the five pillars of a great business analyst v1 0

The

5pillarsof a greatbusiness analystTheBACoach.com

by Yaaqub Mohamed (Yamo)

www.TheBACoach.com@TheBACoach

Version 1.0

presents
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CopyrightThe Five Pillars of a Great Business Analyst

Youre given the unlimited right to print and distribute this e-book and I encourage you to share it using the URL www.freebagift.com. However, you cannot alter it in any way and you may not charge for either the book or the content within it.

The copyright in this work belongs to Yaaqub Mohamed(Yamo) who is solely responsible for the content. Please send feedback or questions to [email protected] or use www.freebagift.com/feedback.

Other copyrights

IIBA, the IIBA logo, BABOK and Business Analysis Body of Knowledge are registered trademarks owned by International Institute of Business Analysis.

GTD and Getting Things Done are registered trademarks of David Allen & Co.

Project whispering is inspired by the book The Project Whisperer by Pam Stanton and used with her permission
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Acknowledgement and ThanksTo:

This book is dedicated to all the business analysts who love their job, and are willing to constantly learn and be better analysts.

Special thanks to the following people:

Laura Brandenburg, Adrian Reed, Sabiha Shaikh, Katie Metcalfe, Anam Shaikh and Karl Wiegers for providing feedback and comments to greatly improve the content and structure of this book. Doug Goldberg for pushing me to do some major rewriting.

Extra special thanks to Bennett Mendes and Katie Metcalfe for being unrelenting supporters of the five pillars project and the podcast/blog.

Howard Podeswa and Karl Wiegers for being great mentors, and inspiring authors.

My mom Asmathunnisa who taught me how to connect with people, and instilled values to give back, and my dad Yousuff Mohamed for exemplifying that there is no substitute for hard work. All my friends (too many to list here) who have supported all my endeavors, and encouraged me through this five-pillar project.

Maude Stephany my copyeditor for refining some parts of the content and doing a fantastic job of editing.

Pam Stanton for sharing her insights on being a project whisperer and recording an exclusive podcast episode for this book.

#baot and #pmot twitter community for being supportive and encouraging me to make this project a reality.

My best friend and wife Asma for being a great support, critic, and loving me unconditionally.
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Contents4

Introduction

8Pillar 1 - The Passion

16Pillar 2 - Adaptive Social Skills

25Pillar 3 - Recursive Systems Thinking

36Pillar 4 - Going the Extra Mile

46Pillar 5 - Peak Productivity

54Epilogue

56About Yamo

57Join the Community

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IntroductionWhere are we positioned?

No business needs convincing that improvement and change is an essential part of its existence. It is becoming increasingly apparent that change is the most important factor to manage for an enterprise, from a tactical, strategic and enterprise standpoint. The need to quickly win over change is often amplified by changing market dynamics and ever increasing competition.

Due to this push from the changing marketplace dynamics, teams that are involved in change execution are challenged to use fewer resources to deliver more in less time. This calls for an increased efficiency in utilization of all the resources, and lays a greater emphasis on teams to be more cohesive and to perform at a higher level on the delivery curve.

Business analysts are at the heart of improvement and change in an organization. A Business Analyst plays a crucial role in a team that does the analysis, assessment and execution of change be it process related, operational and/or technological in nature. Our position is also increasingly embedded in the growing use of technology in organizations and its inherent complexity in the context of an intricate business environment. The position of a business analyst in a team has gone through a gradual metamorphosis in the past decade. With increased awareness and realization that a business analyst can be more valuable if leveraged properly, we are seeing a positive trend on how business analysts are being perceived in an organization. This is just the beginning of a paradigm shift; business analysts still have a lot of work to do to be perceived as a valued part of a team. They must continue to contribute positively in the teams they work in. Organizations such as the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) add to the positive perception of business analysis by increasing awareness and creating standards.

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Do you recognize this reality?

You are a business analyst assigned to a top priority project for the current fiscal year, which was envisioned by the management team. A certain budget is allocated, a project charter created, an initial list of stakeholders is supplied, and an end date is determined for getting the requirements signed-off from key stakeholders to begin the development process. You accept the recurring invite for the weekly or daily status meeting to provide an ongoing status about the progression of the project.

You start digging for any documentation that can provide some clues on the project, you interview the stakeholders, and you observe a few on how they do certain tasks and perform a process. With some initial research and analysis, you begin synthesizing process flows, context diagrams, use cases, conduct a series of JAD sessions with your team and the first draft of your specs begins to take shape. You love the whole creative process.

Fast forward a few months, and you are in a high-strung situation. You are constantly being asked about the sign-off from a stakeholder who is on vacation or has not yet read your specs completely. The development team has already started design on some requirements that still need some clarification and review, because they just cant wait until sign-off. A decision on whether an interface is in scope or not due to its feasibility is still pending because the team that needs to decide this is busy with another critical project.

After some tussle you make it to sign-off, and during testing some missing features surface that should have been identified during the requirements review with the subject matter experts (SME). You work with the SMEs to create a change request and work towards its approval, while being pushed by your PM to get the UAT sign-off before its due date. You engage in some wishful thinking to transition into a better role, or consider completing your MBA for more meaningful work than being stuck in this predicament for every project.

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The context for this book

The disjunction between the use of BA tools, techniques, methodologies, and the intrinsic characteristics of a successful business analysis practitioner serves as the underlying context for this book.

Time and again, we have seen that project methodologies, BA tools and techniques dont always guarantee a projects success. These are just means to an end, not a definitive recipe for the success of projects. The probability of a project being successful is directly proportional to the caliber of the team executing the project.

In this book I want to focus on the role of a business analyst in a high caliber team and highlight the characteristics of a great business analyst. We need great business analysts to execute projects, change businesses, lead and educate teams, create an atmosphere of trust, and get things done.

