Tako Eye...and Process Improvement

Tako Eye is seeing the process improvement innately....Calamari is asking if you even need the process in the first place!

Let me start with explaining this "tako eye" thing...I have to credit a mentor for phrasing the "tako eye".   In Hawai'i, we often use the Hawaiian and Japanese words for things we talk about in daily dialogue.  Tako is a Japanese word to refer to an octopus.  If you have ever watched one move across the ocean reef, they constantly change their colors to match their surroundings around them to blend in and better hunt their prey.

To have "Tako Eye" means that you see the tako on the reef while everyone else is marveling at the pretty fish swimming around the coral.  You see the moving creature, adapting, searching and even stalking right through the activities of the environment.  When you are looking at your business processes, what do you notice?  Do you notice things before people even consider the situation itself?  Do you see the root cause before the long-pressed symptoms discussion ever happens?  Then you my friend have "tako eye"!

But now I've had the fortunate exposure to go beyond this - let's make some calamari!  Now that you know how to spot the process improvement, are you able to step back further and not be lured in by the beauty of the movements and the awe of the colors and see that you can satisfy your own hunger with a tasty treat?  To be a helpful analyst and improve process is absolutely a needed skill set.  To go further and challenge the organization to ask how the process even fits and continues to support the organization's mission and goals is a key element of being that senior advocate for the business.

As we were improving a process, I noticed everyone was trying to fix the process.  We were talking about future status and no one was questioning the very existence of the process itself.  If we are truly talking about future state, then you don't bring the baggage of existing along with you.  But too often our stakeholders get consumed by what they do versus realizing they need to rise above existing 'business' and focus back on goals.  Asking the questions to what you are trying to accomplish - asking WHY! - becomes a key value to your role as a business analyst and process improvement support member.

So do you have "tako eye" and see the process improvement opportunity existing in the chaos of today's world?  Do you even see your next appetizer and are ready to cook calamari?  Share your thoughts on how we find and highlight these creatures of the deep that are all around us!

Elicitation...and Conflict!

I had the pleasure to present and share with a host of other industry leaders and flat out fantastic and enthusiastic individuals some thoughts on Real World Elicitation this month in Orlando at the Project Summit*Business Analysis World conference.  Talking about elicitation, I shared thoughts on how facilitation focuses on making it easier for others, helping someone else get to a place of adding value.  One of the things that often comes up is conflict.  A dirty word to some and a treasure box to others!!

Are you a person who runs and hides from conflict?  Or scared to call that meeting because of that over powering stakeholder who does not get the idea of 'consensus'?  Conflict lets you know that you've found the right mark as if people get challenging, then that means they care.  You have found something they are passionate enough to get motivated on - so you should PURSUE it!  No hiding here for fearless BA super heroes!

One of the best things you can do with conflict is to turn it from a "me versus you" scenario to an "us versus it" scenario.  Take the conflict and throw it on the wall (yes the topic here, it's not a person!) - white board works great!  I love to take an idea, concept or discussion point and write it on the wall big so that we - the whole team, those in the room, online and in email - have something to now attack with that same passion that got us worked up in the first place.  You and I now sit and TOGETHER talk about how you and I will overcome the obstacle.  Now it is you and me figuring out a solution together that brings the business value we are seeking.  Now the true passion brings out energy and a fire that helps us all be super heroes to overcome the challenge!

Love to hear further ideas on dealing with conflict!  Check me out on Twitter @jamie_champagne to see all my conference highlights as well as other's thoughts!

Interested in learning more about business analysis, the value it brings and the techniques to be successful?  Join me in one of the upcoming classes - sign up here!

Doing Requirements Well

I've had the privilege of sharing some thoughts on doing Requirements well in the "real world" and I love the questions that it spawned from the Business Analysis community.  Here are some of those questions and some ideas I had on how I would respond.

"How do you identify the right stakeholders?"
Creating agendas and preparing  your questions of what you wish to accomplish

"Some people may fear that they may be complaining and may be reluctant to offer up 'pain points' - how do you best work with these situations to understand the current issues?"
Ask people what they LOVE about what they do - what works well?  What could be better?  As you follow this approach, the stakeholders will often start to highlight the exceptions to what works really well and that will give you the opportunity for improvement, but it's an expression of what could be better versus asking what's wrong.




