Tag: Facilitation

Unveiling the Unsaid: The Power of Subtle Stakeholder Cues

Written by Adrian Reed on April 10, 2024. Posted in Articles.

When eliciting information from stakeholders, often what isn’t said can be as significant as what is said. Of course, the information that a stakeholder explicitly mentions is of crucial importance, but often there are subtle and nuanced details that aren’t obvious unless you look for them. Perhaps a stakeholder subtly pauses and looks uncomfortable and avoids answering a specific part of a question. Or perhaps they use a qualifying word like “usually” or “sometimes”. Either way, it is crucial to probe further and find out more.

Hearing What You Expect To Hear

Looking out for these clues is important, but is easier said than done, particularly when time is tight. When there are a number of stakeholders to speak to, it is easy to get drawn into a pattern of hearing what you expect to hear. We’ve probably all experienced this: after three people from different departments outline a process consistently, speaking to the fourth and fifth person seems like ticking a box. After all, they are going to just confirm what the first three people have described, surely?

That might be the case, but equally they might have additional insights that the original three did not. There is presumably a reason that they have been selected to participate in the elicitation activities, perhaps because they have a different perspective on things. Yet, it would be easy to let those discussions be swayed by the conversations that have happened before. To almost go on ‘autopilot’ and lead the stakeholder in a particular direction. It is worth being especially aware of those subtle cues and nuances in situations like this.

An Example

Imagine interviewing a stakeholder in a finance team about the invoice payment process. You’ve spoken to other stakeholders previously and you’re pretty sure you know the process:

“So, you get an invoice in, and as long as there’s a purchase order number on there, and as long as it’s approved, it gets scheduled for payment, is that right?”

“So, yes, mainly…. Yeah, mostly that’s it.”

It’d be easy to move on from this. It would be easy to assume that they are confirming some of the key decision rules (if an invoice has a purchase order number and has been approved, it gets scheduled). But the stakeholder has added qualifying words: mainly and mostly. These are easy to miss, but definitely require probing.

Probing might go like this:

“I noticed you said that this is mainly how the process works, are there other circumstances?”

“Yes, only very occasionally though. Sometimes, we get ‘proforma’ invoices that have to be paid immediately. We have a different process for those. Also, there are some cases where we pay up front by credit card. For example, booking training and conference places. That has a slightly different process too.”

Suddenly, a whole new set of facts becomes available. If this were a real situation, this would lead to further probing (e.g. “Are there any other times when the process operates differently?”, “Is there just one corporate credit card, and if so who is responsible for it” etc, etc).

Make Sure They Feel Heard

Of course, probing this way is important to ensure that nothing crucial is missed. However, genuinely listening is important for another reason too: to ensure that people actually feel heard.

If you’ve ever had the experience of speaking to someone who appears to be preoccupied, and is perhaps presuming what your responses are, you’ll know that this rarely feels great. As analysts, it’s important that we empathize with and genuinely hear what people are saying.

Listening in this way will help uncover important information. It is a crucial and often taken for granted skill, but one that we can probably all hone and improve upon!

Work like a Surgeon

Written by Nurani Easwaran on December 7, 2023. Posted in Articles.

There is an old joke about a surgeon and a mechanic that goes like this:.

A mechanic was removing an engine part from the motor of a car when he spotted a world-famous heart surgeon in his shop. The heart surgeon was waiting for the service manager to come take a look at his car. The mechanic shouted across the garage, “Hey Doc, can I ask you a question?” The famous surgeon, a bit surprised, walked over to the mechanic working on the car.

The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag, and asked, “So, Doc, look at this engine. I can also open it up, take the valves out, fix them, and put in new parts, and when I finish, this will work just like a new one. So how come I get a pittance and you get the big money when you and I are doing basically the same work?” The surgeon paused, smiled, leaned over, and whispered to the mechanic, “Try doing it while it’s running.”