It is a great time to be a business analyst, and also timely to define the characteristics of a great BA. These characteristics help a business analyst to vanquish the recurring situation described above. These characteristics of a great BA are packaged into five pillars and are closely connected. Together, these pillars create a synergy that makes it possible for a business analyst to overcome key challenges in projects.

A great BA is someone who aligns well with the tenets as described in the five pillars elaborated in this book. These are neither academic guidelines which provide an algorithm for the definition of a great BA, nor a ranked list of competencies picked through a survey. These five pillars are what I have observed through repeated patterns of excellence in projects, in the resolution of crises, in interviewing other business analysts, and in project situations where people prevailed under the most demanding of situations.

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A Great Business Analyst ...

1. is passionate about being a business analyst, and goes beyond all the frustrations involved in the job. This passion is often married with talent. This is key for being emotionally engaged as a BA.

2. connects with stakeholders at a level that facilitates easier collaboration, elicits the right information, and influences decisions.

3. has the ability to rise above the intricate low-level details. They see the big picture and constantly keep an eye on the final outcome. A great BA is cognizant enough to know how and when to alternate between these perspectives.

4. can gauge the pulse of the project, its people, and when it is necessary go the extra mile to make things happen.

5. uses the appropriate context-specific productivity tools and techniques that will maximize business analysis efforts in a project.

This book elaborates on these five pillars and walks you through the reasoning of why they are essential. It also provides tips for learning how to implement them in your role as a BA.

Happy reading, and I wish you ultimate success in your career!

Yaaqub Mohamed (Yamo). Your fellow BA,Host for www.TheBACoach.com

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Pillar 1

The passion fueled with talent

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Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion. - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

If you dont like it dont do it. If you were not made for it dont do it either.

Passion is probably the most important ingredient for being a great business analyst. You need to love every aspect of being a business analysis practitioner. The ensuing emotional energy due to this passion is what makes business analysts move forward despite obstacles, deliver despite impediments, and show up at work despite having demanding bosses.

At this point you might be wondering, Isnt this true for any profession? It absolutely is. However, over the course of walking you through this pillar, I want to strengthen your passion dimension in the context of being a business analyst. I want to focus on Why BAs love being BAs. In this section, I will also draw on my own reasons. In addition to this, I also want to illustrate the power of how having the right talent can be highly conducive to performing the role of a business analyst.

The breed of passionate business analysts

Passionate business analysts can immediately explain the specifics of their job that make them love it. They get enthused and charged while talking about it, and always look forward to taking their passion at work to the next level. They consider their jobs to be a source of great enjoyment, interest, and an ongoing pursuit of positive engagement and contribution.

At this point, if you are wondering, I am not attempting to paint a rosy picture around being a business analyst. There are adjoining frustrations with being a business analyst, just like with any other profession. However, passionate business analysts have a way of going beyond these frustrations. As you will read later in this chapter, their point of view and perspective makes them focus on the positives of this role. Their passion and strengths makes them overcome the challenges that come with being a BA.

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When I created the structure for doing BA Interview podcasts on TheBACoach.com, one of the first few questions to each BA I interviewed was, Why do you like being a BA? because I wanted to elicit the essence of what made them choose this profession. Was it a conscious choice? Was it something that they decided to do because it had better scope in terms of jobs and a higher salary? Or was it just an accident?

The responses were inspiring, and each interviewee had an array of reasons for becoming a BA which were unique to each of them. Holistically they all had one underlying theme, which made their responses a beautiful symphony of a strong business case for being a business analyst. I want to quote and elaborate on a few of these below.

Adrian Reed from Portsmouth, UK likes being a BA because: I enjoy the variety no two days are the same, and I like having the opportunity to make a positive change to the organization I work for.

Variety and versatility are two exciting facets of being a business analyst. The tasks associated with performing different phases of analysis offer variety. You could be talking to a business partner at 10:00 AM, having a status meeting with testers listening to their pain points at 11:00 AM, and engaging in creating a process flow in the afternoon along with your team in a JAD session. Often, there is no room for boredom. And while you enjoy the variety, contributing positively to an organization you work for is something you wont regret.

Doug Goldberg from Dallas, Texas, USA likes it because: I enjoy the challenge and interaction of working with people and personalities to resolve problems and deliver solution options.

Working with myriad personality types under different situations is something very common with being a business analyst. You get to work with stakeholders that are extremely analytical, and cater to their style of being extremely systematic, well organized, and deliberate. You work with drivers, folks that are very practical and results-oriented.

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You work with friendly people who hate dealing with impersonal details and hard facts. You work with outgoing, enthusiastic, and expressive personalities. A business analyst gets to work with all these personalities under varying stress levels, when their personality takes a slightly different shape.

Margaret Marco from Toronto, Canada likes it because: Being a BA is like being a detective - one has to work to find out what is really going on, produce a vision that others can understand and agree to, and provide clear details so that it can actually be implemented.

Problem solving and navigating a confusing ecosystem of a project is often an essential component of being a business analyst. Where there is chaos and scattered information, a business analyst needs to collate the relevant pieces and create alignment in order to facilitate agreement to move things further along.

Jayesh Jain from Auckland, New Zealand likes it because: There are three aspects of the job I like the most: people, challenges and problem solving. I love interacting with people. Being a BA I get to do that a lot. No two days are the same and no two projects are same; there is always a variety in what I do. As passionate as I am about learning and being able to correctly apply the skills and tasks that make business analysis effective, I am a lot more passionate about the impact good business analysis has on businesses

A lot of times its just the combination of these realms. Dealing with people is not always easy if you dont have the tolerance and knack for it. Working on challenges is not always easy if you dont have experience to handle them systematically. And getting to solve problems at work that are people- related, process-related, or related to business analysis is something business analysts love to deal with using different BA tools and techniques.

The best part is that there is no prescribed way to solve a problem; being a business analyst could almost be called an art form.

