3D printing and Robotics
The “digital BA” helps analyze and link all these things.

Other factors of all this that impacts our business analysis:

More sophisticated customer and their needs are changing FAST too!
Disruptive business models – Like Uber? – Could a disruptive start-up or disruptive change by a legacy company totally change your industry? Are you ready?
Is your company disruptive enough?

Career challenges for BAs with this?

Understand business models and how to influence it
Understand how to digest and handle TONS of information and develop insights to value
Lifetime learning – Good BAs need to get better, learn more, expand your role

Organizational Challenges:

Invest in learning as well, develop relevant skills for teams
Expanded role in BAs, agile teams, product owners

Shout out to all of you – Do you have a disruptive mind set? Do you know how to adjust your business analysis and decision making facilitation to account for disruption in your industry? Are you ramping up your skills?

Update #8 – Business Analysis On the Cusp of Change – Katie Bolla, KPMG & Stephen Ashworth, IIBA

IIBA commissioned a research study on Business Analysis and the results have been published and discussed this week. This morning a session on the results!

A link to download the study results is available on www.iiba.org

Three Trends:

Technology and Data
Sophisticated Customers
Industry Disruption

Top CEO Concerns:

Customer Loyalty
Relevant products
Not enough time to think strategically

Key Takeaways:

Trends – How to compete in disruptive era – and where the BA fits in
- BA role moving from tactical to value centric
Shifting expectations of business analysis skills
- More cognitive, strategic, innovative, insightful
Delivering value and insights
- Looking at data differently. What insight does the data give not just how does it flow through a system
Conditions for Success
- Support and awareness of business analysis in the organization

Update #7 – Crucial Conversations: 5 Critical Concepts to Help You Effectively Discuss What Really Matters Most – With Bob Prentiss, BobTheBA

It’s Friday at 8am in Las Vegas and hundreds have their coffee in hand ready for Bob to wake us up!

As BAs, we don’t have enough crucial conversations! They are needed to lead! Mastering soft skills will get us through these conversations.

Bob took us through the steps and key elements that we need to understand how to have crucial conversations. As always he provided us with great humor and entertainment along the way.

Update #6 – The Need for Agile Portfolio Management – Shane Hastie

We are just getting used to agile as a delivery model, but now do it at a portfolio level! What does this mean? Shane has set out to help us understand!

Consider your organizations project investment portfolio a backlog of projects in the organization like a backlog that gets regularly prioritized, items can come on and off and change priorities.

According to Shane, 75% of requirements change every 12 months, and this is why we need to adaptive portfolio management.

The life of a requirement is short!

So, let’s imagine requirements at the business objective level, if these are changing just as often, how can we plan our project investment in Q4 for all of the next year?

This totally resonated with me! Many leaders I work with are frustrated that they have to decide now what projects they think they will need a year from now, and then the project takes months or years to deliver. By the time the project is implemented, it is years from the idea and too much has changed since to deliver value. And, more important things have come up since! Agile portfolio management helps organizations plan and use uncertainty and change strategically in their investment and portfolio planning.

My favorite quotes from Shane’s session:

“Stop starting to start stopping”

“The essence of strategy is saying NO, not just adding another backlog item.”

“The Portfolio/Program/Program office (or PMO) should be about value facilitation, not cost and risk office.”

Lots of deep thoughts coming out of this session!

Update #5 – I Wish I could be in More than 1 place at the same time!

I can’t be in more than one place at the same time, but I wish I could!

So many great sessions from many great BATimes.com bloggers you read!

I am currently sitting in a session with Stephanie Vineyard and her co-presenter Jennifer Starkey. They are presenting on how to build tests from User Stories and connecting Features to User Stories, and acceptance tests using Gherkin language, which is business readable and also computer-readable. This enables some automated testing in their agile environment. They have about 100 people practicing writing GIVEN-WHEN-THEN statements for sample user stories.

Also this morning Clinton Ages has a session on actualizing corporate innovation.

Yesterday while in the Agile BA Panel where BATimes Blogger Kent McDonald was part of the panel, I missed out on a session with Richard Larson, and yet another session at the same time with Kupe Kupersmith and Lori Silverman.

Later today Hans Eckman, Mary Gorman, and Heather Mylan-Mains are speaking. And, tomorrow “BobTheBA” Bob Prentiss wakes us up with an 8am session.

