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BA

BA Digest is published by Blackmetric Business SolutionsSubscribe for free at www.badigest.co.uk

Your regular round-up of useful BA content

DIGEST

Q4 2021

• The Other Side of a Business Analyst

• Facilitation in the “Next Normal”

• Business Analysis & The PMO

• To Gamify or Not

• And much more …

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WelcomeWelcome to the Q4 edition of BA Digest.It’s often said that ‘the pace of changeis getting faster’, and organisationsincreasingly need to adapt quickly totheir environments. As a community ofanalysts, there are increasing demandsfor us to help our organisations quicklydetermine the best direction, and deliverchange in an experimental way thatmeans it’s possible to learn and adapt aswe go along.

BA Digest is no different. Just over ayear ago we carried out our first bigexperiment. We pivoted from an e-mailbased newsletter, to a PDF magazine.This proved to be a far more successfulexperiment than we ever could haveimagined, circulation has increased bynearly 40% in that time! However, it’salways dangerous to sit still…

With that in mind, we have two experi-ments running at the moment. The firstis a jobs page. We offer FREE jobadvertisements to organisations thatagree to disclose the salary, the locationand agree to give feedback to anyonewho gets an interview. We like to thinkof this as a place to advertise great BAjobs to great BAs (if you’re reading this,you’re a BA who is interested in profes-sional development… which is exactlywhat most employers would want!).You can find this on page 50.

We’re also pleased to announce a newexperiment: “Viewpoints”. Perhapsyou’d like to comment on an article thatsomebody has written, or put forward anidea of your own. Or maybe you wantto make a public ‘shout out’ to celebratea colleague’s work? Well, now you can!Check out the ‘Viewpoints’ section onpage 20. Assuming some people actuallydo write in, we’ll include this section inthe next edition.

Finally, please don’t forget that we arealways looking for content for BADigest. You don’t have to be an experi-enced writer, we proof-read and copy-edit all articles, and we’ll help youthrough the process if you need it. Allyou need to start is a good idea. You cansubmit your article idea at:overto.link/write@digest

We hope you enjoy BA Digest. And ifyou do, be sure to pass a copy on to yourcolleagues, and encourage them tosubscribe too!

AdrianAdrian ReedPrincipal Consultant, BlackmetricEditor of BA Digest

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Contents 4 Facilitation in the “Next Normal” - Author Interview - Penny Pullan

7 Process Improvement (Six Sigma) - Nnenna Stevenson

11 Business Analysts Role in the RFP Process (Request for Proposal) - Suhas Kerurkar

14 It’s Not a Fad, but a Force to Be Reckoned With! Risk Management Is Here to Stay! Are You Ready? - Paula Bell

17 Using Group Construct Analysis to Understand Stakeholder Worldviews in Ambiguous Situations, Part 2 Ontology: What Are the Things That Are out There? - Nick de Voil

21 Questioning the Unquestionable - Adrian Reed

24 Love in the Time of Covid - (YBA Blog Competition) - Joanne Fahy

26 To Gamify or Not: A Guide for Product Teams Pondering the Value of Gamification - Oluwakorede (Olu) Asuni

30 Business Analysis & The PMO: What Is the Connection? - Nicole Reilly

34 7 Potential Pitfalls in Process Mapping Workshops & How to Avoid Them - Craig Willis

38 Selecting a Requirements Management Solution – Our Journey - Shamaila Jawaid

42 Digital Transformation: The Emperor Is Naked! - Adrian Reed

46 The Other Side of a Business Analyst - Judy Alter AKA “The Optimistic BA™”

48 Dust Coat on and Fine-tooth Comb - Danny Kalkhoven

50 Job Vacancies

52 Product Ownership - Resistance Is Futile - Marcus Udokang

55 An Introduction to “Citizen Developers” - Lawrence Reid

58 Project Outcome or Barnum Statement - Adrian Reed

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A lot has changed in the last couple ofyears, and virtual and hybrid meetingsand events are more commonplace.Facilitation is a core skill that every BAshould have, and it’s crucial to flex tothe context. We caught up with, wellknown international speaker, consultantand author of many books including‘Making Workshops Work’ to get sometips.

Penny, you recently wrote a book aboutworkshops. What inspired you to dothis?

I learnt the hard way that BAs needsuperb facilitation skills. It was nearly

20 years ago and my workshop washeading towards being an unmitigateddisaster! Luckily, I asked for advice andfollowed it and so the outcome wasachieved, but it wasn’t much fun. A lothas changed since those days. I’ve spentmany years learning about facilitationtheory and practice all over the worldand have trained hundreds of people inhow to use this to become even better atworkshops. So many BAs are expectedto run workshops with very little trainingor support in facilitation, if any, and soI decided that I really ought to write thisbook and hope that it would help BAsand others all over the world to get betterat workshops.

Facilitation in the “NextNormal” - Author Interview

Penny Pullan

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Throughout the book, you discuss real-world, virtual and hybrid meetings. Forthe uninitiated can you explain thedifference between ‘virtual’ and‘hybrid’?

In my Virtual Leadership book, I definevirtual as where at least one person isremote, although through the pandemic,I’ve noticed that people tend to usevirtual to mean that everyone is remotefrom one another. ‘Hybrid’ is the partic-ular case where some are together in aroom (or rooms) and some are joiningfrom afar via technology. A picture fromChapter 4 of my Making WorkshopsWork book shows three differentversions of hybrid environments:

What are some of the particular chal-lenges with ‘hybrid’ meetings, and howcan they be overcome?

The biggest challenge is the lack of alevel playing field for participants. Thismeans that participants have verydifferent experiences of the meeting.Those in the room have a built-in advan-tage: they can glance around the roomand take in the body language ofeveryone there and pick up on thenuances and dynamics of conversation.They can chat in breaks over coffee orby the water cooler. This means that thefirst step to overcome the challenge is tolevel the playing field, reducing the builtin advantage for those in the office. Oneway to do this is to ensure that everyonejoins virtually. Another way is to have astrong physical reminder of all of theremote people in the room. Combinedwith a ‘remote-first’ policy, whereparticipants not in the room are askedfor input before others, this can go someway towards levelling the playing field.In-room buddies for each remote partic-ipant can help too.

What about conflict? With ‘in person’meetings, where people are in the samephysical room it’s easier to spot cuessuch as body language. How can we (a)spot and (b) navigate through conflictin a ‘virtual’ or ‘hybrid’ environment?