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These four responses Ive shared with you are just a sample of many responses that I heard while interviewing business analysts throughout the world. This should provide you a good sense of the reasons why business analysts are passionate about their profession. Each of these interview podcasts are published on the blog and you can also find them on: TheBACoach.com

A craving and desire

Along with all the great reasons that I elicited from them for loving their job, each of the business analysts also have an intrinsic craving and desire for: intellectual stimulation social interactions recognition of work connecting the dots, decoding people and solving puzzles. solving the pain points for people and organizations. being exposed to solving a wide variety of problems.

When talent fuels passion

I recently read an inspiring book titled Strengths Finder 2.0, by Tim Rath, that opened my eyes and resonated with my ideas and aspirations. It had brought to light a topic that was so basic and essential, yet missed by most people while pursuing their career. That ideal is that it is important to have an opportunity to do what you do best every day. Its the notion of fueling your passion for work with what you are naturally good at. At first it may seem clichd and sound like an oversimplified philosophy of loving what you do, but it transcends that.

In essence, the book talks about how societys primary focus on peoples weaknesses rather than their strengths is causing a deep internal decay in their chosen professions and in the edifices of corporate culture. It is having a bigger impact on how fulfilled people feel about their jobs and also to a large extent, about life. If someone chooses a profession based on their natural flair, they are more likely to be emotionally engaged along with being competent, which is a given.
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Without emotional engagement, employees will lack the energy and talent- fueled passion that will cause great things to happen, when there is a room for it. Without this ingredient, the spark for innovation and enthusiasm will be difficult to draw out. This will also affect peoples life in the long run and affect their attitude of how they feel about their quality of life in general.

They were made for this

A great business analyst has a natural flair in business analysis activities. This simply means that great business analysts have discovered their talent that makes them do their job with greater ease. Some key strengths that are needed to be a business analyst include people skills, problem solving skills, systems thinking, public speaking, organizational skills, conceptual ability, quick learning, communication skills, and leadership skills. Although these skills are essential in other roles, the form and shape of utilization can vary greatly for a BA role.

Some BAs are naturally good at these skills, although the levels may vary for each skill for every BA. Great business analysts are usually aware of their strengths and limitations and constantly strive to take these skills to the next level. A lot of times just knowing BA tools, techniques, and templates is not enough. Having an adequate level of each of the aforementioned skills is crucial to take your career and craft to the next level, and applying the knowledge of tools and techniques effectively and efficiently.

How I discovered the passion and talentThroughout my career I have experienced a series of epiphanies that have contributed collectively to my loving the role of a business analyst. The one below was probably the starting point for this:

I vividly recall the day during a C++ lab when I had created a program to generate a pop-up menu for a text editor that we were building. After nearly a week of studying various functions and figuring out the logic, I was all set to try it. It was about 3 a.m. and I had just discovered how to change the hover color for the first menu-item, File -> New. The computer science lab was dark and quiet, with all monitors on Windows screen saver, except mine. Pressing that F9 key to launch the program for the first time was undoubtedly the starting point for me to embark on a serious journey in software engineering.

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The rush I got from seeing the fruits of my knowledge take shape was extraordinary. It aroused within me a curiosity to build and create software that began as just a vision.

At that point in my life I saw how small pieces of code, put together, could make big changes in the way a program works and change the way people react toward it. By this time I knew that pursuing my Bachelors degree in Computer Science was an apt choice.

Seeing the world of software development for the past decade, I have realized the definition of a solution is the most crucial component for building it effectively. I have played the roles of a Systems Analyst, was part of the worlds largest C++ project, did validation and testing as a QA Analyst, worked as a Team Lead and, managed an offshore team of 40. Gradually I started leaning towards requirements definition and wound up as a Business System Analyst, which I have since been doing for a long time.

I loved learning new subject matter, and was pretty decent at it, and this made me get excited about new projects. I loved dealing with people all through my career, and loved solving problems, organizing, and creating all business analysis artifacts. As a former dramatic actor in school, I brought good public speaking skills to my work. I was able to map my strengths and use them in the many different aspects of being a business analyst.

The essence of passion pillar

The crux of this pillar is to help you discover (or rediscover) your enthusiasm about business analysis and to challenge you to use your strengths every day at work. If you enjoy bringing about a positive change to the organization you work for, surpassing all the hurdles and impediments, then you are in the right place and doing the right thing and well on your way from being a Good BA to a Great BA.

Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you. - Oprah Winfrey

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Your passion pillar to-do list

1. Think about when you were the happiest in your job, what were you doing? Make a list of activities that made you be feel this way.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________2. Spend some time listing out your key strengths (people skills, writing, puzzle solving, organizing, etc) and evaluate which ones are key to being a great business analyst. Also identify which ones you need to improve upon.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________3. Do a mental walk through of your typical workday, and evaluate if you get the opportunity to use your key strengths every day at work.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. Imagine scenarios, where you used your key strengths to solve a problem exceptionally well. How many can you think of? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. Draw out your own story and identify epiphanies that help your recognize your strengths and passion. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Please dont forget to give your feedback for this pillar: www.FreeBAGift.com/feedback )
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Pillar 2Adaptive Social Skills...

connect, engage, inspire and lead

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The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people - Theodore Roosevelt

If you are consistently building strong relationships with people you work with, you are getting closer and closer to being a great business analyst.

A project team is a veritable melting pot of personalities and situations. As a result, it is becoming increasingly important for a business analyst to recognize this reality and to be able to work with the different situations that bubble up in that pot. There is a strong need for adaptive social skills in a business analyst, to effectively navigate and integrate the ecosystem of people, processes, and technologies under different social contexts.

Adaptive social skills for a business analyst can be defined as ability to recognize the utilization of a suitable skill or response to a given social situation to effectively solve the problem at hand. The situation could involve solving a business analysis problem or an interpersonal interaction related scenario. In this pillar, I want to walk through some key elements of this class of social skills, and at the end provide some ways in which you can improve and master these skills.

The need for adaptive social skills

Business analysts connect the dots across an organization in a given process-related or technological endeavor. They are perhaps the most social of all the roles in a project team. By social, I dont mean being solely extroverted. They have to know how to understand, communicate and engage effectively with their stakeholders in fruitful interactions. Business analysts must empathize, sympathize, and make connections to effectuate change.