I have also been hanging out at the Agile Open Jam area of the conference. Last year and this year I have been honored to be a facilitator at the Agile Open Jam where anyone at the conference can come by and ask a question or submit a topic for a 20 min huddle discussion with an experienced agile practitioner. The Agile Open Jam goes all day, each day of the conference and a group of experienced agile practitioners takes turns facilitating the discussions. This year the hot topics are: Product Ownership, Scaling the Product Owner Role, Difference Between Product Owner and BA, and more Product Ownership Topics! The Agile Open Jam is organized and hosted by the Agile Alliance in partnership with the conference. Below is a snapshot of what the Agile Open Jam looks like in action!

More updates coming!

Angela

Update #4 – Agile Business Analysis: Current State of the Practice

A panel discussion with Mary Gorman, Shane Hastie, James King, Kent McDonald, and Jas Phul. Moderated by Alain Arseneault

The panel is made up of part of the team creating the 2nd addition of the Agile Extension of the IIBA BABOK.

Agile BA is a HOT topic at the conference, and many are excited to hear from the panel. I have been talking to many attendees, and the Agile BA is on many minds. No longer is there a question of if a BA fits in agile, most are now talking about the various ways agile teams are using and leveraging the BA skill set and how agile teams are doing analysis.

Some key quotes from the panel:

“It’s about learning and adapting to enable our organizations to deliver faster.”

“Analysis is critical, and the BA brings those analysis skills. Asking the hard questions, identifying value, and what we shouldn’t be doing.”

“If you are a BA no matter what type, we need to understand what the actual need is. Think then act.”

“The agile manifesto is a historical document. Instead of valuing working software, we need to be valuing the outcomes are we seeing?”

How has the role of Agile BA evolved over the last 5 years?

• Focus on value and outcomes
• 5 years ago the idea of putting a BA onto an agile team was not as accepted. Today there is a recognition that product ownership is more complex, and analysis is a really important part of it, and analysis and BA brings a lot to this. Yes, that is product ownership, not just Product Owner.
• In the past 5 years, the BA work of an agile team is more evenly spread. The idea of a rigid role structure is evolving. The focus of analysis is broad, not just the next sprint.
• BA work is evolving and recognition that BAs are not replacing thinking they are facilitating thinking, helping the team analyze.
• The positive message here is as BA professionals we have the competencies that can add value to any project, even an agile context. We are really well suited to being BAs on an agile project.

“Agile should be making it quicker and easier to get the job done, not replacing the job.”

Skills needed for Agile BAs? Here is what the panel had to say:

User experience, customer experience focus, customer empathy and getting into the minds of the customer. Understanding the potentials of technology. Value stream mapping. Understanding data (model it and communicate it). Decision making, either you make the decisions, or you facilitate them and realizing what goes into making decisions. Understanding cognitive bias. Strategy, vision, goals, objectives. Deliver value every iteration! Facilitation, collaboration, negotiation, conflict resolution.

There was a discussion on what the value of the BA is in agile… and one comment that struck the audience was: Value of a BA in agile? “Turn the question around and ask: Will you take the risk of not having a BA? Are you comfortable having developers make the decisions?”

From all of this, I hope you can feel the energy around this hot topic.

Other hot topics at the conference that I hear the crowd discuss are around themes of digitalization and getting closer to the customer.

More updates soon!

Angela

Update #3 – Your Customer is Changing – IIBA Keynote – Brad Rucker

Who is your customer? Are you sure?

Brad has challenged us at BBC this afternoon to rethink who our customer really is.

He discussed “Customer Friction,” which is any interaction that has a negative impact on the customer’s experience.

So, my line of thought when listening to Brad is: How as BAs does our requirements work impact Customer Friction? Even if the process or system being built, changed or fixed is not something the customer interacts with we still need to understand the impact and friction factor from the customer perspective.

For example, how does every project you work on impact a customer touch point? The user who uses that system or process likely is using it when interacting with or serving a customer, right? Do we, as BAs know the ways in that our requirements may cause negative feelings in customers? Or are we just thinking about the internal user? Are we helping our stakeholders think through the impact of their requirements on the end customer of the organization? Are we having these conversations on projects?

Brad talked about how easy it is to lose a transaction and eventually a customer do to customer friction and negative customer experience.

Provoking thoughts!

Update #2 – BBC Keynote – The Invisible Habits of Excellence – Juliet Funt

Juliet started us off this morning with an inspiring talk about how busyness is robbing us of being thoughtful, creative, and solving problems effectively. She talks about how taking the time to “pause” stimulates better work.

Does your office have a sense of thoughtfulness?

What would it be like to work in an environment like this?

Juliet resonates with the crowd that our time is under attack!

My favorite quote from Juliet this morning:

“Our global workforce is so fried it belongs in the food court of the county fair.”