First of all, we need to know that conflictis something that is absolutely part ofprojects and every BA should expect itand know how to deal with it, rather thandread it and try to avoid it. Given thatconflict is difference, with addedtension, we know that this will arise on

a) One physical room, plus virtual individuals

b) Many physical rooms, connected virtually

c) A combination of a & b

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every project! Task and process conflict,where people disagree on how to goahead, will usually resolve with dialogueand listening. This greater understandingthen usually leads to better decisions, sodon’t be frightened of these types ofconflict.

How can we spot conflict in a virtual orhybrid meeting? By being aware that itis likely and making sure that we arelooking out and listening out for it. Haveyour antennae out and expect it, thenyou’re likely to pick it up early and beable to work with it. Listen to words thatpeople are using. Notice body languageand facial expressions. Get people usedto sharing how they really feel…

Relationship conflict can’t be sorted ina meeting or workshop, so don’t expectto do this. Instead, keep those who can’tstand each other apart (perhapsvirtual/hybrid helps here?) and get onwith the work.

What do you foresee as the biggest skillBAs will need in the ‘next normal’?

I think that facilitation has got to bepretty high up that list, along withlistening. If you can facilitate a groupand work to serve the group, designingengaging sessions for your participants,then this will be effective whether youare hybrid, virtual or in-person. I findthat the sort of facilitation skills that Idescribe in my book work beautifullyfor smaller sessions, from designing forcollaboration through to deliveringengaging sessions. In the next normal,people are not always going to be in theroom and so BAs need to be able tohandle that too.

Thanks for taking time to answer ourquestions, Penny! Where can peoplefind out more about the book and whatyou do?

To find the book, go to your favouritebookseller (online or offline). TheAmazon links are UK: amzn.to/2UzLqFfUSA: www.amazon.com/Making-Workshops-Work-Creative-collabora-tion-ebook/dp/B094W793ZX I’mpassionate about BAs developing facili-tation skills as it is transformative! Youmight like to join one of my learninglabs to help you improve, especially ifyour company hasn’t supported this inthe past. I run these throughwww.makingprojectswork.co.uk butyou can also connect with me as the onlyPenny Pullan on LinkedIn (let me knowyou’ve read this). BAs might also likemy annual virtual www.basummit.com(which is free to join). My previousbook, now also a bestseller due to thepandemic, is: ‘Virtual Leadership: Prac-tical strategies for getting the best out ofvirtual work and virtual teams’, avail-able fromwww.koganpage.com/product/virtual-leadership-9780749475963

I’m on Twitter too, @pennypullan

Formerly a BA, Dr Penny Pullan is nowan expert in Virtual and HybridCollaboration. She’s written five books,plus articles for publications (Forbes,CEO Today, plus BA Digest!) Pennyconsults and mentors people grapplingwith the challenges of our virtual andhybrid world, to enhance collaboration,confidence and effectiveness.

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(Originally published onsapphirestevenson.com. Republishedwith permission.)

There's a common belief that IT is thesolution to every business problem.However, having worked in the industryfor almost a decade, I can assure you thatit is a misconception; and this, in truth,is why Business Analysis exists— toconfirm whether or not technology couldsolve an identified business problem byperforming Root Cause Analysis (RCA)such as Problem statements, IshikawaFishbone Diagrams and 5-Whys tech-niques.

I was once contracted to analyse acompany’s current system. Themanagers complained that the currentsystem was lagging and asked that Irecommend a new system. But before Ijumped onboard the "shiny new system"train, I conducted an RCA, whichshowed that even though the currentsystem was bad, a major problem waswith the current process— it was just asbad. Besides, it's often more cost-effec-tive to improve a process than to build anew system.

The RCA I had conducted showedprocess flaws such as variations in serv-ices, as different parts of the company

Process Improvement(Six Sigma)

Nnenna Stevenson

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worked differently and in silos, givingthe end-consumers varying user experi-ences. Therefore, the system that hadbeen built for one goal, was being forcedto achieve more, due to the differentways of working in the company.

What is Six Sigma?Six sigma is a Problem Identification,Quality Assurance and Process Improve-ment framework, which when appliedaccurately, promises 99.9996% accu-racy, which translates to about 4faults/flaws out of 1 million opportuni-ties. This means that about 4 out of 1million Starbucks coffees will be of lowquality; that about 4 out of 1 million carswill be sold with a defect and that youcan be sad for only 4 days out of 1million days (I wish! Six sigma doesn'twork on humans but you get the concept).

How is Six Sigma Applied?Say I got contracted by Royal Mail (RM)for a Business Improvement project foran existing problem. I would apply SixSigma:

● Existing process: I would useDMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse,Improve, Control)

● New process: I would use DMADV(Define, Measure, Analyse, Derive,Validate)

D = DefineThis is where I would describe theproblem on the ground using techniquessuch as Problem Statements, or BusinessScenarios. The aim is to capture theWhat, Why, When, Where, How itoccurred, How often it occurred, in asmuch detail as possible. Another tech-nique that can be used is the SIPOC,which helps to give a high-level view ofthe target process to be worked on, aswell as to understand who is involved inthe process (for further questioning).SIPOC represents Supplier (who bringsan input that triggers the process), Input(the actual input), Process (whathappens to convert the input to output),Output (the result after the conversion),Customer (the recipient of the output).Using the Royal Mail example, mySIPOC would be:

Supplier Input Process Output Customer

Sender Letter Drop-off atPost-box/Office

IncomingLetter Royal Mail

Royal Mail IncomingLetter

Sort, Transfer& Deliver

OutgoingLetter Recipient

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Due to the above, I know that I mustcollate pain-points and expectationsfrom the Sender, Recipients, Royal Mailand that I must inspect the Pick-up,Sorting, Transfer and Delivery processesfor flaws.

M = MeasureAt this stage, the focus would be oncapturing as much data as possible usingtechniques such as Observation, Shad-owing, Gemba Walk (experiencing),surveys, interviews and focus groups.The aim of this stage is to documentwork breakdowns such as Flowcharts,Value Stream Maps (VSM) and prefer-ably a Process Flow (using BPMN).

With the Royal Mail example, my aimwould be to document data such as, howmany staff work daily, how many itemsof post come in/go out, how long it takesto move an item of post from sender torecipient, how many contractors work,number of drivers, available time, howlong it takes mail from London & Scot-land to get to the Manchester branch forsorting, number of customer complaints,etc.

This is the evidence I need to back-upany transformation that may occur in thefuture, hence the reason this data iscrucial.