A BA often takes the role of a facilitator in a variety of scenarios. They coach, train and mentor the project team to utilize new tools, understand a new domain, or adopt a new technology. It is imperative that a business analyst possesses the intelligence to understand human emotions and make connections with people. This high emotional intelligence allows them to effectively perceive, assess and positively influence ones own and other peoples emotions.

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They recognize that, in order to interact effectively with others, one has to be able to monitor and control ones own emotional state. This serves as a strong basis for building adaptive social skills.

Adapting to different personalities

In his interview for TheBACoach.com when Doug Goldberg said I start with an understanding that I work with human beings, before I work with co-workers or associates he was alluding to the very essence of working with people. It is important to recognize this, and also understand that different people have different personalities, and their dispositions can vary depending on the situation they are in.

If you visualize the team you work with currently, and start focusing on each team member, you will realize that each persons perspective is built into who they are. It is what defines their personality or temperament. Just like how some of your friends and even family are very different from you, your team members can also be different. There are extensive models that have been formulated to define and understand different personality types: Carl Jungs psychological types, William Moulton Marstons DISC personality theory, and Myers Briggs personality types to name a few. If you are not familiar with these, I urge you to learn more about them as these can help you a great deal in understanding people and how to motivate them

Example of adapting to different personalities The misunderstood driver

David thrives on the thrill of challenges and the internal motivation to succeed. He is very practical and highly focused on getting results. In a typical workday, he does a lot in a very short period of time. He is known to be result-oriented, competitive, assertive, demanding, and action oriented by his team members. He has the habit of talking fast, his speech is direct and to the point; as a result he is often viewed as decisive, direct and pragmatic. His personality type fits with the profile of a typical Driver.

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Samantha is a BA working with David, and sometimes gets intimidated by the way David interacts. Specifically Davids no-nonsense approach to dealing with project tasks, and his assertive questioning makes Samantha think that he doesnt trust her work and feels bullied at times.

Ideally: Samantha should have carefully observed the patterns of behaviors exhibited by David over time, and understood his personality type. Rather than get intimidated by his approach, she should work with David with a sense of understanding where he comes from.

When you apply this principle, always remembers one of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People:

Seek first to understand, then to be understood. ~ Stephen R. Covey.

Adaptive engagement with stakeholders

Throughout your career as a business analyst you will begin to discern a preferred mode of engagement with stakeholders, in terms of communication, and also using of different business analysis tools and techniques. Great business analysts sense the need to adapt a given approach to better suit the stakeholder needs and preference.

One of the BA Podcast Interviewees, Joe De Silva pointed out in his interview ...different people have different styles and preferences. Try and consider that, rather than retreating into a mindset of they need to go through this process... . It is important to take this advice to heart as business analysts as an engagement with a stakeholder is not always about having them fit into the way you have always done something.

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Example of adaptive engagement with stakeholdersPlease fit into my use case template: (adapt to role play)

Adam has created a use case that has about 52 steps. While doing a walkthrough with his stakeholders, he realizes that users do not understand how different components of a use case fit together (pre-conditions, post conditions, alternate flows, etc).

He quickly recognizes this and switches his walk-through into a role-playing session where he walks through the use case flow using roles, and scenarios. He uses the white board to identify with users the key events and steps involved in what a user does and helps them to relate various facets of the discussion to the use case and its components.

This adaptive engagement with the users helps Adam to not lose the users because they could not understand his initial approach. He quickly recognized this situational issue and engaged in another technique to complete the walkthrough with the users.

The importance of active listening

Communication is the most important skill in life. We spend most of our waking hours communicating. But consider this: Youve spent years learning how to read and write, years learning how to speak. But what about listening? What training or education have you had that enables you to listen so that you really, deeply understand another human being from that individuals own frame of reference?

~ Stephen R. Covey

Another key element for connecting with your project team is to engage in active listening. This implies that you understand what they are saying in the right context, interpreting their words mentally, and evaluating your response.

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Active listening helps a business analyst to:

critically evaluate what is being said. formulate the right questions to ask at the right time. foster understanding, making the stakeholders more comfortable in giving out information. create more open communication. build positive working relationships. alleviate conflicts within the team. strengthen cooperation. facilitate a positive synergy. reveal what analysis needs to be performed.

Adaptive social skills A key differentiator for business analysts

Getting along with other team members requires finesse and can go a long way toward mutual understanding. In fact, in a wide variety of situations, people would rather work with someone who is less competent, yet likable over someone who is skilled, yet obnoxious. The perception of competence is often influenced, to a great extent, by likability. These skills differentiate different analysts distinctly in terms of how they are perceived by their team, and management.

A corollary of this would mean that people who lack social competence end up looking like they lack other competencies too.

Great business analysts recognize that there is a constant need to refine and utilize social skills for different situations and with different people. In order to start developing adaptive social skills a business analyst should:

take criticism with an open heart and mind, never react, and always introduce a strategic pause between the perception and reaction. listen more than talk, and always understand the other persons perspective, before laying out his or her own. focus on developing relationships with stakeholders by building informal rapport and finding a hook that connects.

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The emerging need

In knowledge based working environments, the increasing emphasis on team-centric collaboration is making social skills critical for success in the workplace.

For business analysts to move from being good to great, they would require the following social skills:

attentive listening skills. sensitivity, empathy and perception. confidence to communicate and bring forth new ideas that will stimulate group discussions. inquisitive questioning skills to ask the right questions from key stakeholders. collaborative and intermingling skills. influence - to persuade those who oppose your suggestions to reconsider their standing. respectfulness - to demonstrate that you are flexible enough to explore the possibilities that others are trying to share. generosity - to help others see that you are capable of lending your support to buoy their tasks and career undertakings. ability to build informal rapport with key stakeholders.