Juliet contends that when talented people don’t have time to think, business always suffers. When is the last time you caught someone thinking? Thinking changes everything, and as BAs, our job is to provide, detail, strategy, and excellence. She is asking us to think about what is it costing for us to work without thoughtfulness?

Juliet talks about how we need skills to “de-crapify” our work life, and create space and pause for thoughtfulness to truly bring out our best skills. Juliet discusses how busyness and overload might be the biggest boulder in the road for what you are trying to achieve on that project!

I can relate, can you?

Does our detailed work as BAs keep us in the micro too much? How can we come up to the macro and influence a mindset of thoughtfulness in our teams? How can you model thoughtfulness to our team when we work and inspire creativity and better problem solving?

This is deep! Yes, we as BAs impact the thoughtfulness and creativity of others we work with!

In the age of overload, we are lured into a pace and pressure that actually reduces our effectiveness.

41% of our time is being taken up by low-value tasks. Why? It is so hard to let go of unimportant things. Letting go is the path to freeing up our time to create thoughtfulness.

Juliet has truly left us inspired to rethink how we spend our time and how important space and pause is.

Later today I am looking forward to sessions from Brad Rucker on how the BA role is changing with more digital business transformation and leading our organizations towards a customer-centric future.

I am also looking forward to the session on the Current State of Agile Business Analysis, a panel discussion.

Stay tuned!
Angela

Update #1 – Live from the BBC (Building Business Capability) Conference in Las Vegas!

BBC 2016 is the official conference of the IIBA and this year brings to us:

• 1400+ attendees, from 27 different countries
• 125 sessions, 32 Tutorials, 4 Keynotes
• Agile Open Jam hosted by the Agile Alliance
• Many sponsors, networking events, and great content and learn, network, and share!

Overall the conference is looking to provide pragmatic approaches to business innovation and excellence.

I will be blogging this week on the key sessions and hot topics that are all the buzz at the event this year!

I would love to hear from you on what you want to hear about.

You can comment on the blogs or use my twitter @WickAng, or @batimes to connect with us about the show. The conference twitter hashtag is #BBCCON; myself and many others will be updating the twitter feeds often.

Monday and Tuesday this week were the pre-conference tutorials. Half day workshop tutorials that explore topics more deeply. Today – Friday are the symposium sessions where speakers from around the globe give talks on leading edge business analysis topics.

There is a great video: http://www.buildingbusinesscapability.com/why-attend/ about what BBC is all about.

I am looking forward to bringing you event happenings and updates!

From the Archives: Diving Into Unofficial Roles & Responsibilities of the Business Analyst

Written by Angela Wick on August 18, 2016. Posted in Articles.

Why are we the psychologists and the babysitters?

Often on airplanes I get asked, “So, what do you do?”

I am sure if you travel you get this one as well! Do any of you answer with “I am a therapist?”

Well, I do, and it works really well! I am a therapist that helps business teams and technology teams work together and create meaningful products, services, and systems.

I help them agree on changes and create a shared understanding.
I create a process and platform to communicate.
I make them both feel like they are the ones who came up with the ideas.
I make conflict seem like a non-issue and create win/wins.
I present options and alternatives and work through, with the pros and cons.
And, they pay me an hourly rate to do this!

You rarely see “therapist” on a list of required BA skills, but a comparison of BA job descriptions across industries, across nations or even across a single organization, yields an amazing variety of responsibilities and required skill sets. Even the industry leading IIBA BABOK (embedded link: http://www.iiba.org/babok-guide.aspx) highlights more than 20 underlying competencies that support the professional practice of business analysis.

Related Article: Your Next Business Analyst Will be a Robot

Lengthy BA skill lists that include creative thinking, technical skills, adaptability, listening, solution knowledge, teaching, testing, leadership, facilitation, etc., confirm our reality that BAs are expected to be the Swiss Army Knife of the project, product, IT, or operations world. It’s no wonder that most BAs claim to “wear many different hats.”

Despite the wide variety of accepted roles and responsibilities, BAs are often asked to wear strange hats—to take on unofficial duties that don’t really fit the wide range of normal. I get asked in my classes on a regular basis: “Is it the BA’s role to ___________?” Students fill in the blank with common things like testing, coding, and project management, but hostage negotiator, spy and therapist have also landed at the end of their question!

Here are a few true stories I’ve collected over the years, with names changed to protect those who might be embarrassed by their big, floppy, gaudy, leopard-print hats:

Undercover Agent

BA Becky was a well-respected senior BA in her organization. The BACoE leader recognized her accomplishments by asking her to mentor a struggling team. The odd part of the assignment—BA Becky was asked to be an undercover mentor—she was not allowed to tell the team she was mentoring them.
BA Barry was on a project team that needed to create a pricing strategy for the organization’s products. The strategy included several assumptions about their competitor’s pricing. The team leader asked BA Barry to “secret shop” the competitor to validate the assumptions.