A = AnalyseThis is the stage where I would try tounderstand, gain insight into or makesense of the data to identify trends. Anexample of things I could notice is thatdeliveries take 4 days (average) during

the weekends & 2 days (average) duringweekdays (due to less staff working onweekends), that RM spends a lot ofmoney on contract staff, that there is lowstaff morale due to heavily manualsorting processes, that mail from Londonand Scotland take too long to reach theManchester branch, etc

I = ImproveHere, I would have sessions withSolution experts on identified problemsto provide solutions such as buying moremachinery to reduce the heavily manualprocess, identifying a new warehousecloser to London and Scotland forsorting, offering staff more incentivesfor weekend shifts so RM spends less oncontractors, reducing staff participationon less busy days like Mondays (as nopost is received on Sundays).

I would perform a BusinessTransformational Risk Assessment(BTRA) to identify potential risks thatmight negatively impact the roll-out ofthe new process. This could includeidentifying staff who may lose their jobs,and arranging for them to be moved toanother section.

C = ControlAt this stage, I would identifyinfluencers in the company and makethem the process owners, which wouldencourage their followers/friends towelcome the transformation projectbrewing. I would come up withstrategies to ensure that the processdoesn't deviate from standards. I wouldidentify Key Performance Indicators to

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allow the company to track and monitorthe process, in order to easily identifywhen new improvements have to bemade to sustain the process (Agilethinking).

Process Improvement is one of the mostexciting and rewarding parts of BusinessAnalysis because you get to seeimmediate benefits to the businessthrough increased staff morale, morecompetitive edge, cost-savings to thebusiness and greater customerexperience.

As a BA, it is your job to challenge thestatus quo. Always have evidence toback up why you are making a

recommendation— it should never begut feel, especially when money will bespent on the solution. An ethical BA isa capital micro-manager, which meansyou must ensure to explore othersolutions first, before accepting thattechnology is the answer.

Nnenna’s a Senior BA, ProductManager and Product Owner, educatedin Master’s and Bachelor’s ofComputing, certified in BCS BAPractice, CBAP®, PS Product Owner,and TOGAF Enterprise Architecturewith over 9 years’ experience workingwithin the IT project and agile softwareproduct delivery environment. Connectwith Nnenna on linkedIn.

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Business analysts are the least decoratedwarriors in the RFP process that definesthe functional expectations and confirmsthe feasibility.

RFP is a request in which the issuer asksresponders to submit proposals demon-strating how a product or service they

offer can solve the issuer’s requirements.The key stakeholders of any RFP areexecutive managers along with programmanagers, marketing managers &subject matter experts (SME). Usually,business analysts are part of the SME’steam on both sides of RFP i.e. issuer andresponder sides.

Business Analysts rolein the RFP process

(Request for Proposal)Suhas Kerurkar

Evaluate Feasibility

Verify FitmentConfirm MVP

Prepare RTMResponder - BA

RFP

UnderstandExpectations

Define Expectations

Issuer - BA

Define MVP

FunctionalRequirements

Non-FunctionalRequirements

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Here are the high-level responsibilitieswhich business analysts perform oneither end of RFP.

Issuer Business Analyst

BAs provide the specialised expertise todefine the expectations, functional/Non-functional requirements, and defineMinimal Viable Products.

1. Define expectations: This is themost critical area of any RFP where aBA has to understand the need for RFPand properly document the same. Thisstage sets the base of the RFP.

2. Functional Requirements: This is‘business as usual’ for almost all busi-ness analysts however this is quitedifferent from the detailed requirementselicitation and analysis which BAs dofor projects. The requirements at thisstage could be at the concept level tocheck the functional availability in themarket and will require forward-thinking to ensure product viability overa period of 5 to 7 years. It’s advisable toprovide as much information to vendorsas you can as part of requirements thatcovers existing functionalities as well asnew expectations.

3. Non-Functional Requirements(NFR): Key technical requirementsalong with in-house capability detailsneed to be highlighted as part of theNFRs. All NFRs need to be documentedclearly by their issuers with as muchinformation as possible. This mightinclude categories such as: performance,volume, compliance, certifications,

configurations, integration, legal,privacy, reusability, response, stability,security (Note this is not an exhaustivelist.)

4. Define MVP: It is unlikely that anysingle vendor will be able to entirelymeet issuer’s RFP expectation withavailable products or services that theyoffer. Considering this limitation, theissuer has to define the MVP (MinimalViable Product) with which the issuerwants to go ahead for evaluation. Therequirements outside of MVP can befollowed by a proposed plan from thevendor. In other words, RFP should statethe requirements in 2 categories asMUST HAVE and GOOD TO HAVE.

Responder BusinessAnalyst

BAs from the vendor side will respondto the RFP, evaluate it and respond withthe product’s capabilities showing align-ment against the client’s expectations.

1. Understand Expectations:Another crucial phase of a RFP is wherea business analyst from the responderside has to analyse and understand theexpectations set in the RFP. The BA hasto understand the expectations andclearly articulate how and whetherrequirements mentioned in the RFP arepart of the offered products or not.

2. Prepare RTM: Once the responderdecides to submit the RFP, businessanalysts will typically prepare the RTM(Requirement Traceability Matrix)between the functional/non-functional

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requirements mentioned in the RFP andthe product capability available.. Thisdocument helps to clearly articulate thefeasibility of RFP success.

3. Verify Fit: The business analyst hasto review and confirm the extent towhich the requirements fit based on theRTM. Fitment can be categorised as fullfit, fit with minor enhancements or needssubstantial development.

4. Evaluate Feasibility: Productimplementation feasibility has to berevalidated against non-functionalrequirements and feasibility should beconfirmed for implementation.

5. Confirm MVP: The final stage forthe business analyst is to confirm the

MVP criteria is met before managementresponds to the RFP.

What are your thoughts on the role ofbusiness analysts in the RFP process andwhat are the areas which you would liketo add to the list above?

Suhas Kerurkar is a consultant leadingthe BA team for a major middle eastbank. Suhas has extensive experience inthe banking industry with integrationand transformation changes. Suhas’sstrength is applying his knowledge ofIntegration, business analysis and agileto help organisations deliver solutionsabove expectations.

Connect atwww.linkedin.com/in/srksuhas

RECORDINGAVAILABLE NOW

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Risk is definitely not a FAD, and defin-itively not a topic going away. Just likeother topics that have become more andmore visible over the years, such as dataanalytics, and business architecture toname a few, you definitely cannot sleepon risk. If you really think about it,almost every process that is executed hassome level of risk associated with it. Thehope is that there are controls in place tomitigate the risk.