The world in which a business analyst operates is quite like the surgical world, in the sense that a BA works with a live or running organisation and needs to make the necessary changes or improvements to the company without shutting down the currently running processes, delivering the required change while reducing impact to the minimum.

We will extend this analogy a little further from the beginning of the process (the patient comes in for consultation) until its logical conclusion (the patient goes home with the issue fixed) and see what observations we can gain from the medical world. We will also use this journey to look at the toolset available to a business analyst and determine which tool would work the best for which stage of the process.

Let us follow the example of a hypothetical heart surgeon. A patient complaining of chest pain is referred to him by a local GP. The surgeon reviews the medical exam tests conducted by the GP, forms some initial conclusions about the issue, and validates the same through further diagnosis of the patient. Based on the diagnosis and the testing, the surgeon determines that the heart is not in a good condition and that there is a high chance of heart failure. The surgeon advises that heart surgery is required to resolve his condition.

This carries some risk; however, avoidance of the surgery carries a greater risk and is more likely to result in cardiac arrest. He directs the patient to the hospital admin team to get an idea of the costs involved. The hospital admin team provides the patient with all the details, including the overall cost, including the pre-operation treatment, cost of operation, cost of recovery procedures, and timelines of each stage, so that the patient has a good idea of when the operation procedure will start, how long the entire process will take from end to end, and how much it will cost.

The patient agrees with the cost and the timelines and makes the arrangement to pay the funds to the hospital by the agreed date. The surgeon proceeds with the operation. The operation is successfully completed on time, and the patient is discharged with regular follow-ups scheduled.

Now, let us consider a parallel example in the software sector, i.e., a medium-sized software company. The company has noticed a steady decrease in profits along with an increase in customer complaints and wants to fix this issue. The company engages a reputed consultancy for this.

The BA from the consulting team arrives at the company and conducts a detailed study of the current state and the reported complaints. Through a series of discussions with the company members and interviews, the BA identifies all the key parties involved in the processes and complaints. The BA organises a series of workshops with the company representatives and uses several problem-solving techniques, such as the 5 Whys, root cause analysis, the fishbone diagram, and flowcharting of the current process, to get to the bottom of the issue.

The BA ensures that all the relevant parties understand the question by providing them with clear objectives for the workshops and what is expected of them. During the workshop, the BA also ensures that all the members get an opportunity to express their views, so that the findings are as unbiased as possible.

After this process, the BA gets a good understanding of the current state and the main causes of the issues that the company is facing. It appears that the existing software used by the company is quite old. not in line with the current needs, resulting in inefficient and time-consuming processing. There are also a few legacy processes being carried out, with some steps that are no longer relevant but are still being carried out as the staff have always worked that way.

This is resulting in a poor customer experience, with a corresponding decrease in sales and an increase in customer complaints.

These series of workshops have helped the BA and the senior management of the company get a clear understanding of the current state and the main causes of the issues being faced by the company. To take the next steps, the BA also needs to get a good understanding of the future state, i.e., what the company aims to achieve as part of its short- and long-term objectives. To do this, the BA requests that the company provide its vision, goals, and the approach or strategy decided to achieve these goals. Some of this may be readily available in the company documents but may require further discussion with senior stakeholders to clearly flesh it out so that there is no misunderstanding.

For example, the company may have planned, say, a 20 percent increase in market share, but may not have thought through or clearly spelled out all the associated elements, say, an increasing rate of production, the addition of new machinery or employees, the setup of further logistics, getting additional funding, etc. The BA helps the company work through all the dependencies and impacts and create a comprehensive future state model.

The company now has a good understanding of the as-is, or current state, and the to-be, or future state. The BA now organises another set of workshops involving all the key participants to get a clear understanding of what needs to be done to move from the current state to the future state; in other words, the BA is gathering and eliciting the requirements. During this process, the BA ensures that all the identified problems and issues and the vision of the future state are clearly understood by all the participants. This helps to ensure that the requirements are in line with the needs of the company.