Ghost Writer

BA Beth asked her stakeholders from California, Texas and Arizona to travel to Minnesota for a full-day face-to-face requirements review meeting. The day before the big meeting, the project manager realized that BA Beth’s requirements were a huge mess. The requirements review would be a disaster. So, the PM asked BA Bart to stay late, re-do BA Beth’s requirements, and bring the new and improved requirements document into BA Beth’s meeting.

Translator

BA Brody was fluent in Spanish, so it makes sense that he was asked to review, translate, and validate a 6-months old, 300-page requirements document written in—Portuguese! The business sponsor asked, “Since you are fluent in Spanish it won’t be too hard to translate, right?”

Scapegoat/Peace Negotiator/Psychologist

A crafty project manager tossed BA Ben under the bus when she asked Ben to present a feasibility analysis to an erratic, f-bomb-wielding business owner. The business owner had great vision, but cost and feasibility did not meet his expectations, and the PM did not want to be in the line of fire.
BA Belinda got along well with everyone on her project team. So, naturally, the project manager asked BA Belinda to “figure out” a way to get a notoriously mean and stubborn database engineer to cooperate with the team.
Late one afternoon in mid-October, BA Betty found out she would be laid off at the end of the month. That same day, BA Bill was asked build a relationship with Betty to get the information he needed to take over Betty’s requirements work for a few projects. Obviously, laid-off BA Betty was NOT excited to do the knowledge transfer!

Babysitter

BA Brent was very smart but quite odd. His analysis work was solid, but his social skills were suspect. The team leader asked BA Betsy to help Brent stay focused, to monitor his interactions with the business SMEs and to step in when needed to ensure deadlines were met.

After Hours Snooper

BA Bill worked in a business unit where employees processed checks. Employees were required to secure the checks when they left the office each night. To validate compliance with check procedures, BA Bill was asked to stay late one night to search employee cubicles for unsecured checks.
Important documents were missing from several client files in BA Brenda’s organization. Brenda’s team leader asked her to return to the office after hours and search processing analysts’ desks for the missing documents.

Data Detective

A third-party software vendor refused to provide their data model to their customer. The customer needed the data model to develop requirements and meet the needs of their business. BA Barb, a member of the customer project team, was asked to reverse engineer the vendor data model.

What is it about the BA role that makes us prime targets for these odd assignments? I don’t see project managers or testers or developers wearing these odd hats.

The majority of these unofficial roles rely on our ability to build and maintain relationships with a wide variety of people. Maybe, these odd assignments are a compliment? Perhaps people skills are the primary strength of effective BAs, and these unofficial roles are just a side-effect of our success.

Have you ever taken on one of these odd roles or do you have another unofficial BA role to add to my list? Share your story in the comments below!

Note: This article was originally published on batimes.com on September 14, 2015

Well, I do, and it works really well! I am a therapist that helps business teams and technology teams work together and create meaningful products, services, and systems.

· I help them agree on changes and create a shared understanding.

· I create a process and platform to communicate.

· I make them both feel like they are the ones who came up with the ideas.

· I make conflict seem like a non-issue and create win/wins.

· I present options and alternatives and work through, with the pros and cons.

· And, they pay me an hourly rate to do this!

Here are a few true stories I’ve collected over the years, with names changed to protect those who might be embarrassed by their big, floppy, gaudy, leopard-print hats:

Undercover Agent

· BA Becky was a well-respected senior BA in her organization. The BACoE leader recognized her accomplishments by asking her to mentor a struggling team. The odd part of the assignment—BA Becky was asked to be an undercover mentor—she was not allowed to tell the team she was mentoring them.

· BA Barry was on a project team that needed to create a pricing strategy for the organization’s products. The strategy included several assumptions about their competitor’s pricing. The team leader asked BA Barry to “secret shop” the competitor to validate the assumptions.

Ghost Writer

· BA Beth asked her stakeholders from California, Texas and Arizona to travel to Minnesota for a full-day face-to-face requirements review meeting. The day before the big meeting, the project manager realized that BA Beth’s requirements were a huge mess. The requirements review would be a disaster. So, the PM asked BA Bart to stay late, re-do BA Beth’s requirements, and bring the new and improved requirements document into BA Beth’s meeting.

Translator

· BA Brody was fluent in Spanish, so it makes sense that he was asked to review, translate, and validate a 6-months old, 300-page requirements document written in—Portuguese! The business sponsor asked, “Since you are fluent in Spanish it won’t be too hard to translate, right?”