As members of project teams who workto develop solutions to solve businessproblems, often we are so focused onfinding the right solution, we may notthink holistically on what risks a partic-ular solution may pose to the organisa-tion. Furthermore, is that risk a risk the

business is willing to accept, or prefersome other action or discussion to occur.

I remember when I first started workingon projects as a project manager, devel-oper, and/or business analyst, the mainrisk discussed was the “tripleconstraint”. The triple constraint is afocus on scope, time and budget inregards to the project as a whole. Thereis a focus on not allowing scope creep,missing deadlines, and going over-budget. However, risk is more than that.There are many different types of risksto consider as solutions are considered,or chosen, to meet business needs. Suchas, operational risk (risk associated withthe company’s operations), reputationalrisk (a negative event that may threaten

It’s Not a FAD, but aFORCE to Be Reckoned

With! Risk Management IsHere to Stay!

Are You READY?Paula Bell

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an organisation’s reputation), credit risk(risk of default on a debt), financial risk(risk of losing money), andcompliance/regulatory risk (risk of non-compliance with laws/policies that couldresult in fines or legal actions) to namea few. When building solutions theseitems need to be considered.

For example, let’s say you build amobile app solution which allows indi-viduals to quickly access all of theirdifferent email accounts in one place.The mobile app provides a phenomenalcustomer experience as customers raveabout how it’s so much easier to log intoone interface than into multiple. Youhave multiple customers downloadingthe application and loving the experi-ence. Then, 30 days later the customeris informed that in order to keep usingall the functionality the applicationoffers they have to pay a monthlysubscription. Now, when the customeroriginally downloaded the app, thisparticular information was not disclosed.Customers thought the app was free withno strings attached. Customers were notaware there was a 30-day trial periodunlocking all the features, and after 30days some of the functionality would nolonger work, unless they paid for thesubscription. Here is where the riskcomes in. Due to this experience, youmay have imposed reputational risk,financial risk, and potentialcompliance/regulatory risk to the organ-isation. Customers are now upset afterthe 30 days and the organisation isreceiving bad reviews, and you arelosing potential revenue because youdidn’t disclose upfront all of the termsof using the mobile app. The focus was

getting a product out the door to beat thecompetitors to market, or to stand out. Itstood out alright!!! Just not in a goodway.

When thinking of creating solutions tomeet business needs, risk has to be a partof the conversation. You do not want tobuild solutions that pose risk to theorganisation though you may havesuccessfully installed the solution.Though the need may appear to be met,once risk enters into the equation, it mayvery well not be met at all.

There are many different ways touncover risks, but here are a few waysto get you started as you continue totransform your organisation:

1. Process Mapping – processmapping is a great way to uncoverrisks, and determine if there arecontrols in place to mitigate the risk.As you review processes you cananalyse each step to determine whatcould go wrong during that step.After, determining what could gowrong, you then determine whatcontrols do you have in place to (1)stop something going wrong beforeit does (preventative control), (2)advise someone that something hasalready gone wrong and it needs tobe fixed (detective control), and/or(3) put a control in place after anal-ysis of the detective control, and theroot cause has been determined(corrective control). Processmapping is one of the most powerfultechniques that allow you touncover a lot, and normally a goodfirst place to start.

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2. Failure Modes & Effective Anal-ysis (FMEA) – In addition, lever-aging an FMEA to evaluate theprocess is a great way to have onecentralised location to capturewhere failures may occur in theprocess, how severe those failuresare, and how frequent those failuresmay occur.

3. Past Audits – if your organisationhas had audits conducted in the past,this is another great place to reviewthe audit materials to determinewhere risks have been found, and ifthere were sufficient controls tomitigate the risks. These reports canprovide a lot of insight on where inthe organisation problems havearisen in processes.

4. Observation – observing processes,and being a part of processes thatare conducted in the organisation,can give you a hands-on experienceto help you identify where risks mayreside in the organisation. Put your-

self in the shoes of the customer anddetermine if the solution you areinteracting with is the type of expe-rience you as a consumer woulddesire.

As you continue to build world classsolutions, consider what risks the organ-isation may pose, and what controls needto be put in place to mitigate those risks.Risks are not necessarily a bad thing ifcontrolled correctly, and depending onthe type of risk being discussed.However, risks can become VERY badwhen not identified and addressedappropriately.

Paula is a Certified Business Analyst,Master Life Coach, Certified Diversity& Inclusion Manager Coach and CareerDevelopment Coach, with over 20 years’experience working in corporateAmerica in varied projectroles/industries, while successfullyrunning a consulting business thatfocuses on mind, body and soul. Find outmore at www.paulaabell.com.

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Part 2 Ontology: What Are theThings That Are out There?

Nick de Voil

Using Group Construct Analysis to UnderstandStakeholder Worldviews in Ambiguous Situations

Imagine seeing a photograph of a matchbetween Tottenham Hotspur andManchester United. In it, a midfielder iscontrolling an aerial pass in front of asection of the crowd. Depending on theirinterests and background, differentpeople seeing this might notice, forexample:

● That this is a photograph of asporting activity which they despise

● That this particular player is playingin this game

● The body position of the player, andtheir apparent skill level

● The “strip” being worn by the player

● The position of the referee

● That the supporters are those of oneparticular team

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● That the supporters are wearing oneparticular type of shirt

● The facial expressions of thesupporters

● Whether the supporters are seatedor standing

● The messages on the advertisingboards

● The technical quality of the photo-graph

The person who sees one of these thingsmay not notice any of the others and maynot be interested in them even when theyare pointed out. The same applies inbusiness situations.

In any problem situation, each of thepeople involved (we often refer to themas stakeholders) has their own subjective“take” on things. As observers of thesituation, do we take each stakeholder’ssubjective viewpoint seriously enough?Do we treat it as something to be soughtout, really understood and carefullyanalysed on its own terms?

We often automatically create our ownsynthesis of other people’s perspectives,and then go on to assume our version isthe objectively true one. This is normalhuman behaviour, but we will createbetter solutions if we resist the tempta-tion to think this way, especially in theearly stages of a project. GroupConstruct Analysis helps us to bringsubjective aspects to the surface andkeep them there.

In the first article in this series, we tooka first look at Personal ConstructPsychology, a theory used by psycho-therapists to understand individuals andwhat goes on in their minds. We saw thata person’s construct system is a set ofideas (constructs) that make up the waythey go about understanding the worldand acting within it. Constructs arebipolar: each one is made up of a thingand its opposite. Each construct is moreor less closely related to other constructsin the system. This can be shown graph-ically using a construct map whichrelates the constructs to each other withlines or arrows. These connectors can beused to show a range of relationshipsbetween constructs.