If there is a conflict between the stakeholders regarding what should be consider a requirement...what can we do?
With conflict, I love to isolate the problem.  A simple technique is to "throw it on the wall and see what sticks!"  I literally write the problem statement on the board and so your stakeholders "attack" the challenge versus attacking each other.  Now we're a team trying to overcome the challenge at hand (versus disagreeing amongst each other).




How do you establish your expertise in the Requirements space, specifically, if the client himself isn't technically qualified and is insisting on limiting the BA to certain templates to use?
If someone asks you to use a template, ask them to walk you through it.  Do a collaborative approach with the stakeholder so that you can use your elicitation skills and ask good questions, even if the answers have to go in a predetermined 'box'.




How would you recommend handling an environment where many areas may are a part of a process/transaction, but true ownership is not clear?  Multiple managers may either view they own the process or no one feels they own it at all.
Try changing the focus to the product.  Who manages it today?  Identify who would be affected if you change a process - show how their daily routine would change based upon a decision.  And when in doubt - get them in a room and walk through the process around the decision so that everyone sees what the considerations may be. 




How do you deal with participants who give you non-functional or design specs as opposed to the function or business requirements?
Ask them WHY!  These will start to draw out the requirements at a higher level then where they are focused.  And ask for use cases and scenarios around what they are describing.  Even if the use case or scenario doesn't give you the specific business requirements, it will at least give you more stakeholders to approach as you may need to seek a different audience.




What tips do you have to match elicitation techniques to project/audience?
Know your project and more importantly your audience!  If the outcome is well defined, then use techniques that focus on specifics such as traceability and process flows.  If you are exploring options then use techniques such as brainstorming and focus group to allow the freedom of expression.  As well as even consider if you need greater engagement then consider using collaborative games.  This comes out of your BA planning work PRIOR to beginning your elicitation when you are doing stakeholder analysis.


A scribe may be helpful, but what are alternatives when resources are limited?
Having another BA assist you is a great way to job shadow and even be assessed on your own skill sets.  And if you're needing greater stakeholder engagement, ask the stakeholders to take turns capturing the discussion points and outcomes.  And don't forget to ask if you can record a session for playback later.  Reinforce you understand the sensitivity of the conversation and share all results and they may be more open to ideas that improve even current processes. 


Have you used Use Cases in the past and if so, did you find it useful to subsequently extract requirements and/or to ensure the requirements are complete?
Use cases are great for helping you validate your requirements and trace them to completeness.  I often ask for scenarios as story telling can be an easier approach for your stakeholders than asking them to give a 'checklist' of requirements - definitely can feel more natural to your stakeholders!


What are your thoughts on mockups being inserted into requirements?
Mockups are great for drawing out requirements.  Use the language your customers are comfortable when trying to elicit information.  The check is to go back and not only verify but then validate these represent the value your customer is expecting to add.


Do you find the use of "and" in requirements causes issues for designers or developers?YES!!  However, if this is how your stakeholders start off with requirements, then take it and work to verify them by separating them out as you ask more details.  Functional decomposition usually is a great way to help your stakeholders separate and isolate the requirements that make it easy for the next team who will work on them, such as designers and developers.


How do you position and integrate business rules into requirements?Business rules are part of your requirements so they are often intermingled.  Walk through the process so you get the process mapped.  As you verify the process, while walking through the process maps, capture requirements in one table and business rules in another.  Then identify the dependencies so that you know if you test or change one you must re-verify and validate the associations.


What if the requirement has been approved but later the solution was not as expected and all the estimates allotted were consumed?  What do we do with the requirement?
When you wrote the requirement, did you write acceptance criteria?  This acceptance criteria should still hold true to leading to project/initiative success and so the requirement is still required.  This is when you rely on change control processes to help you coordinate getting the resources to deliver the value.  It is easier to get more resources when you show the value of what they will provide. 


Is it acceptable practice to use words like "YOU/YOUR" or "WE/OUR" while doing business analysis in a context with respective stakeholders who may be also part of same organization?
use personal nouns when creating vision, describing success criteria and acceptance criteria as you want the personal buy-in of the stakeholders.  As you move to requirements and user stories, utilize the role that is affected or acting in the situation to draw out the need, not simply the want.  If the requirement can stand for anyone in the role it helps articulate business value to the organization than a one time occurrence for "you."




If you are an IIBA member, the presentation on "Requirements for Requirements" is available in their archived webinars section on their website IIBA.org.




Do you have any "Tips and Tricks" for BA's to share?  Please COMMENT and share your thoughts as well!