Scapegoat/Peace Negotiator/Psychologist

· A crafty project manager tossed BA Ben under the bus when she asked Ben to present a feasibility analysis to an erratic, f-bomb-wielding business owner. The business owner had great vision, but cost and feasibility did not meet his expectations, and the PM did not want to be in the line of fire.

· BA Belinda got along well with everyone on her project team. So, naturally, the project manager asked BA Belinda to “figure out” a way to get a notoriously mean and stubborn database engineer to cooperate with the team.

· Late one afternoon in mid-October, BA Betty found out she would be laid off at the end of the month. That same day, BA Bill was asked build a relationship with Betty to get the information he needed to take over Betty’s requirements work for a few projects. Obviously, laid-off BA Betty was NOT excited to do the knowledge transfer!

Babysitter

· BA Brent was very smart but quite odd. His analysis work was solid, but his social skills were suspect. The team leader asked BA Betsy to help Brent stay focused, to monitor his interactions with the business SMEs and to step in when needed to ensure deadlines were met.

After Hours Snooper

· BA Bill worked in a business unit where employees processed checks. Employees were required to secure the checks when they left the office each night. To validate compliance with check procedures, BA Bill was asked to stay late one night to search employee cubicles for unsecured checks.

· Important documents were missing from several client files in BA Brenda’s organization. Brenda’s team leader asked her to return to the office after hours and search processing analysts’ desks for the missing documents.

Data Detective

· A third-party software vendor refused to provide their data model to their customer. The customer needed the data model to develop requirements and meet the needs of their business. BA Barb, a member of the customer project team, was asked to reverse engineer the vendor data model.

What is it about the BA role that makes us prime targets for these odd assignments? I don’t see project managers or testers or developers wearing these odd hats.

Have you ever taken on one of these odd roles or do you have another unofficial BA role to add to my list? Share your story in the comments below!

21st Century BA: How to Become a Business Technologist

Written by Kathleen B. Hass, PMP on June 30, 2016. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on 21st Century BA: How to Become a Business Technologist

In the 21st century, all businesses are technology companies. To survive in the global economy, indeed to thrive, world-class, agile and flexible technology is a necessity.

Without it, organizations cannot cope with the ever-changing competitive environment. Competition is fierce, and an organization’s competitive advantage is always at risk. In addition, the business environment is stunningly complex. Innovation is a precondition to survival. Technology advances are coming fast and furiously. Organizations are struggling to find the talent needed to drive changes to the business and the technology to achieve and sustain competitive advantage.

WE NEED TO CHANGE OUR PERSPECTIVE

The business analysis discipline needs to elevate its thinking, discarding the notion that requirements management is the most important task at hand. That is a very narrow, and frankly doomed view of the scope of business analysis. As enterprise BAs, striving to fill the role of Business Technologists, we are adopting a core enterprise perspective that is driven by the need for business/technology investments to create optimal business benefits in terms of value to customers and wealth to the bottom line.

WE NEED A HOLISTIC VIEW OF THE BUSINESS AND THE TECHNOLOGY

The effective Enterprise BA/Business Technologist thinks big. Thinks strategically. Thinks holistically. Thinks about the customer. Understands that the business and technology components of the organization are part of an ecosystem that is always changing and adapting to variations in the competitive environment and transformations in technology, resulting in requisite changes to business processes, technology, products, and services. While there is no technology that is the silver bullet, we continue to seek out technical products and technical managers to solve all of our problems.

There is no single silver bullet. It’s about being able to identify technologies, understand their implications, combine them in an effective way, and make intelligent decisions in employing them, creating a set of operational processes and organizational structures to surround them, which is a much harder thing than simply investing in one technology versus another.

… We need technologists who understand more in the way of the economic analysis and business strategy. I would also suggest we need technologists who are more integrative problem solvers, which is to say we need technologists who can solve problems across multiple technology domains, and across business and technology domains.

James Kaplan, Principal at McKinsey&Companyⁱ

WE NEED TO GROW UP FAST

An IBM CEO study as long ago as 2010 identified complexity as the biggest challenge, and creativity as the most important skill that is needed to understand and manage complexityⁱⁱ. They went on to say, they have not groomed creative leaders from within, and they can’t find the talent they need through traditional staffing activities. Conventional project roles are changing. The EBA focus is now on strategy, innovation, and value vs. requirements management. The PM focus is now on complexity management vs. project management. However, companies can’t find these types of BAs/PMs – critical thinkers with the ability to:

Adapt, invent, and re-invent
Collaborate, create, and innovate
Leverage complexity to compete.