The nature of a construct is partly amatter of the types of relationship inwhich it can participate. When we lookat a construct map, we often find that wecan see different regions, each empha-sizing a particular type of relationshipand giving the diagram a distinctflavour. Let’s start by looking at themost fundamental flavour: ontology.

Ontology answers the question: what arethe things that are “out there” in theworld? Everyone has their own answer,even if they are unaware of it. Eachperson sees certain things and ideas inthe world, and makes sense of themusing their own set of patterns, such ascategories, hierarchies, orders and rank-ings. We can show the constructs andtheir relationships on the map using asimple arrow notation and labelling theconnections between constructs.

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One basic type of relationship is aranking – making one construct superor-dinate to another. This can mean variousthings, as shown in the illustration.

Figure 1: Ranking (constructs shownas circles for simplicity)

What we’re trying to do here is reflectthe relationships that people really have“in their heads”. How exactly relation-ships might be represented in people’sheads is a matter of intense debate anddisagreements among psychologists, butI believe we can avoid going too farwrong if we keep it as simple as possibleand avoid constructing elaborate refer-ential structures. For example, a “resem-blance” relationship is useful:

Figure 2: Resemblance

Two more commonly occurring types ofrelationship – inheritance and composi-tion – will be familiar to object-orientedmodelling practitioners.

Figure 3: Inheritance and composition

Finally, we often come across the ideaof things having a sequential order.

Figure 4: Sequence

This type of construct map has similari-ties to a couple of other well-knowntechniques: data model diagrams (suchas entity models, class models andconcept models) and mind maps. Thekey difference is that construct maps arefocused entirely on understanding thesubjective worldview of one or morepeople. They are fluid and tentative. Adata model is an attempt to identify ordesign the underlying structure ofconcepts and their interrelationshipsobjectively and correctly, using arigorous set of rules. A mind map is away of bringing clarity to an objectivebody of knowledge by imposing a struc-ture on it which can be grasped by themaker of the diagram.

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The map describing a stakeholder’sconstruct system should only showthings which we have heard themmentioning. We can elicit the informa-tion by interviewing and observation,paying very careful attention to exactlywhat is said. Where appropriate, we can“drill down” into an individual’sconstruct system by using repertory gridanalysis, which we will look at in afuture article.

Nick is a director at De Voil Consulting.He specialises in helping organisationscreate people-oriented systems,products and services. He has trainedthousands of professionals in businessanalysis, user experience, systemsdesign, project management and agiledevelopment. Nick is author of the book"User Experience Foundations".

Contact Nick via LinkedIn

Would you like to respondto an article you’ve readin BA Digest? Or perhapsyou have an idea thatyou’d like to float withthe BA community? Ormaybe you’d just like togive a ‘shout out’ to afriend or colleague ontheir good work.

We’re starting a ‘yourviews’ feature in BADigest. You can submit upto 150 words, and we’llpublish a selection ofthose submitted in thenext edition.

Submit your viewpoints at:

overto.link/viewpoint@digest

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Questioning the UnquestionableAdrian Reed

One thing you probably don’t knowabout me is that I was a backing dancerin the video for the 2001 hit ‘Survivor’by Destiny’s Child. One of the reasonsthat you probably aren’t aware of this isthat it isn’t something that I talk aboutmuch as 2001 seems a lifetime ago andI’ve made a major career shift since then.However the second (and most impor-tant reason) that you probably don’tknow this about me is that it absolutelyisn’t true. Literally none of it.

That’s right, I’m sorry to disappoint you,but I didn’t make the career change frombacking dancer to business analyst (ifonly). Yet, there was probably part ofyou that read that opening line andthought ‘wow, backing dancer,I wasn’t expecting that, how inter-

esting!’. After all, it is a bizarrelyspecific claim isn’t it? And you’d beforgiven for thinking “whatpossible motive would Adrian have totry to convince me that he was in a musicvideo if this isn’t true?”.

This is actually one of my go-to ‘bluffs’for those unimaginative ice-breakerswhere you have to list two truths and onelie. I’ve even created an entire backstoryfor it (and again, I cannot stress thisenough: this is not true and it is acomplete bluff):

● It was filmed in Pinewood studios,in the same sound stage as JamesBond

● This is because it’s one of the fewsound stages that has a tank of water

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that can be used to create the illusionof being in the Ocean

● Don’t believe me? Google it! Andlook at the video, there’s an ocean…

● I’m towards the back. We were allwearing ‘cargo-style’ trousers

However, while the bluff isn’t true, someof the accompanying spiel is true. Somescenes of James Bond films were filmedat Pinewood studios. The video was seton an island in the Ocean. Thedancers did wear cargo trousers. Thesewould be weirdly specific things toknow if it wasn’t true, wouldn’t they? Imean, why on earth would I know thesethings if I wasn’t an expert backingdancer who worked with Destiny’sChild….?

The Logical Fallacy InAction

This is where we can uncover a logicalfallacy. Just because certain accompa-nying facts are verifiable and true,doesn’t mean the premise of an argu-ment (or a statement of fact) is true ifthose do not actually relate to it. Sadly,knowing that Pinewood studios existsdoesn’t make me any more likely to havestarred in a James Bond film, nor doesit make it any more likely that I’mfriends with Beyoncé. Yet dress it up inthe way I mentioned early, and it mightseem that it does…

Now, you’re probably thinking ‘how onearth does this relate to business andbusiness analysis’. Well, one key thingthat we do day in day out is help people

make decisions. Part of this involvesweeding out the noise, unpacking andanalysing arguments and asking chal-lenging questions. Sometimes, a stake-holder might create an argument thatisn’t an outright bluff, but it has similarcharacteristics. It has a massive logicalleap which appears smaller because ofthe smaller chunks of (unrelated) verifi-able information. This might be delib-erate (subterfuge) or innocent (perhapsthey’ve been misled themselves). Here’sa few examples:

● The copy & paste: “The XYZmethod worked in [an organisationin a different country ten years ago]and it worked really well. Weshould implement it here! (It’s veri-fiable that the method was usedelsewhere, and the success might bepartly verifiable… but why shouldwe conclude that the success isrepeatable in a completely differentcontext, culture and set of condi-tions?)