The essence of Adaptive Social Skills pillar

The second pillar underscores the importance of adaptive social skills in changing social contexts to handle people and business analysis related scenarios. If you are already implementing key elements of adaptive social skills in your practice of business analysis you are well on your way from being Good BA to a Great BA.

The more people you know, and who know you in a positive way, the more successful you will be at anything you attempt - Brian Tracy

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Your adaptive social skills pillar to-do list

1. Join a club or a committee within your company to expose yourself to new social situations. List three that come to your mind below:

1. ________________________________________________2. ________________________________________________3. ________________________________________________

2. Join a local IIBA chapter to network with other BAs in your city. List out the date and time of the next local IIBA chapters event, and plan to attend as guest. ________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. Connect with other Business Analysts over popular social networking sites: Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. You can start by connecting with TheBACoach.com on these networks. List out five business analysts you connected with below:

1. _____________________________2. _____________________________3. _____________________________4. _____________________________5. _____________________________

4. Being good at talking to people requires that you figure out what interests them, so the next time you are talking to a stakeholder find a hook, something that is a common interest or hobby, and talk about it at length. List out five hobbies or interests of your stakeholders below:

1. _____________________________2. _____________________________3. _____________________________4. _____________________________5. _____________________________

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Your adaptive social skills pillar to-do list (contd.)

5. A good place to practice your social, public speaking and listening skills actively is at a Toastmasters club. Go to toastmasters.org and select a suitable club, then plan to visit as a guest before joining. I recommend visiting at least 5 clubs (if there are many clubs near where you live / work) before joining the club of your choice. List the details out below to drive action:

Nr. Club Name and location Date and time of the next meeting

Rating (Fill after visiting)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6. Recognize situations for adaptive engagement with stakeholders. List out alternatives that you would use if a stakeholder is having difficulty understanding the following:

BA Technique / Tool Alternative approach that you would adapt to

System context diagram

Process flows

Data flow diagrams

7. Study various personality models and try to categorize your team and certain stakeholders in a given category of personality type. List out five below: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________(Please dont forget to give your feedback for this pillar: www.FreeBAGift.com/feedback )

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Pillar 3Recursive Systems

Thinking to decipher the ecosystem.

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I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right. - Albert Einstein

You are not just a technical writer, a meeting scribe, or an order taker. You will always think before you ink. Thinking in the right light and at the right level is the key to success as a BA.

Thinking is the key part of conducting analysis. Unfortunately, often business analysts are labeled as being simply writers of the requirements specifications, meeting scribes, or just listeners to what the business says and putting it into a format that fits the template at hand. All these activities are just a way to communicate the analysis, not the analysis itself.

A great business analyst has a natural flair and an unquenchable thirst to discover the truth, to uncover a missing piece in the puzzle, and to follow their quest to solve the riddle using an appropriate approach. This often entails a systematic thinking process that leads to the uncovering of facts and details. However, there are times when the thinking process goes beyond what is visible it involves the perceptive gathering and connecting of various hidden ambiguities to form a concrete, correct and complete picture.

The most important trait

One of the most important traits a business analyst needs to have is the ability to see the big picture view of the system and its relationship to the business. It is important that even while analyzing and fitting the smaller pieces of the puzzle, the BA steps back periodically and views the big picture. Timely and appropriate employment of systems thinking is often the key to conducting effective business analysis for a given domain.

In this pillar I want to elaborate on what systems thinking really means, and provide an example of how a business analyst can effectively apply the programming concept of recursion to it.

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Defining Systems Thinking

Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things influence one another within a whole. In nature, systems include ecosystems in which various elements such as air, water, movement, plants, and animals work together to survive or perish. In organizations, systems consist of people, structures, and processes that work together to either help or hinder to make an organization to achieve its objectives.

According to BABOK:

Business analysts must be effective at understanding how the people, processes and technology within an organization interact in relationships and patterns to create a system as a whole.

Systems theory and systems thinking suggest that the system as a whole will have properties, behaviors and characteristics that emerge from the interaction of the components of the system, and which are not predictable from an understanding of the components alone. In the context of systems theory, the term system is much broader than an IT systemit also includes the people involved, the interactions between them, the external forces affecting their behavior, and all other relevant elements and factors.

Example of systems thinking from the Insurance Domain

John, a consumer, receives a quote for his brand new Honda Civic from Susan a producer (sales representative) working for new business department. His premium rates are influenced by rate tables developed by actuaries from the Risk Department, a Motor Vehicle Report (MVR) pulled in from the Motor Vehicles Department, and a credit report coming in from one of the credit agencies. Once his policy is active, the mail department is notified to dispatch his policy documents via mail since the default delivery is via postal service.

A renewal cycle will kick in with multiple pre-renewal steps occurring automatically. This involves re-pulling of an MVR report, and rate calculations for any policy changes made. The claims department needs to additionally pull a CLUE (providing claims data) report to factor in any rate changes as well, since John has some history as a policyholder.

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John had a claim after 2 months of policy issue due to an at-fault accident, which made his rates go up by 5%. The renewed policy now reflects the new rates.

While all this is happening, a data warehouse captures data about all policyholders, which gets supplied to Insurance regulatory bodies as monthly reports. These reports facilitate financial reporting, forecasting, and helps Susans boss Tamer to advise her to remind John about e-billing options, since most of her policies were not opted-in for paperless option.

If you put your systems thinking hat on to understand this, you will begin to appreciate how different people (John, Susan, Tamer), External entities (MVR, CLUE, regulatory bodies), processes (Quote, Issue, Claims, Renewal, Reporting, Analytics) and Systems (process specific IT and non-IT systems) are working together to keep this insurance business running and profitable.

Understanding recursion

When performing analysis for a given problem domain, it can be beneficial to apply the principles of recursion to elicit, analyze, and synthesize various work products that pertain to business analysis. Often just one level of investigation and thinking may not be sufficient to solidify any analysis artifact (a use case, a system context diagram, a process flow diagram, etc.). It is worthwhile, in most instances, to repeat analysis and investigation from different angles in order to build a more complete picture of the problem space or to uncover any missing pieces.