The business analysis discipline, and therefore the effective business technologist, needs to quickly attain breakthrough skills and competencies – en masse. The need is urgent. Realizing that there is so much innovation in technology today, no organization can know all about the different technology domains that are emerging. Therefore, creativity, problem solving and integration skills become much more important that any specific knowledge about a technical domain such as cyber cybersecurity, cloud computing, or big data. To fill the void, organizations that rely heavily on technology such as banks, insurance companies, and healthcare companies are starting to recruit from within and from outside in the high-tech industry. They are seeking out individuals with a broad set of skills, individuals who have the ability to span business and technology domains, who have experience in integrative problem solving.

Staffing and career development operatives are responding to the need. Companies are seeking out internal and external managers and high performers who are willing to move between different parts of an IT organization as they progress. Some business managers are also moving from the business into selected roles in technology organizations in order to infuse more business acumen into the IT management staff. We need innovation in the world of training for business and IT professionals. Instead of focusing on technical disciplines, Kaplan urges us to foster what he calls first-principles technology problem solving or cross-domain integrative-technology problem solvingⁱⁱⁱ.

ELEVATE YOUR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT APPROACH

For the individual BA who is looking to elevate their career and status in their organizations, it’s time to modernize your career development approach. Get your hands around a new attitude about your professional development. Build strategy-focused, value-based thinking into your advancement plans.

SEEK OUT NEW ROLES

21st Century EBAs/BTs are bold and courageous. They search for new roles and new challenges to broaden and deepen their experience, knowledge, and expertise. They put themselves in positions with high visibility where the action is. They thrive when working collaboratively with other experts in uncertainty and ambiguity. People in the business and in IT seek them out, asking for them to be on their teams.

LEAD THROUGH CONNECTIONS

The 21st Century is all about connections. In the global world of business complexity, it takes a high functioning team of experts to negotiate the business and technical complexities. So, perhaps your most critical capability is to bring together a group of experts (first get the right people in the room!), and then create an environment where it is safe to experiment, suggest off-the-wall ideas, challenge and build on each other’s ideas; then rapidly test ideas to determine viability^iv.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN TO THOSE AT THE TOP OF THE BA FOOD CHAIN?

There are many things you can do to accelerate your transition to an enterprise, strategically focused business technologist. Review the suggestions in this article. Get yourself out there. Promote yourself and your project successes.

The next few articles will explore other roles for the enterprise BA, as well as business and technical domains that are undergoing significant transformations.

i Becoming a Better Business Technologist, May 2016. McKinsey and Company. Online at http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/business-technology/our-insights/becoming-a-better-business-technologist.
ii Capitalizing on Complexity, Insights from the 2010 IBM Global CEO Study. Online at: http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/ceo/ceostudy2010/multimedia.html
iii Becoming a Better Business Technologist, May 2016. McKinsey and Company. Online at http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/business-technology/our-insights/becoming-a-better-business-technologist.
iv Leading Through Connections, Insights from the 2012 IBM Global CEO Study (www.ibm.com/services/us/en/c-suite/ceostudy2012/‎

BAs of the 21st Century: Are We Really Business Technologists?

Written by Kathleen B. Hass, PMP on June 16, 2016. Posted in Articles.

The good news is that business/technology optimization-focused business analysts are beginning to add value to their organizations at the strategic level. Executives now realize that savvy enterprise business analysts are essential to their success.

WE’VE COME A LONG WAY BABY!

Let’s take a look at the how the 21st-century business analysis profession has evolved from a focus on requirements engineering into an essential strategic business practice.

Business analysts work at all levels of organizations, including strategic, tactical and operational.
Business analysts work in all business and non-profit sectors including insurance, banking, health, financial services, communications, government, IT, retail, entertainment, energy, health care, education, high tech, community revitalization, and many other domains.
As executives and managers recognize the value business analysis brings to their organizations, the 21st-century enterprise business analyst is becoming a business-driven strategic player, an integrator, enabler of organizational change, and driver of business success.
As a strategist, the enterprise business analyst often serves as an internal consultant – a business relationship manager at the top of the food chain of the BA profession.

WILL THE REAL ENTERPRISE BUSINESS ANALYST PLEASE STAND UP

The understanding of the value of the enterprise business analyst is finally coming into view. However, because there are so many different titles and roles, it is often unclear which players are actually working as enterprise business analysts.