● The elitist: But all ‘modern’ organ-isations are [doing whatever], theway we do things is so old, and ifyou resist it you are out of touch.(Really? ALL organisations aredoing it? What does ‘modern’ meanexactly? Even if that was under-stood, it might be verifiablethat some are using whateverapproach/method… but are othersdoing something else? And how dothe success rates compare?)

● The bandwagon: “This solution isused by X% of the FTSE100…sowe should use it”. (And how effec-

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tive is it? Do the ‘users’ actually likeit? Will it meet our needs? And,assuming its not a commodity,could this actually be an opportunityto differentiate? Again, it might bethe best option, but doing somethingjust because others do it doesn’tsound like a sensible strategy)

Of course, there’s much more that couldbe written here about logical fallacies,cognitive biases, but I wanted to keepthis article light. The key point is that asbusiness analysts sometimes we have toquestion the seemingly unquestionable.We have to ask the ‘difficult’ and‘wrong’ questions with rapport andcuriosity that make us unpopular in theshort-term, but popular and respected inthe long term. Respectfully challenging,

in a way that leads to better outcomes,will win us friends in the long term.

But, if you remember nothing else fromthis article, remember I wasn’t a backingdancer in that 2001 video…

… or was I?

Adrian Reed is Principal Consultant atBlackmetric. He speaks internationallyon topics relating to business analysisand business change. Adrian wrote the2016 book ‘Be a Great ProblemSolver… Now’ and the 2018 book‘Business Analyst’.

Connect with Adrian on LinkedIn

Check out Adrian’s blog

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It was a warm June day back in 2017when I recognised the sinking, sickeningfeeling that was taking hold in mystomach as I listened to a colleaguedescribe their role as a Business Analyst.I’d had stints in different roles and hadalways felt like something was missing,that I hadn’t quite found the role for me.As that feeling took hold, I realised I hadfallen madly, deeply, passionately inlove. I had found my calling and knewits name, Business Analysis.

It was another 2 and a half years, and asector shift, before I could act on thiscrush and embark on a BusinessAnalysis apprenticeship. I waspassionate about learning and puttingmy newfound skills to the test whensuddenly, COVID hit. As my day-to-daywork life moved off-campus to online, Iwas now learning how to be a BA and avirtual BA, at the same time. Much liketrying online dating for the first time,adapting my techniques to fit virtuallywhilst honing new skills was a challenge.

Love in the Time of Covid -(YBA Blog Competition)

Joanne Fahy

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So, for anyone new to the discipline,getting back into the saddle, or long-timeadmirers making the jump like myself,I’ve put together my tips for taking thefirst steps towards becoming a virtualBA:

1. Don’t overthink your techniques– we all go back to our favouriteopening lines, no matter how manyfirst dates we’ve been on, andmoving online needn’t be anydifferent. Tried and testedtechniques that worked a treat in theoffice can be adapted to be just assuccessful, if not more so, onlineusing interactive tools such as Miroor Mural. Although it can bedaunting moving to virtual post-itnotes, don’t overthink it.

2. Ask lots of questions – now thisseems self-explanatory, what BAdoesn’t ask lots of questions? BUTquestions that could be prompted byslight changes in body languagewhich would have been noticeablein person, can be a lot harder to pickup over a virtual session. Noquestion is a stupid question!

3. Debrief with friends – get feedbackfrom colleagues. Just as you mightask for romantic advice from lovedones, discuss your experiences withcolleagues and get their perspective.Sometimes insight from an impartialparty can give you the goldennugget you’ve been waiting for.

4. Be brave, put yourself out there –As the old saying goes ‘you’ve gotto be in it to win it’. Approaching

the unknown online can be muchmore daunting than having a quietconversation in person, but if youdon’t ask you don’t get. In myexperience, BA colleagues are morethan happy to lend you their ear todiscuss issues, ask for advice, orsimply ask those burning questions.Networking online is easier than it’sever been, with the YBA networkon LinkedIn, exciting online eventssuch as Blackmetric’s BA Fringe,and a whole host of free webinarsand workshops available throughBCS and IIBA, it’s an excellent timeto get involved and join in theconversation.

With adaptability, analysis, and crea-tivity being 3 of the top 20 skills indemand in the workforce, it’s certainlythe right time to investigate and pursuea budding romance with BusinessAnalysis. (see www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/in-demand-skills)

(This blog article won the hotlycontested Young Business Analysts(YBA) blogging competition.

To find out more about the YBA group,check out the LinkedIn page)

Jo is a passionate business analyst whoregards her 'professional nosiness' asone of her biggest strengths andparticularly enjoys engaging withstakeholders, you can contact her onLinkedIn

(www.linkedin.com/in/joanne-fahy)

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Let’s gamify the journey/product, is acall I see made on a regular basis, inboardrooms of all sizes.

Often, if the decision to gamify getsworkshopped further, it ends up beingmerely the aim to slap a wheel forcustomers to spin, or a wall to crush orsome other gimmick to reveal a prede-termined prize.

Whilst I am tempted to chuckle, mosttimes, what is at stake is more importantthan chuckling, so rather, I do what I amabout to do in this article: shed somelight on the subject, philosophy, and bestpractices for successfully crafting effec-tive gamification experiences that don’tleave customers feeling gamed.

First, not all journeys, projects or prod-ucts need gamification to succeed. A lotof products that will fail, will failwhether you slap a game on top of it ornot. Bad products are bad candidates forgamification. Bad products should notand most do not scale – if in doubt, thenhumour me and point at a Ponzi schemethat has stood the test of time and whosevictims have continued to recommend itto friends and family.

Second, gamification isn’t exactly aboutgaming your audience into takingactions they normally will not takebecause it does not benefit them (andthat only benefits you and/or your busi-ness). Rather the point of gamificationis to nudge your customers or potentialcustomers into taking decisions/actions

To Gamify or Not: A Guide forProduct Teams Pondering the

Value of GamificationOluwakorede (Olu) Asuni

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that will benefit them and that will allowyou as a result to capture some value.

Additionally, gamification isn’t aboutthe gimmick being deployed – the wallbeing crushed, or the wheel being spun.It is about addressing the underlyingmotivation(s) or lack thereof in the mindof the customer on the journey leadingto and going past the wheel spin or wallcrush.

Gamification is about appealing to andmarshalling core motivations in theaudience with a view to driving theaudience into taking specific actionswhich though may not be convenient, isthe right action for the audience. Someargue, it is the lever to tip people overthe line of completing important butdifficult decisions.