The Value of Added Value

I had the fortunate pleasure of being able to work with some fabulous Business Analysts (BA's) the other week as we were doing course work of the role of the business analyst.  Great questions came up about how to deliver value to the organization.  However, the most challenging question came up in "how to show the value of delivering this business value?"

What a great business analysis question!  How do I show the value of a business analyst that delivers value to the organization?  How do I show the time spent is value added?  How is the cost not only justified but then RETURNED to the organization?

This is the fun of a business analyst to ask the questions then about what you DO know.  What is it that you know you can measure today?  What do I know about the process today?  If there is a 'pain point' and you solve it, what is that worth to the organization?

Measures can always be identified and broken down based on the scenario.  Again, measure what you do know.  How long does it take you to complete a process (perhaps an average time frame).  Then if you change something in your process and re-measure the process, did it take less time?  More time?  This is the essential perspective of measuring - after a change, how do you compare to the baseline?

So if you're considering training and trying to justify it, can you identify activities that you do prior to training that might change based on your training?  Same thing with justifying the position of a business analyst or re-shaping your role to be an official BA - what are you doing now (and how can you measure it) and what will the process look like after the change (and what are the measures then).

Get Good In, Get Good Out...and Keep BA's Happy!

So I saw this posting and had to share it.  Funny how the first thing I thought about was how it applied to business stakeholders and business analysis.

But think about it for a few.  How many times have you read a business case and wondered how in the world the person came to the conclusion!?  I love the business case of a 12 month project that was submitted, but revenue projections show that they will be bringing in revenue on the second month of the project when the product will not official be available for sale until at least half way through the project!  

The thought that if you act like an adult and think about what value means and how to achieve it and spend some thought about what it will take to achieve this, then you will get more scrutiny from the BA than our minion is providing here.  Yet time and time again I see business cases submitted with the same amount of energy as the decision making being done above.  

Picking the project with the cooler sounding name will only make you cool as long as it takes to read the title.  After that the metal hits the pavement and you have to produce.  Projects fail if they were not well conceived to even start with.  And I adamantly defend BA's that projects do not fail because of bad requirements, but because they were not even setup to scope ANY requirements.  Some forethought to consider what might be involved, even a simple checklist can save a TON of resources!

Get the businesses to consider a simple checklist before submitting any kind of proposal, whether major project or small work enhancement:

• Is there IT components?  (Could there be IT components?)
• Do we do this work in house today?  
• What Legal issues are there?
• What Compliance rules do we have to worry about?
• Have we complied with Branding requirements?
• Who will be my testers to evaluate the solution?
• Do I know my budget?  Have I taken in account budget for any changes?
• Who are the people who use this process?
• Who are the people who support this process?
• Who are the people who pay for this process?
• Who has no clue about this process?  (Should they?)

And I could go on and on - but considering asking someone to look at these questions and for any question they do not know the answer to, then they must NOT submit their request and go find out.  A small checklist can save you a TON of time and headache from trying to work with a project manager to deliver an unrealistic project.  You may not be able to change the stakeholder's mentality but you can get them to consider a few conditions prior to asking for the world.  Then you'l be as happy as a BA with a 'bunch' of requirements!

Measuring Innovation

Image courtesy the BCG

To all my fellow innovation managers out there who are trying so desparately hard to measure the value of innovation in your organizations, I wanted to share something that struck me as so simplistic yet so profound that in and of itself, was truly innovative.

Rick Weaver posted an article about measuring project success and the impact Cloud services could have on these measures.  One of his measurements focused on an "Innovation Ratio" where we consider how much we are spending on reducing technical debts versus the amount of new capabilities we are adding.  More simplistically put:

                           Amount spent on reducing technical debts
      Innovation =  ------------------------------------------------------------
                                Amount of new capabilities added

To me we could keep this very simple on figuring out hard numbers of Innovation.  Consider what   are you spending to ensure your current technology does not become obsolete?  Are we buying the latest and greatest versions or upgrading legacy equipment?  Are we removing manual systems that lead to errors?

And then capabilities are easily accounted from a basic features list.  What can you do now that you could not do before is a great measurement for any change project or initiative.  Those are the benefits that are quickly tangible!   You can worry about culture change and measuring shifts in dynamics later once you have buy-in with your metrics!