The enterprise business analyst fulfills many strategic roles, essentially putting her finger in the dike for many functions that have been woefully inadequate in organizations today, from business relationship manager to internal strategic change consultant. According to IIBA, titles for business analysis practitioners include not only the project-level business analyst, business systems analyst, systems analyst, requirements engineer, but also the more enterprise-level process analyst, product manager, product owner, enterprise analyst, business architect, management consultant, business intelligence analyst, data scientist, change manager, and more. Indeed, to fulfill the core purpose of business analysis and of IIBA, to unite a community of professionals to create better business outcomes, the enterprise business analyst’s role has evolved over the past few years to become a central strategic position within organizations.

Today there is no one job description that sums up the role of the enterprise business analyst. And to make it even more complex, BAs provide support in the way of strategy analysis, problem analysis, competitive analysis, data analysis, and solution alternative analysis to executives, middle managers, project managers, product managers, software developers, and quality assurance professionals. Some say that enterprise BAs relieve “the burden of analysis” that many of these players simply do not have the time, skills, or inclination to conduct. Without this valuable analysis, business decisions are made absent critical information.

THE EMERGENCE OF THE BUSINESS TECHNOLOGIST

Just when we thought we had identified all the possible roles of the BA working at the enterprise level, another has emerged. Suddenly, or not so suddenly, business literature is talking about the role of the Business Technologist. Are you ready to fill this critical role for your organization? It is very much the purview of the enterprise business analysts.

The business technologist fills the void as businesses grow and new needs emerge. As the competitive landscape changes, innovative solutions are needed for organizations to remain viable. World-class technology is the heart and soul of complex businesses today. Businesses are constantly taking another look at where business and technology can come together for even more efficiency and innovation. Enterprise business analysis practices are the way to make sure organizations are always innovating and getting the most out of their supporting and enabling technology. However, IT talent management has not kept up to recruit and develop skilled business/technology optimization experts to conduct this critical work. CIOs are looking at their high performers to become these enterprise, strategic BAs, but not the BAs we have today. As a result, relatively new roles are emerging such as the business technologist, a new more powerful way of talking about the enterprise business analyst.

Successful business technologists need more than pure technical skill: they must know how to solve strategic and operational problems in an integrated way, across multiple technology domains.ⁱJames Kaplan. Principal at McKinsey&Companyii

Business technology (BT) is described as the ever-increasing reliance on information technology by businesses of all types to handle and optimize their businesses.ⁱⁱⁱ James Kaplan defines the business technologist as “an executive or a manager who’s responsible for making sure an enterprise gets the most value from its investments in business technology. It includes not only the CIO and all the CIO’s reports who may be working on issues of technology strategy, or in technology delivery, but also many people in business units, or business functions, who are charged with thinking about what technology investments will create the most business value.”^iv

COMBINING DISCIPLINES LEADS TO SUCCESS

The business technologist (as well as the enterprise business analyst) is not a title but a skill set that converges lots of different disciplines such as engineering, architecture, strategy development, operational management, transformational design, project and change management, financial viability analysis, creativity and innovation, and complexity management. Traditional IT and organizational talent management have not sought after or developed individuals with a combination of the skills required of these disciplines. So it is easy to see why the enterprise business analyst working as a business technologist – fulfilling that elusive role that combines many talents and competencies – is emerging as a critical role in the 21st century.

Clearly, one individual cannot embody the diverse skills and competencies required of these disciplines. Therefore, perhaps the most critical skill for the enterprise business analyst/business technologist (EBA/BT) is the ability to bring diverse individuals together to foster creativity, to drive radical collaboration, as the Stanford D-School calls it. BAs transition from project-focused to enterprise work because they become skilled at combining an interconnected set of practices to “…foster the type of integrative, cross-cutting business-technology problem solving that’s required to address the most sophisticated challenges around applying new types of technologies, about addressing new types of business problems, about … creating innovative delivery models to capture opportunities as they arise in the marketplace.”^v

Clearly, the business analysis profession needs to step up to the plate to close the gap in business/technology optimization talent, and the EBA/BT is emerging as that transformational role. EBA/BTs are drastically changing the way we manage projects by adopting a more holistic view of change initiatives so that we:

Focus on delivery of business value and innovation vs. requirements management,
View change initiatives holistically, understanding that critical projects will likely impact the entire business ecosystem of people, process, organizations, rules, data, applications, and technology,
Embrace architecture and design to help temper complexity and uncertainty, and
Strike a balance between analysis and intuition, and order and disruptive change.

In future articles, we will discuss the business technologist in more depth, other roles of the enterprise business analyst, as well as the business and technical domains within which they do their magic.