Based on the feedback received from the various members of the company and their understanding of what is available in the market, the BA recommends a set of options, including some quick wins through process changes and long-term solutions such as upgrading the software or replacing it with a more efficient one. The BA clearly highlights to the senior management of the company the risks associated with staying as is and the costs, benefits, and risks of the proposed solution options. The BA also supports the company with the change impact analysis process, i.e., how the changes would impact each of the company staff involved in the current process and what can be done to ensure a smoother transition.

Once the BA gets agreement from the key stakeholders on which solution or solutions they would like to progress, the larger team, including the project managers, system architects, IT consultants, testers, and other change management personnel, is brought together along with the key members of the company, and the project is initiated. The BA carefully monitors the requirements through the various stages of the development process using a requirement traceability matrix to ensure that there is no dropping of key requirements or addition of wants based on the personal desires of some stakeholders.

The BA also ensures that the company representatives are kept well informed about the progress of the project and that there is proper end-to-end, two-way communication. This ensures that the project is successfully delivered with minimal post-project impacts.

Before You Get Into The Complexity of AI

Written by Timothy Figueroa on September 20, 2023. Posted in Articles.

Before you get into the complexity of AI you should dial in your approach to developing and prioritizing AI use cases. Align AI strategy to the corporate strategy and priority so AI use cases make sense to that organization.

The full value of AI implementations, for an organization, are not realized unless the manager responsible for AI in the organization aligns AI strategy and use cases to the corporate strategy and priority.

There are many examples today of AI implementations that bring value but are not linked to the Corporate Strategy and Priority of that organization. The result is difficulty understanding and measuring the value of the AI use case to that of the organizations goals and priorities.

This may come about where a leader hears about a cool AI technology like “Generative AI” and they want that implemented in some fashion in their line of business and then they accomplish this objective.

The lack of AI strategy alignment to corporate strategy and priority misaligns the AI use case resulting in AI implementations whose values are hard to assess in the context of the overall organizations KPI’s, its customers, lines of business and more.

Where AI use cases are carefully aligned and planned with the Corporate Strategy and Priority in mind it is easier to assess the value pre-implementation, in the short term and the in the long term. Aligned AI Use Cases may then, in time, become a jumping point for new products and services as the organization gains confidence in the AI space.

An alignment example might be, where the top corporate goal is to “better serve customers”. Drilling into this may mean, to the organization, where the customer interacts with the current corporate website and the portal does not support natural language queries for targeted information retrieval in a self-serve way and customers today bypass the portal and phone customer service instead, asking for the information wanted.

The impact of this portal deficit to the organization is that they maintain a larger customer service staff, support training, and maintain infrastructure; who are tasked with processing customer information query requests manually.

The possible AI use case that proposes to solve this deficit may be to enhance the current website by implementing an AI powered information retrieval feature that is easy to use and is self-serve. The AI solutions may be varied but the AI Use Case would be aligned to the corporate priority, would make sense to the organization garnering broad support and would solve a known problem. The AI user case would be measurable in terms of the current KPI’s used to measure performance.

Where the AI Strategy is linked to the Corporate Strategy, management at all levels can assess value and priority prior to any AI use case approval. As well, management would be able to articulate AI use case deliverable expectations, and how these expectations may enhance the existing environment, talk to impacts to the customer or organization, the market, possible effects to product and service offering and, in some cases, impacts to their industry.

Before you get into the complexity of AI, consider your AI strategy and use case approach. Think about linking your AI strategy and use case development to the Corporate Strategy and Priorities of that organization, this will assure alignment, measurable value, and organizational support. I believe this to be the first step to AI success.

Don’t Deliver a Donkey instead of a Horse

Written by Nurani Easwaran on August 30, 2023. Posted in Articles.