So where to look for these things?  Again, keep it simple - where are you manually addressing processes?  Where are you using outdated technology (easy answer is where do people ignore the technology provided and instead use their own manual process - these are anyone creating their own spreadsheets and databases or emailing items or worse, printing!!)?

What ideas do you have?  Again, this equation struck me as a great way to help MEASURE INNOVATION and the value that you are bringing to an organization!

Building Leadership Skills on Project Teams

I recently had the pleasure of sharing this as a presentation at PMI HNL Professional Development Day 2015 and enjoyed the feedback that I've incorporated into this posting to continue to share and build on thoughts that makes us successful when working with people!

If you want a different outcome, ask yourself what are you doing differently to achieve this outcome.

Requirements

Understand that project teams are made up with people of diverse experience & expertise; while valuable to the team, realize that they each take a different view of the challenge at hand

Physically displaying items – whether in pictures of end result or large words posted on the wall – help clarify and ensure everyone is literally on the same page.

Consider “Draw the Pig” icebreaker – instructions available at:  http://www.whiteman.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-130408-056.pdf  

Risk

Draw out the potential outcomes (comic strips are great for actions) – how likely are they to occur?  Are they worth prioritizing? 

Getting Feedback

Post ideas on a large easel sheet of paper (one idea per page) and post in a common area.  Leave markers and encourage people to comment over a few days.  Great for identifying what’s in and out of scope!

Listening

Listening is about asking the right QUESTIONS (not the right answers – if you knew the answer, why are you asking the question?)

Listen to all the information the person shares versus focusing on just what you want to hear – you may miss out on valuable information!

Get a scribe – someone NOT a stakeholder to take notes so that you may engage with your stakeholders.  Then review afterwards with the scribe and highlight key insights from your listening.

Process Definition

How a process works is sometimes better to see in person.  If you can’t physically see the action then act it out (think charades!). 

Brainstorming

Use the “Red Cup” or other object – one idea per person, must say an idea before passing, can only say one idea and continue for a short amount of time with a hard time limit (push people to go faster!) – focus is on QUANTITY not quality.  It removes the “analysis paralysis” by focusing on the object while getting equal participation by all, regardless of position or expertise.  There are no right or wrong answers, just ideas to grow on.

     Question from presentation: Brainstorming in this way could still allow influence on others - YES!  Participants, even though the focus is on equal pariticipation by all, could still be influencing others; however, the goal of brainstorming is quantity.  If you're more focused on not influencing, then anonymous techniques (via email and a facilitator) or non-verbal techniques (using post-its on a wall) may be preferred.  Adjust to your situation!

Prototyping

Build something a user can interact with – SHOW what the envisioned end result is, do not tell them.  Give them something to interact with.

Prioritizing

Write out each item on a post-it, one per post-it.  Then provide stakeholders with poker chips (or other voting item) and have them vote.  They can place as many as they want on each, but no “buying” more.                                                     

Just TRY it!  And build on Lessons Learned!

Excellence in Process

I read a great article in a white paper by IAG Consulting that looked at requirements quality.  I love the idea that the process you use to gather the requirements is more important the the requirements you write.  They premise this on the idea that if you have a solid process to elicit the information, then you will end up with excellent information.  A great point back to the proverbial saying "garbage in, garbage out."

This is such a simple but important thought out to the world - considering your effort (quantity) and your level of attention (quality).  You can certainly apply this to requirements, but you could also apply to almost any activity in any profession!! (Creating scope documents and test plans for my fellow PMs and BAs certainly comes to mind!).

In our fast paced world we so quickly jump into requirements gathering with the excitement to hurry up and write down requirements as fast as we can.  We then spend plenty time going back and revising, editing, re-organizing, adding, editing, deleting and so on until we almost want to start on a clean slate!

What if BEFORE you jump into anything, you write out a quick plan on what you plan to do.  It does not have to be long, just a few minutes, but consider your stakeholders, where the information is today, what do you already know and what do you need to find out.

Consider going grocery shopping.  You have the approach to walk every aisle.  This often ends up with way more in your cart than you planned and often probably a lot longer (and more expensive) than you planned the trip.  You can try run in and just look in certain areas for a few items, finding yourself backtracking and forgetting a few items.  Or, as I often do, I create a grocery list throughout the week.  I then plan to go by the grocery store I'm familiar with at a time later in the week when I know it is not as crowded.  I then go in, get my items (and only my items) and am back out on my way home ready to cook dinner.