ⁱBecoming a Better Business Technologist, May 2016. McKinsey and Company. Online at http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/business-technology/our-insights/becoming-a-better-business-technologist.
ⁱⁱ Mark McDonald, Ph.D., former group vice president and head of research in Gartner Executive Programs http://blogs.gartner.com/mark_mcdonald/2012/01/30/amplifying-the-role-of-the-business-analyst/
ⁱⁱⁱ TechTarget. Online at: http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/business-technology-BT
^iv Becoming a Better Business Technologist, May 2016. McKinsey and Company. Online at http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/business-technology/our-insights/becoming-a-better-business-technologist.
^v Becoming a Better Business Technologist, May 2016. McKinsey and Company. Online at http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/business-technology/our-insights/becoming-a-better-business-technologist.

6 Audiobooks Every Business Analyst Must Listen To

Written by Yaaqub (Yamo) Mohamed on June 2, 2016. Posted in Articles.

Let’s say on an average you commute 2 hours everyday (to and from work) – which I do. So, that’s 10 hours a week and roughly 520 hours a year. If an average audiobook is about 8 hours in length, then technically you can listen to 65 books in a year!

Well, practically speaking that might be a lofty goal. You will also have to mix in music, podcasts, reading or just observing strange behaviors of your fellow-commuters. Right?

However, what about a goal of listening to 6 books? Much more achievable, eh?

If you have never heard of audiobooks and you always thought listening was for music and radio only, think again!

Your world of learning is about to change!

In this post I will share 6 must-listen audiobooks for business analysis practitioners. Read on to start your audiobooks journey.

The first one of the list …

1. Start With Why – How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their successes over and over? People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers might have little in common, but they all started with why. This book is for anyone who wants to inspire others or who wants to find someone to inspire them.

What’s in it for a Business Analyst?

Learn about the “Golden Circle” and how great companies work from inside out of that circle. Go from “why” to “what” to “how” and apply this in your practice to understand the “why” of a certain area of analysis. This concept could be applied both at macro (strategy) and micro (detailed analysis) levels in an organization.

2. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has been a top seller for the simple reason that it ignores trends and pop psychology for proven principles of fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity.

What’s in it for a Business Analyst?

This was the first audiobook I listened to, and that’s how I started my audiobooks journey about 15 years ago. There are many things to apply to your business analysis practice, including being proactive and setting goals.

3. Getting Things Done -The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

From core principles to proven tricks, Getting Things Done has the potential to transform the way you work – and the way you experience work. At any level of implementation, David Allen’s entertaining and thought-provoking advice shows you how to pick up the pace without wearing yourself down.

What’s in it for a Business Analyst?

If you want to master the art of getting things done, and take your personal productivity to the next level, this is a must-listen book.

4. How To Win Friends and Influence People

For over 60 years, the rock-solid, time-tested advice in this audiobook has carried thousands of now-famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives.

What’s in it for a Business Analyst?

We deal with people side of analysis on a daily basis. If you want to learn how to form friendships, bonds and build trust with your stakeholders, listening to this book will help you go the extra mile.

5. Linchpin – Are You Indispensable?

Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. Like the small piece of hardware that keeps a wheel from falling off its axle, they may not be famous but they’re indispensable. And in today’s world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom. Have you ever found a shortcut that others missed? Seen a new way to resolve a conflict? Made a connection with someone others couldn’t reach? Even once? Then you have what it takes to become indispensable, by overcoming the resistance that holds people back.

What’s in it for a Business Analyst?

I am a big champion of Seth’s work. He is one of the inspirations behind my first book and also TheBACoach brand. My key takeaway from this book was that everyone now can be an artist. According to him:

“An artist is not just some person who messes around with paint and brushes, an artist is somebody who does “emotional work.””

Work that you put your heart and soul into. Work that matters. Work that you gladly sacrifice all other alternatives for.

Business Analysts are artists of the knowledge work, and this book will help you discover this in various ways.

6. Just Listen – Discover the Secret of Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

You’ve got a business colleague who’s hostile, a client who’s furious, a staffer who’s deeply cynical—how do you get people to do what you want in tough situations like these? In Just Listen, veteran psychiatrist and business coach Mark Goulston reveals the secret to how to get through to anyone, even when productive communication seems impossible.

What’s in it for a Business Analyst?

From the audiobook page:

“Here’s the challenge,” Mark says. “People have their own needs, desires, and agendas. They have secrets they’re hiding from you. And they’re stressed, busy, and often feeling like they’re in over their heads. To cope, they throw up barricades that make it difficult to reach them even when your goals are in sync with their own.” But the good news is that there are simple strategies that can make you compelling, and break down the walls that keep you from getting through to the people you need to buy into your ideas and goals.

Which one of these have you listened to and/or look forward to listen to? Do you have any additional recommendations?

Please use the comment space below to leave your comments, feedback and questions.