All of us at some point in our life have heard of the children’s game called Telephone Game or Broken Telephone. In this game, Players form a line or circle, and the first player comes up with a message and whispers it to the ear of the second person in the line. The second player repeats the message to the third player, and so on. When the last player is reached, they announce the message they just heard, to the entire group. Very often, the message that comes out at the end is quite different from what the first player had whispered, and this creates a lot of amusement.

Now imagine that same game being played when a project is initiated. In this case, the project sponsor or sponsors may request for a given deliverables at the onset of the project based on business needs. However, after the message gets filtered through many teams, the outcome may not match what was asked for in this first place resulting in a number of unhappy customers or stakeholders. This can be considered as delivering a Donkey when asked for a Horse. The moral of this story is that if there was proper end to end communication, the result would have been much closer to what the sponsor asked for in the first place. Effective Communication is considered as one of the most important aspects of both personal and work life.

Business analysts need to effectively gather and convey information between stakeholders, team members, and other parties involved in a project. Clear and concise communication ensures that requirements are accurately understood, objectives are aligned, and expectations are managed. Effective communication fosters collaboration helps in resolving conflicts and ensures that the project stays on track. Some of the key techniques or aspects of communication within the business analysis domain are discussed below. All of them are equally important and need to be considered during any engagement and can be improved through training and constant practise.

Active Listening.

Active listening plays a crucial role in business analysis. It involves fully engaging with stakeholders, understanding their needs, concerns, and requirements. This helps the BA to gather accurate and detailed requirement related information, which is essential for making informed decisions and developing effective solutions. Active listening improves collaboration, builds rapport, and ensures that project goals align with stakeholders’ expectations.

Interpersonal Communication

Interpersonal communication skills are vital in business analysis because they involve interactions with various stakeholders, each with their own perspectives and needs. Along with the Active Listening mentioned above, building rapport, and empathising with the viewpoint of the stakeholders are crucial for establishing trust and understanding. These skills help business analysts navigate conversations, gather requirements, and address concerns effectively. Related techniques such as Collaborative problem-solving, negotiation, and conflict resolution also rely heavily on strong interpersonal communication. By fostering positive relationships and adapting their communication style, business analysts can facilitate smoother interactions and achieve better outcomes throughout the project lifecycle.

Stakeholder Management

Stakeholder management is a critical aspect of business analysis that involves identifying, engaging, and effectively communicating with all parties impacted by a project. Business analysts need to understand stakeholders’ interests, expectations, and concerns. By building relationships and maintaining a clearly defined two-way lines of communication, the Business Analyst can ensure that stakeholder needs are considered throughout the project lifecycle. Effective stakeholder management involves involving the right people, keeping them informed, addressing their feedback, and managing conflicts when they arise. Successful stakeholder management contributes to project success by aligning goals, managing expectations, and fostering collaboration

Within stakeholder management, a crucial element to consider is Communication strategy. This has a number of components of its own including identifying the audience for each message, understanding the environment or business situation under which the given project has been initiated, getting a clear understanding of the sponsor vision or objectives , being able to define what needs to be said to whom and when, and knowing what are the various ways in which the message can be delivered and feedback received.

Facilitation

Facilitation is an important technique in business analysis that involves guiding discussions and workshops to achieve productive outcomes. By facilitating meetings, workshops, and brainstorming sessions as per the needs of the project, business analysts can encourage participation, manage conflicts, and ensure viewpoints from all the stakeholders or impacted parties are heard. Facilitation helps in eliciting requirements, prioritizing features and functionality, and fostering collaboration among stakeholders. It also aids in reaching a collective understanding and agreement of the objectives and making informed decisions, leading to more successful project outcomes

Business Writing

Strong writing skills are crucial for business analysts as they are responsible for documenting and communicating various aspects of their work. Clear and concise writing is essential for creating requirements documents, project plans, reports, and other forms of documentation. Effective writing ensures that complex deliverables or impacts are accurately and clearly represented to stakeholders, team members, and decision-makers. It also helps in avoiding misunderstandings and serves as a reference for project progress and decisions. Well-written documentation contributes to effective communication, reduces ambiguity, and supports the overall success of business analysis efforts.