This same thought process, while small in comparison, can lead to much stronger quality requirements and project plans.  But too often we simply dive into the activity versus taking a moment and asking ourselves "How are we going to do this?"  Try explaining your process to a younger child - I love hearing their feedback as they will quickly point out any errors in logic!

Delivering Value

How are you delivering VALUE in all you do?

VALUE - an interesting word that is often talked about but completely missed in daily activities.  This only perpetuates the statistics that projects fail to meet objectives or campaigns fail to meet their targets - they fail to deliver the value expected.

Do you consider how you are delivering value in all you do?  If every person on a team constantly looked at how they are delivering value, would the team then end up delivering significant value?

Being part of a volunteer organization where every single activity is done out of one's own selflessness, I found it amazing the energy and effort put into providing value for the members.  People who all have full time jobs in addition to their volunteer must absolutely prioritize all that they do.  For the service organization, the challenge was put out to ask if every thing they do delivers value, especially board members.  You are serving others and if you are not serving their value needs, then your efforts are not delivering the value intended.

Consider every task that is brought up in your work or volunteer organizations and ask "Does this deliver value to our [customer/stakeholder]?"  If you have a hard time answering this, you may reconsider the task itself.  People in offices often talk about how busy they are.  I see it too, personally, that the amount of information moving around seems to create a buzz of activity.  However, I find myself asking if what I'm doing is adding value.  I found a few simple responses to help me get through my day more efficiently by considering "Am I Delivering Value if I do this task?"

• If I answer "no" then I simply delete it and move on.  
• If I think the answer is "no" then I delete it and move on.
• If I answer "yes" then I prioritize it and do it as soon as possible.
• If I think the answer is "yes" then I skip for now and come back after I do the prioritized "Yes" items

"But wait!! Delete?  No one deletes ANYTHING around here!!"  To this answer - if it is important, someone will bring it up again - guaranteed!  And remember what's important to you may not be important to others so you can skip the tasks, but the owner/affected stakeholder may find value and will continue to pursue it.  Often if they ask a second time that have more information that provides you the background to turn it into a "Yes" value answer.

What's interesting on the "think the answer is.." options - they are often all No's as either it's clear that you can not articulate the value or you do not have enough information at this time to answer Yes and until then you do not understand the value.

Tricks to try and would love to hear other ideas and thoughts!!!

Innovative Business Analysis Techniques

I was fortunate enough to be part of an amazing community and share some of my experience at Building Business Capability 2014 this past week and gathered so much feedback and ideas how to continue to innovate in my current role.

A number of people requested the handout from the session, which was also the basis of my overall presentation.  Below is the content of that I would love others to add additional comments to and continue to build on the discussion.

“Driving Business Innovation” – different approaches to performing BA techniques with success!

“Insanity – doing the exact same thing over again and expecting a different result.” ~Albert Einstein

If looking for different results – what are you doing differently?

Meetings

Ø  Think of how you start your meetings – if you want excitement and energy out of them, try starting with a game!

Ø 
Or even have a meeting standing up – you’ll have to keep the length short and to the point if you have to stand the whole time!

Requirements

Ø  Ask everyone to “draw a pig.”  Give everyone a few minutes and then compare the different versions that were drawn!  Then analyze with the info here.

o   REMEMBER: Everyone has a unique view in this world and what one person envisions may not be what another does, so remember your perspectives of your stakeholders.

Ø  You could do this differently by giving everyone a piece of foil with the word “dinosaur” written on one side.  Hand them out and tell people that everyone has a word on their foil – don’t show it – but everyone has to create that ‘thing’ out of the piece of foil.  You’ll get plenty of differently shaped ‘dinosaurs’!

o   Again – you gave everyone the exact same requirement and look at the ways it was interpreted!

9.1 Acceptance and Evaluation Criteria

Ø  Write one criteria per large white board or easel and place in high area of traffic with markers handy.  Repeat for each of your criteria’s.  Encourage everyone to comment on the criteria over the course of 1-2 weeks and then review the feedback.

9.3 Brainstorming

Ø 
Divide groups into 5 people, sitting or standing in a circle.  Assign a sixth person to be the scribe, sitting just outside the circle.  Put the topic of discussion in a Red Solo cup that one person will then read to the team as their ‘challenge.’   Rules are as follows:

o   The person with the cup says one idea and passes to the right.

o   Only the person with the cup may say an idea.

o   Only one idea can be said at a time.

o   You may not “pass” the cup without saying an idea.