In simplest terms recursion is doing something repeatedly and logically until a desired result is accomplished. In effect recursive systems thinking is about applying the principles of recursion to systems thinking in order to perform effective business analysis for a given domain.

Example of recursion

Recursion is the process a procedure goes through when one of the steps of the procedure involves rerunning the procedure.

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To understand recursion, one must recognize the distinction between a procedure and the running of a procedure. A procedure is a set of steps that are to be taken based on a set of rules. The running of a procedure involves actually following the rules and performing the steps. A very simple analogy would be emptying a buckle of water with a tumbler:

Tumbler-Out = procedure to remove water once from the bucket (with various steps)

Empty-Bucket = the end result

A recursive procedure that will empty the bucket can be represented as below:

Perform -> Tumbler-Out until Empty-Bucket.

Recursive Systems Thinking for analysts

If systems thinking is about having a big picture view of your analysis in the context of the domain, recursive systems thinking is having multiple big picture snapshots, zooming out each time until you see how it all ties in to the overall business.

The following three steps drive the thought process associated with recursive systems thinking:

1. Conduct Analysis: Analyze the functioning of the system within an apparent boundary.

2. Repeat Analysis: Zoom out beyond the current boundary and analyze again. It is important at this step to also connect how the previous picture ties in with the current one. 3. Terminate Analysis: Terminate when all the pieces are identified that help you understand a given portion of a business and how it ties to the business overall.

As you go through the analysis of a piece of problem domain, think of what people are involved, what processes have an impact on in their work/ work-flows, and what systems they use including IT and Non-IT.

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Pattern Recognition during analysis

While conducting analysis it can be very useful to employ your knowledge and experience of a similar process and arrive at a pattern to see if something is missing or needs elaboration. With some experience across different projects you will see a set of patterns emerge. It is quite interesting to observe the patterns, which repeat across different domains in a business or ecosystem. Once you can begin to spot the similarities for each project, it becomes much easier for a BA to understand each part of the analysis itself, along with the big picture. For example, when you understand the importance of roles, and profiles in the context of security requirements, you immediately think of data access requirements.

Recursive Systems Thinking In Action

Let us extend the scenario stated earlier to illustrate systems thinking, using an Insurance business. Imagine that the Insurance regulatory agencies now require additional notifications be sent to the members about any type of rate changes, and include details of such changes as part of the monthly regulatory reports. The illustration below shows the thought process in detail:

1. Conduct Analysis: Analyze the functioning of the system within an apparent boundary.

As a BA associated with this particular project, you would probably be involved with defining what needs to be done to send additional notifications to the members and report changes to the regulatory bodies. You will start to identify the apparent boundaries to be the reporting area (reporting and analytics dept.), and the notifications area (website team, and documents team). You conduct your initial analysis using various BA tools and techniques.

2. Repeat Analysis: Zoom out one logical level beyond the current boundary and analyze again, connecting how the previous picture ties in with the current one.

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One level up: For the notifications area you start to recognize how the documents team is a sub-set of the policy administration systems area that manages policies. The website area is a separate area that links to the policy administration system, collecting key pieces of data to notify John about his policy or claims. The website area also connects with the documents area to pass on any updates made by John on the website (personal details changes, setting of paperless options, etc.). And for reporting area you notice that they get their data from a central data warehouse that gets regular feeds of data from the policy administration system.

Two levels up: Now you can see how the documents and website areas are like their own hubs for all the systems and processes across the enterprise. The reporting area has different reports for various areas in the organization. All sourcing from the central data warehouse gets fed with data regularly by various other systems within the company.

Three levels up: Now you can see how John gets one mail from the Insurance Company that collates all the documents for his products from the Insurance Company. He can logon to the website to see one integrated view of all the information related to his products with the company. If he has selected paperless options on the website, he no longer gets printed matter from the Insurance company.

Four levels up: You begin to appreciate how this company has the most advanced integrated view of all the products their customers own. Insurance regulatory agencies rate this company A+ due to their on-time compliance in financial and regulatory reporting. This is just an example of zooming out to view the big picture. There is no set number of levels to zoom out; its entirely up to your preference and judgment. These four levels just indicate a problem at hand view to the big picture view.

Benefits of recursive systems thinking

Employing effective recursive systems thinking can help a business analyst understand the problem and solution domain better. It can help the team design intelligent and enduring solutions after the analysis is complete.

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In essence, recursive system thinking helps a business analyst to:

break down a big analysis problem into divisible smaller sub-problems, decipher them and then combine each of these partial analyses to get the holistic analysis of the problem domain.

step back and see the whole picture, rather than focusing on just its parts. It is an attempt to see the forest as well as the trees because you can see the interrelationships among the elements of the system.

explore the interdependencies among the elements of a system, looking for patterns rather than memorizing isolated facts (such as document analysis, system overviews, etc.).

get a more accurate picture of the problem context and help understand a systems natural forces to achieve effective results.

think about problems and solutions with an eye toward the long view. For instance, how might a particular requirement play out over the long run? And what unintended consequences it may have?

recognize that systems thinking is founded on universal principles that can be detected in all projects.

enter the system, complete with its functional and dysfunctional dynamics, and help the team become more effective without becoming influenced by the system and its various forces.

How to enhance your systems thinking as a business analyst?

There are multiple ways to enhance systems thinking when working as a business analyst. The single most important factor that enhances your systems thinking is experience. Conducting analysis for multiple analysis realms over time helps you develops your thinking habits, approach to analysis, and recognition of patterns. Since its not always possible to have all the experience necessary to have the perfect level of systems thinking, this can be acquired gradually as one learns and progresses.