Presentation Skills

Visual and presentation skills are essential for effective communication in business analysis. They help convey complex ideas, data, and information to stakeholders in a clear and understandable manner. Business analysts often use visual aids like diagrams, charts, and models to represent processes, workflows, and requirements visually. Strong presentation skills enable them to deliver findings, recommendations, and project updates to diverse audiences, ensuring engagement and comprehension. These skills enhance collaboration, facilitate decision-making, and contribute to the overall success of projects.

Nonverbal communication

It is often mentioned that over 70 percent of face-to-face communication is Non-Verbal. Nonverbal behavior, such as body language, facial expressions, and gestures, plays a significant role in business analysis. It helps convey emotions, attitudes, and intentions that words alone might not capture. Observing nonverbal cues during meetings and interactions with stakeholders can provide valuable insights into their reactions, level of engagement, and concerns. Being attuned to nonverbal behavior allows business analysts to adapt their communication style, build rapport, and ensure effective collaboration. It also helps in detecting potential misunderstandings and addressing them promptly.

By considering and effectively executing all the above techniques, the Business Analyst is certain to have a much higher success rate in delivering and meeting the needs of the stakeholders

Communication Strategy

This can be considered as the overarching technique or approach that is used and includes elements or all the above techniques.

Best of BATimes: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective BAs

Written by Priyanka Agrawal on April 26, 2023. Posted in Articles.

In my experience as a Business Analyst (BA), I have seen many analysts struggle in trying to strike the right levels of analysis. Some analysts tend to overanalyze while others, under analyze. Getting trapped in the dilemma of when to stop and/or when to continue analyzing can put you into a vicious cycle of ineffectiveness and devaluation. The result: zero business outcome yet a ton of frustration and a huge load of wasted time and effort.

The 7 habits of highly effective BAs guide you in establishing thresholds and protocols for your analysis finish line and helps you determine how far you are from the finish line. These 7 habits provide you with a compass that guides you to determine when to hit the breaks and/or when to accelerate your analysis.

1. Be cognizant of the allotted project budget and schedules. Create a mini work breakdown structure (WBS) for yourself that distributes analysis tasks and activities based on the allotted time and effort. Over time, you won’t need to formally put this down on paper and your mind will automatically signal you when you’ve exceeded or unfulfilled the allotments. However, be aware that this strategy alone may not help you in striking the perfect level of analysis. For best results, combine this technique with one or more strategies described below. For example, requirements analysis can be about 25-30% of an overall development project. If the analysis is taking more time than testing and programming put together, there is something evidently wrong. The flaw with this approach is that you will need to continuously monitor your project spend before you determine you’re on the wrong track which sometimes can be too late in the game to backtrack.

2. Establish and communicate success criteria at the onset to understand where the real finish line is. Once you have fulfilled the success criterion, you’ll know that you’ve more or less completed the required level of analysis.

3. When performing use case analysis, ensure you’ve considered not only normal and alternate flows but also exception flows. In my experience, at least 1 normal flow, 2-3 alternate flows, and 0-1 exception flows are typically enough.

4. Ensure you understand the inputs (preconditions), outputs (outcomes and postconditions), and actors before you start your analysis. This will help you say focused and on the right track in terms of scope.

5. Always refer back to the business objectives, goals, and vision. When performing any sub-activity, always ask yourself if what you are doing is related to, impacts or is impacted by the overarching goals. If the answer is no, stop! If the answer is yes, continue and go back to the success criterion.

6. Define limitations, assumptions, and constraints and keep those in mind all along when performing analysis. This will help you rule out some scenarios and help you continue on your journey to a fruitful analytical activity.

7. Know your audience. Ask yourself these questions: Who is the receiver of my analysis? Who would my work interest? Knowing who you are performing the analysis for will help you identify the level of detail required and therefore the amount of analysis to perform.