Try to encourage teams of 5 to get around the ‘circle’ 10 times in 2 minutes.  The format and pressure on time:

v  Keeps everyone equal – no person’s idea carries more weight than another

v  Focus on generating quantity of ideas - not focused on analyzing; not worried about being “right”

v  Forces everyone to participate - no one monopolizes the conversation or can ‘hide’ in the background

9.11 Focus Groups

Ø 
Consider the “outliers” when trying to learn more about a topic

o   We often focus on “average” – but if you want to explore new markets, ask those who are not currently in the market and WHY!  Get to know the “super users” and what and WHY they can’t live without it!

9.14 Interviews

Ø  Ask the right QUESTIONS

o  
Consider a group interview: get people from all different aspects of a process (marketing, call center, help desk, technician, etc.) – one person at a time sits in front of group and shares their ‘experience’.  Encourage them to “tell me more” about it and ask “Why” and then get the other participants to help you ask more questions to learn more about WHY they do things the way they do.   Inconsistencies will quickly be brought to light and clarified by participants when they challenge each other’s process (vice the BA having to go back and forth between stakeholders on their own)

Ø  Focused on LISTENING – get someone else to scribe (they don’t talk, just write!)

o   Take notes with a sharpie and post-its – only one thought per post-it (short!); then after interviews go through post-its and layout in related groups to see themes and map out processes

9.18 Observation

Ø  Record sessions – images speak a thousand words to get body language, relationships, culture, etc. – especially when you’re the one facilitating

o  
ASK Permission!  Or at least inform participants what you’re doing and why (tell them where you plan to share this!)

9.19 Organization Modeling

Ø  Comic Strip – have people draw out their roles and responsibilities

o   Even better – get different departments to draw their view about other roles, not themselves

9.22 Prototyping

Ø  Build something FAST and CHEAP for FEEDBACK from those affected – what do they like? What would they change? Get them to interact with – put it in a visible place for a week to see what resonates with users

o   And build AGAIN!  Keep iterating until everyone is comfortable with solution, THEN capture requirements

9.25 Root Cause Analysis

Ø 

Ask Why 5 times – write question and then place answer below.  If the answer is not hierarchical, save for later and go back to asking why to decompose to single element for the root of the problem

9.26 Scenarios and Use Cases

Ø  Charades! Get users to act out how they do things today and what it would be like if they could change it!

o   Removes non-value added activities from process descriptions

Requirements Prioritization

Ø  Write each requirement on a post-it and lay out on table.  Give each stakeholder the equal number of POKER CHIPS.  They then “bet” on their requirements – you will quickly see the priority items!

o   All stakeholders’ votes are now equal, no extra chips and eliminates the ‘nice to haves’ from discussion

So how do I do this?  You TRY it!  Even if it doesn’t work as planned, look how much you learned!! You at least know what your project/requirements are NOT.  Ask your SPONSOR to SUPPORT!  Getting their support to try an often faster approach (i.e., less employee time spent in meetings) that build buy-in to the project (more committed stakeholders) is worth the time to try a DIFFERENT APPROACH for DIFFERENT RESULTS!

The WHAT and the WHY and then the HOW

This last week I had the extraordinary privilege to speak at the Project Management Institute (PMI) Honolulu Chapter Professional Development Day (PDD)2014.

In speaking to a group of Project Managers about How to Effectively Work with a Business Analyst, a great question came up about how you deal with a PM and BA working together who's lines for roles and responsibilities begin to blur.  Considering real world examples and how to address this, the answer that was so positively received was - "What, Why, and How".
 

Whenever a PM and BA are having a conversation, a great thing to consider whenever roles and responsibilities begin to blur is that the PM should consider the WHAT and the BA to consider the WHY.  Those are the swim lanes to stand in.  What - the project, the schedule, the scope, the budget - these are all PM responsibilities.  They have a specific answer and the PM ensures they move to completion.  WHY -  why is the project good for the business, why the requirement should be included, why the test cases are required - this is where the BA lives.

I took it a step further from personal experience that the BA (and also PM) needs to especially recognize when they delve into the HOW realm.  The moment they start determining HOW something should be done, you're getting into Design.  This is the swim lane for your SMEs, architects and designers.  It keeps the roles and responsibilities clear.  It's also extremely helpful when developing business requirements as you know you've gone far enough when you start to explain HOW the feature is supposed to look, act and feel.