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There are several ways to take your systems thinking to the next level. I would like to offer you these three activities for you to use:

1. Make maps of the organizational hierarchies

Organizational charts are an easy method of connecting the various project stakeholders. An effective way to do this is to use the Organization Modeling technique described in BABOK:

An organizational model defines how an organization or organizational unit is structured. Organizational units bring together a group of people to fulfill a common purpose or goal. This purpose may be functional, meaning that the people in question share a common set of skills and knowledge, or to serve a particular market. An organizational model will define the scope of the organizational unit, the formal relationships between the people who are members of that unit, the roles those people fill, and the interfaces between that unit and other units or stakeholders.

Once you have done adequate level of organization modeling, look for how different processes, people, and workflows function together as one unit. 2. Always perceive the big picture

Having the ability to zoom out of the current process view into the big picture view is a key element of systems thinking. Ask yourself the following questions to validate your big picture view:

Who is the ultimate benefactor of this? Where does this piece fit in the larger context of the organization? Who is immediately impacted? (directly and indirectly) How does this add value to the organization? What is the value that is being added? What would be the effect of this process not being implemented?

If you can visualize or be able to describe answers to most of the above questions, you are able to zoom out of the micro level change to the macro level impact.

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3. Break out of the fringes

Going beyond the boundary of the current change often yields a greater understanding of the system. This can be as simple as knowing what happens next in a fair bit of detail. Having an understanding of this can sometimes expose the gaps in your own realm of change.

Adopt one of the following approaches to break out of the fringes:

Talk to the interfacing components process SME and understand what happens after you finish the hand-off from your process to theirs. If that person is short of time, ask for any literature or process assets that will help you understand the end-to-end flow. Always ask open-ended questions to learn about the process and its implications. If possible talk to more than one point of contact and get different perspectives on the same process. This can sometimes bring out a different angle or twist.

The essence of the Recursive Systems Thinking Pillar

In summary, the third pillar emphasizes the importance of thinking as an essential component of analysis. Having the ability to see the big picture at various levels through recursive systems thinking can be crucial to conducting effective analysis. Conscious application of recursive systems thinking will help you transform from being a Good BA to a Great BA!

When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say. - Abraham Lincoln

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Your Recursive Systems Thinking Pillar To-Do list

1. Create a collection of all the process flow diagrams that you would have created for all your projects, and understand how people, processes, and technology interacted to create the ecosystem that you analyzed as a BA.

Project Process(es) People/Role Technology/Applications

2. Constantly look for patterns in your analysis work, and identify any gaps that may make a current instance incomplete. Use the examples given below as a cue, along with your own.

Area Pattern / Best practice

Signs of gap

Login and Access Defined security roles allow a streamlined access

- No roles defined- Access levels not defined

Audit and tracking changes

Maintained audit trail info allows for tracking specific changes

- No way to identify who made changes- Errors go unchecked

3. Select one artifact from your project (a use case, a system context diagram, a process flow diagram, etc.) and apply all the steps of recursive systems thinking, and see if you can make it better.

(Please dont forget to give your feedback for this pillar: www.FreeBAGift.com/feedback )

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Pillar 4Going the extra mile...

to achieve results

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No one ever attains very eminent success by simply doing what is required of him; it is the amount and excellence of what is over and above the required that determines the greatness of ultimate distinction. - Charles Francis Adams

When you dont feel the urge to go the extra mile it means that you are not passionate about what you are doing.

Going the extra mile is a mindset that helps a business analyst see things with a slant to deliver better results, to meet and exceed expectations, and to constantly seek to deliver more business value. Great business analysts find a way to contribute at crucial points in a project timeline to propel things forward, and to bring to light a contribution that eases pain.

As part of this pillar I want to elaborate on what going the extra mile really means for a business analyst, along with a few examples. I also want to help you identify and highlight certain themes and facets of going the extra mile that you could use tomorrow in your business analysis work. Use these facets as cues to embark on a venture that will make you go the extra mile in your journey of creating business value and solving business problems.

Going the extra mile to achieve results is a crucial element that makes a Business Analyst stand out in a team. It is important to realize that a Business Analyst plays a bridging role, not between teams, but also within his or her own team. Being able to facilitate understanding and make the team excel by creating a highly helpful and collaborative working environment is an important function of a Business Analyst.

What it really means

At its core, going that extra mile is a continuous quest and aspiration for greater heights. Its an attitude of gratitude that will make you contribute more than what you are getting paid for. Its a mindset to be helpful, and say here is something more that will help you. Its a vision to see a better tomorrow, and step-up when you need to. And for teams that have great business analysts, its a breath of fresh air. Its doing what it takes, when you need to. Its asking the question, How do I make this understood better? , How can I create better alignment? , How can I move this further?

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Facets and themes of going the extra mile

There are multiple avenues that you can embark on, in order to go the extra mile. In this section I want to present a few themes that will help you identify scenarios, situations and mindsets of going the extra mile.

1. Overcome the thats not my job attitude

Should a BA tread into the realm of other team members work? Or should they adopt an intransigent position? That question would depend upon the particular situation. Adopting an aloof position brings no value to the project. Stepping in to smoothen out bottlenecks, cover gaps and resolve delays, most certainly does.

If an additional artifact needs to be produced that can be of help to someone to move his or her task further, then a business analyst should recognize that and act. These artifacts are specifically pertinent to creating alignment with the requirements, and business objectives. A BA does not necessarily have to physically perform the action, but be perceptive to the need and trigger/facilitate the action. It is the act of impasse-recognition that helps to identify what is stopping someone from accomplishing a certain task. If you can, in someway, help them navigate beyond that impasse, either by providing a helping hand or facilitating an action, you have helped.

When he didnt seek clarification to provide more input

Puja is a business analyst for an application migration project. Nikhil, who is the developer on the project, reads the requirements/data matrix and maps them to his design. Philips is the database administrator (DBA) and is responsible for creating detailed schemas for the design created by Nikhil. Puja overhears a rant by Nikhil about how Philips doesnt understand the audit requirements, and is unable to add the required fields to the schema.