So perhaps, a key starting point is todetermine whether gamification isrequired to build stickiness in a productor not. A set of guidelines I have founduseful are as follows:

1. Establish the core vision of theproduct/project – why are youbuilding the product? What are thekey goals it should achieve? If yourprimary answer is ‘to make money’chances are gamifying the productwill end up being (and seen as) adesperate attempt to make moneywithout a recourse to how that may

affect the customer. Indeed, eventhe most altruistic endeavour MUSTpay for itself otherwise it runs therisk of running aground. But if theproduct does not add any value tothe customer, then they are betteroff not built, not to speak of beingveiled in a gamified experience.

So how does your core visionanswer the question: does theproduct deliver some real value tothe customer? (Yes/No)

2. Are there emotional barriers inthe way of the customer adoptingyour product/service over others?Will the citizen vote for the baker(for treats) and not the doctor (whoprescribes bitter pills and knows athing or two about public health)?(Yes/No)

3. To get the customers to select thedoctor over the baker, which of thecore drives in the Octalysis* gami-fication framework do you need toleverage (none, some, or all?)

4. Will allocating points, badges andthe use of leader boards help mobi-lise the core drives you have identi-fied in the previous step? (Yes/No)

If you struggle to honestly answer ques-tion (1), you may need to do some soulsearching, until you can. Otherwise, a

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decision to add elements of gamificationto the product may end up resembling apig with lipstick – customers will seethrough the efforts and will not bite,worse you may suffer reputationaldamage which may be tough to come outof.

If there are no emotional barriers for thecustomers to navigate, then making theright decision about your product or itsobjectives may come easy to thecustomer. As such, you may not need toadd gamification elements to theproduct. Rather, go on and build an epicproduct that solves some real problemsfor the customer.

If however, there are emotional barriers– as is always likely to be the case – thenit is important to understand thesebarriers, their underlying triggers andhow these relate to each of the 8 coredrivers identified by Yu Kai Chou in hisOctalysis framework.

Finally, are the identified core driversaddressable without the overarchingpresentation and use of a wheel to spinor a wall to crush for points, or forbadges, and/or inclusion on a leader-board? For example, will clear, sincereand direct marketing communicationhelp break down the emotional barriers?Or address the identified core drive(s)?If yes, then you may not need to add anyelement of gamification – rather just go

forth and market to the customer in away that reduces the resistance they mayotherwise have.

However, if game mechanics are anabsolute need, then proceed to craft anexperience that uses points, badges,and/or leaderboards in a way that itnudges your target to take the decisionsthat are good for them or take actionsthat helps them create value and allowsyou to capture value as a result.

Remember, customers often eventuallyfind out that they are being tricked, soresulting to trickery eventually comesback to bite you – if in doubt, ask theVolkswagen executives whose SUVswere found to be lying on emission tests.

Olu leads business analysis work for afintech business based in South Africa.He fancies himself a polymath interestedin morality and ethics, emergent technol-ogies, and strategy. He’s completing anMBA at the Henley Business School ofthe University of Reading and consultswith small businesses and individualsabout appropriate technologies.

Note:

*Octalysis is regarded by some gamifi-cation practitioners as master model forevaluating core motivations in users.You can read more about Octalysis here:https://bit.ly/3kfTG7X

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Business Analysis& The PMO:What Is theConnection?

Nicole Reilly

Back in May 2016, I wrote a short postabout business analysis as a skillset fora strategic PMO. In that post I suggestedthat business analysis approaches couldbe applied by the PMO when looking toaddress the strategic alignment, prioriti-sation and selection aspects defined byP3O®.

PMO is often a confusing acronym forthose not immediately involved in theprofession; the “P” can stand for project,programme or portfolio, whilst the “M”usually stands for management and the“O” could be office, organisation orofficer depending on whether a team orperson is being referenced.

P3O® (a registered trademark ofAxelos) describes Portfolio, Programmeand Project Offices as “the decision-enabling and support business model forall business change within an organisa-tion.” These models require links intothe wider organisational business model,and senior managers need to understandwhat value and benefits they will get

from their investment; this requires aclear understanding of the problems tobe solved or opportunities to be maxim-ised by those proposing the implemen-tation of a P3O® model.

I had been thinking about an update tomy 2016 post for some time, particularlysince earlier this year when the PMOCompetency Framework was finallypublished – an initiative that had been indevelopment for more than 3 years withmuch input from the practitionercommunity.

The PMO Competency Frameworkrecognises four different types or“contexts” of PMO operations typicallyfound in organisations today; project,programme, portfolio and Centre ofExcellence.

● A Project or Programme Manage-ment Office is usually temporary,set up to support the delivery of aspecific change initiative.

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● In contrast, a Portfolio Manage-ment Office is a permanentconstruct established to support thedefinition and delivery of projectsand/or programmes across an organ-isation, division, department, regionor business unit as a collective port-folio of change initiatives.

● A Centre of Excellence is a type ofpermanent PMO which is focusedon the definition of processes,templates and tools (standards) onbehalf of an organisation which areapplied across projects, programmesand portfolios alongside trainingand knowledge management. It mayalso provide strategic oversight,scrutiny and challenge across theorganisational portfolio.

Portfolio Management Offices oftenincorporate Centre of Excellence func-tions, and it was this type of operationthat I was thinking about as the “stra-tegic PMO” in my 2016 post.

The PMO Competency Framework alsodefined six further competence frame-works relevant for PMO roles, one ofwhich is Business Analysis - so businessanalysis IS now regarded as a relevantskillset for the strategic PMO!

Credit: Eileen J. Roden, Carol Hindley,Lindsay Scott, The PMO CompetencyFramework: by the profession, for theprofession (United Kingdom: House ofPMO, 2021). Used with permission.

Of the four competency domains listedby the PMO Competency Framework asapplicable across all operationalcontexts, PMO Management and P3M

Enabling are the ones that seem to alignthe most with my thoughts in the 2016blog post.

The PMO Management competency isconcerned with the full lifecycle of eachoffice – set up, run, transform and close– plus the services that office provides,with a focus on value and benefits forstakeholders.

There is no “one size fits all” approachto PMO design; when establishing aPMO much emphasis is placed upon theenvironment in which that PMO willoperate, to ensure that the structure andservice provision is appropriate. Snow-den’s Cynefin Framework can help thePMO to improve its understanding of theoperating environment by characterisingthe context so it can assess and respondappropriately.

Credit: Snowden & Boone, releasedunder a Creative Commons Licence(unedited). Licence:https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Image:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_f

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ramework#/media/File:Cynefin_framework,_February_2011_(2).jpeg -

In a Simple/Clear operating environ-ment, stakeholders often have a goodidea of the services they expect and thereis a well-defined corporate governancestructure to integrate with, along withoptimal lines of communication anddecision-making. Best practiceapproaches are often very suitable here.