Finding Inspiration in Speech

I took a moment the other day to attend the Bankcorp Toastmasters meeting on my lunch hour.  I was fortunate enough to be a member during my employment at Bank of Hawaii and felt excited and almost a little nervous to attend.

Nervous you say?  Things always change and think that there's a little uncertainty that always questions whether the good things are still there, those aspects you enjoyed, made you excited to be part of something bigger than your own self.

An hour later, with many smiles shared and even a few good laughs, I slowly made my way back to work with a hightened sense of energy pulsing through me. What I couldn't help feeling as I left the building on the beautiful afternoon was summed up in one word:

My hour was spent surrounded by a group of individuals who remain motivated to build something bigger and better out of not only themselves but also each other.  The passion they conducted their roles with overflowed to each and every audience member.  They share personal insights that speaks to the volume of trust within the small room.

And on top of that, their topics included ways of building the membership, the club, the business and even their own personal and family lives.  It's amazing how small activities that force you to reflect, challenge and push yourself to explore new horizons actually fosters this grass roots effort to boost the entire organization to a higher platform!

Often in my speeches I refer to an element of PASSION - everyone has some, the trick is to understand your passion and find an outlet where you can share it.  When you speak from the heart, you share your passion with others in a way that connects emotionally, not just mentally.  From here you have built the foundation for a great relationship with those other people.  Imagine if you infuse this into your daily activities, particularly the work place.  The BA that is passionate about helping others, understanding issues and overcoming obstacles, can be so positively energetic that business owners clamor for the BA's assistance.

How are you sharing your passion and building positive connections with others?

Spheres of Control, Influence and Control

Working on a team that includes Business Analysts, Project Managers and Software Developers, the sphere of responsibility can quickly grow out of control.  Like any team or organization, prioritization always represents a challenge and a great manager made an interesting thought when some discussion was being made:

"Consider your sphere of control, your sphere of influence and sphere of concern."

I loved this visual concept when thinking about priorities.   I found it a great way to reset myself. 

Think about the things you CAN do (whether you should or not is another thing to think about later) - these are things in your control.  If you can't change how the other team will react, what their priorities are, etc., then stop trying to control it.  Control what you can and prioritize that accordingly.  Then those things you're worrying about - consider what you can influence.  And then only focus on those items.  If you think you have no effect on the outcome, then save your time.  And then concern - what do you need to know so that you can best plan your actions for the future.  These thoughts are great when considering which meetings to attend.  Setup a meeting when you need action - control what you can and influence others to attend and contribute so that you can move on with your deliverables.  When responding to a meeting invite as what your level is for that meeting - control, influence, concern. 

And this can go both ways, especially when considering organizational structures.  A manager that chooses to attend a meeting may positively or negatively influence those attending. 

Everyone is given 24 hours in a day - it is up to you how you spend it, so prioritization gets to be a key component in your daily actions.  So remember what you can control, influence and are concerned about and see if this approach helps you streamline your day for more attention to higher priorities (like surfing! :) ).

What are your thoughts?

Some Good Questions Every BA's Should Ask

Business Analysts (BA's) live in a world of requirements.  And while  never the 'owner' of a project, they often bear the burden of requirements responsibility.

Two interesting things I got to see in the fascinating world of business analysis this last week made me think about how exactly I would recommend approaching these scenarios (one shared here, the second in the next post).

Business analysts assist in make sure things not only go smoothly, but also in ensuring the RIGHT things continue on track.  So a BA received feedback on a report.  The person addressing the BA told them to put the report in a certain format.  Now a more junior BA, he listened intently and described what he had done.  He asked what was wrong with his method and the response was basically it wasn't in the format as she was describing.  This went back and forth for a few minutes with nothing more decided than someone feeling that the report should be in the new format and a very unsure junior BA.

In talking through this situation with the junior BA, two very good questions came up:

1. Why?  What's the purpose of the report?
2. What question(s) is the data answering?

Two very simple thoughts, but something I'm not sure all us BA's really stop and ask ourselves, ask our stakeholders.  We put SO much effort in all our documentation, but do we stop and validate ourselves?  Do we double check the information we're providing is solving the need and ONLY solving the need (no sugar coating)?  I think these are two great things we should work on asking up front and more often on every single piece of documentation we work hard to create.

But these are only two good questions - many more are there!  What questions always help you ensure you're only doing activities that will help your initiatives and ONLY those initiatives?