Recognizing this as a potential gap in understanding, Puja approaches Nikhil to talk through his frustration. She quickly arranges a meeting between Nikhil and Philips to walkthrough the audit requirements and explain how these fit into the overall context of the project. This session helps Nikhil and Philips clarify their concerns and come to a better understanding of the audit requirements.

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An obvious implication is that Nikhil should have approached Puja, and sought any necessary clarifications to provide a detailed list of fields to Philips. In this instance, Puja went the extra mile, proactively stepped in and defused the confusion.

So, the next time someone is stuck, ask yourself, what can you do to help move things forward for him or her?

2. Learn to teach, not just to understand or absorb

Ongoing learning to absorb new concepts, domains, and technologies is a key requisite of the business analyst role. While were learning, we are usually disposed to be able to perform a given task to its completion, and to conform to the expectations of others. Going the extra mile during learning would be to do so with the goal of becoming a SME who becomes confident enough to teach and train others. The ability to impart knowledge and training is an essential BA skill be it helping a new person up to speed, ensuring the team understands the business and its requirements or guiding the user community on using the new system.

Teaching is something a business analyst often gets involved in during a project. It could be teaching someone new to the team to get on board, or to get the development team up to speed with what the project or requirements are about. Giving training to the user community is something that a lot of business analysts do as well.

What about my job security then? In many scenarios this may seem like you are replacing yourself with someone by giving out all the knowledge, and information you know about the subject matter. This may seem like a counterintuitive approach to increase job security. Well, there is no such thing as job security really. If someone needs to be let go, they will be. Doing your best to impart knowledge as and when needed, can be a great way to build excellent rapport within the team.

So, the next time you approach any learning, do it with the intention of mastering it to the point of being able to teach it.

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3. Be the project whisperer

There is a TV series called The Ghost Whisperer where the protagonist, Melinda Gordon, has the ability to see and communicate with ghosts. While living a normal, happy married life, she helps earthbound spirits resolve their issues. Often her tasks are difficult and challenging when addressing these problems. She gets pushed away by people in a few instances, due to their disbelief in her ability and talent.

The ghosts are mysterious and sometimes menacing at first and Melinda must use the clues available to her to understand the spirits needs in order to help them.

A project whisperer would be someone like Melinda, but instead of being involved with ghosts, he/she is involved with the project team and the issues faced by the team. Business Analysts regularly face daunting project challenges, especially at the beginning. This phenomenon becomes more apparent when working in new teams, or with new stakeholders. A BA should recognize this, and work to resolve the issues using his/her prior knowledge and experience. Being a project whisperer is also about understanding that tools and methodologies used in projects are just one side of the equation. The other, more important, side is people and their needs. Having the ability to read the available clues to help people is paramount, and an important part of being the project whisperer. This can add a lot value to your BA toolkit.

Amir project whispering

Amir is a business analyst for a project that created a new application for member service representatives. While conducting the training session for the new application, he notices that Sophia is struggling to complete the exercises provided for a few lessons. He also senses that Sophia is not very open to asking questions due to her shy nature, preferring instead to privately converse with her neighbor for any clarifications.

Amir talks to Sophia at the end of the training, and asks her what she found was the most difficult lesson in the training. He offers to do a separate one-on-one training over a screen sharing application. The following day he follows through and helps Sophia understand that lesson better, which makes her more confident about the new application.

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In this instance, Amir read clues from Sophia to recognize there is a knowledge gap. He then went the extra mile to conduct an additional one-on-one session.

4. Be the process whisperer

If being a project whisperer is about understanding people and their needs, and working through their disbeliefs, challenges, and threats; a process whisperer is looking at processes as if they have a life of their own. They can speak in ways that a great business analyst can listen to. This helps in identifying how processes can be simplified, optimized and improved to have maximum impact.

Being a process whisperer is the foundation for continuous improvement, helping the business solve problems, and attain a greater fulfillment in your job. These improvements do not have to be necessarily conducted against existing processes; it could also be for creating a new process when iterated through its creation.

A process whisperer is not a person with paranormal abilities who can talk to and listen to the inanimate processes, but rather someone who is willing to go the extra mile by:

listening carefully to identify any pain points that may exist. This can happen during requirements elicitation, analysis or validation. thinking using patterns from best practices in previous projects, and situations. empathizing with the users and bringing a point of view that will improve the process sympathizing by understanding the key challenges, and issues faced by the end-users. suggesting changes to any related item that can contribute to alleviating pain and improving processes.

Denise process whispering

Denise is conducting observation of an AS-IS process for setting up a customers product. She notices that a user opens two windows, one with an existing setup, and another one for the new setup.

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Similar fields for the new setup are copied from the existing setup by visually looking at an existing one, and copy-pasting the corresponding fields into the new setup. She sits with the user, and observes as the user expounds upon the procedure.

At this point Denise asks the user So you do this for every new setup? The user responds, Yeah, pretty much. Since most of the new setups are similar to the existing ones.

Denise, being a process whisperer starts to think, What if there could be a Clone button to copy setups? When Denise begins to map out requirements for the TO-BE process, she discusses this pain-point with the team, and drafts requirements to provide a setup-cloning feature.

5. Network

Most of the business analysts deem themselves to be lifelong learners, but continue to do so within the four corners of their cubicle and their organization. It is important to have the mindset to try different tools, techniques, and approaches for different efforts and projects. Going beyond your current organizational methodologies can be a great learning experience. Having a good understanding of the BABOK, and its structure is a great starting point. From that point forward acquiring good perspectives on best practices and standards from your peers in other companies can act be very educational.

So why is learning and networking a facet of going the extra mile? You could continue to do your job without them. You could continue to use the same toolkit for all your projects, and never tread the path of learning something new, outside your comfort zone. However, networking ties in closely with that because it takes extra effort to build a network. Having a good network is not about having a LinkedIn profile with 500+ connections; its about how strong your relationship is with your connections. Can you count on your network to help you with a new BA tool or technique? Are you in touch with them on a regular basis? What have you learned from your connections in the past one-year? These a

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