Complex or Complicated environmentsusually require more interpretation andvalidation of stakeholder requirementsbefore the range of services offered canbe defined, whereas in a Chaotic envi-ronment the PMO may have to accept ahigher degree of flexibility and agilityaround the services provided - at anygiven point the needs of its customersand what they perceive as valuable couldevolve! Disordered environments areunlikely to recognise projects,programmes or portfolios as a structuredmethod for change initiatives.

With reference to the Business AnalysisBody of Knowledge (BABOK®), theBusiness Analysis Core Concept Model(BACCM™) and the Requirements andDesign Cycle are both useful for thoseseeking to develop the PMO Manage-ment competency. The Business Anal-ysis Core Concepts of Change, Need,Solution, Stakeholder, Value andContext are crucial elements to considerwhen designing a PMO; similarly theRequirements and Design Cycle illus-trates how a requirement leads to adesign for a PMO service (solution)which may then lead to the discoveryand analysis of more requirements.

Some of the key skills required to under-take effective assurance activities as partof the P3M Enabling competency willbe familiar to business analysis profes-sionals:

● Active listening

● Asking powerful questions

● Communicate and present

● Critical analysis

● Solve problems

● Exercise professional judgement

A key outcome of assurance is providingconfidence to sponsors and stakeholdersthat a change initiative is aligned to theorganisation’s strategic objectives – andremains so throughout the delivery life-cycle. Effective assurance activities areindependent of any delivery organisationand should integrate with existing corpo-rate governance structures.

Governance Frameworks ensure thatappropriate stakeholders take decisionsabout whether to start, continue, alterscope or stop change initiatives whichno longer align with those objectives.Those decisions will be based on theactionable insights derived from dataand information gathered by a competentPMO professional, accompanied by theapplication of appropriate knowledgeand wisdom.

The purpose of Decision Making - a corecompetency within the AnalyticalThinking and Problem Solving categoryof Underlying Competencies in section

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9 of the BABOK® – is described as“being effective in understanding thecriteria involved in making a decision,and in assisting others to make betterdecisions.” PMO professionals need toenable effective decision-making byensuring that:

● appropriate stakeholders are repre-sented in the decision-makingprocess;

● those stakeholders understand thedecision-making process and therationale behind the decision;

● the pros and cons of all availableoptions are clearly communicatedto stakeholders;

● the decision reduces or eliminatesuncertainty (risk), and anyremaining uncertainty is accepted;

● the decision made addresses theneed or opportunity, and is in theinterests of all stakeholders;

● stakeholders understand all theconditions, environment, and meas-ures in which the decision will bemade;

● a decision is made.

Shorter prioritisation cycles anddemands for increased visibility of thepipeline of initiatives show that expec-tations of the Portfolio ManagementOffice to play a more strategic role aregreater than ever as we deal with theimpact of the global pandemic - and thechanging business needs of all types of

organisation regardless of size orgeographical location.

References:

Nicole Reilly, Business Analysis: askillset for the strategic PMO? (UnitedKingdom: Growth Through KnowledgeLimited, 2016)

Eileen J. Roden, Carol Hindley, LindsayScott, The PMO Competency Frame-work: by the profession, for the profes-sion (United Kingdom: House of PMO,2021)

Eileen J. Roden, P3O® Portfolio,Programme and Project Offices: AxelosGlobal Best Practice (London: TSO,2013)

David J. Snowdon and Mary E. Boone,A Leader’s Framework for DecisionMaking (Harvard Business Review,2007)

IIBA, BABOK® v3: A Guide to theBusiness Analysis Body of Knowledge(Toronto: IIBA, 2015)

Nicole Reilly is an PMO professional of25 years’ experience across a broadrange of industry sectors. Shespecialises in providing organisationswith independent, pragmatic adviceabout project portfolio management(PPM) tools, focusing on the right fit fortheir business.

You can connect with Nicole onLinkedIn:

www.linkedin.com/in/reillynicole

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7 Potential Pitfalls inProcess Mapping

Workshops & How toAvoid Them

Craig Willis

As a business analyst, facilitator orprocess analyst you have no doubt runprocess workshops to gather informationand build solutions to business prob-lems. You have probably even experi-enced some of the unfortunate situationsbelow in the past.

In this article I’ll share the most commonthings that can go wrong during processmapping workshops and provide tips tohelp you overcome them. After readingthis you’ll be armed to win over theaudience and ace your next workshop.

No Clear Purpose orObjective

Let's get this straight, you’ve invitedpeople to this workshop but haven’tgiven them a clear reason to attend? Italways sounds obvious in hindsight, but

this is very common. A meeting inviteappears in your inbox, you’re free so youclick accept… Then you just turn up.

Without a clear purpose and objectivepeople will turn up unprepared. You’llthen have to use valuable timeexplaining why they are there and whatyou aim to get out of the session.

Don’t be surprised if people can’tanswer questions or need to leave theroom to grab documents and other infor-mation they should have brought along.

If you’re going to the trouble of bookingrooms and inviting people to give uptheir time make sure you also let themknow why you’re asking them in the firstplace. It only takes a minute and willavoid wasting time during the session.

No Ground Rules

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You know how the meeting goes,everyone is talking over each other,someone is on the phone and anyone nottalking is reading emails. It’s tiresomeand frustrating and a waste of everyone’stime.

This is what happens when you don’t setground rules up front and get everyoneto agree to them. Ground rules can besimple and it’s all about gettingeveryone to agree that they are there towork together.

Example ground rules can include, butare not limited to:

● Set phones to silent● Take calls outside● One person talks at a time● No question or idea is stupid● Everyone is equal● Park unanswered questions after 5

minutesCreate a slide or poster with the groundrules displayed and talk people throughthese at the beginning of every work-shop. Make sure they all agree and if therules aren’t followed at any time pointto them as a gentle reminder.

Most people, having agreed to abide bythe rules, will follow them.

The Technology Doesn’tWork

You’ve got your introduction prepared,your slides are ready to go, the audienceis waiting in anticipation, then you plugin the projector, and nothing happens.You check the cables, the settings and

everything else you can think of.

This situation doesn’t only mean you arestarting on the back foot, but your work-shop participants will quickly loseinterest. It looks unprofessional andmakes people feel like you are wastingtheir time.

Before you start any workshop makesure the technology works the way youexpect it to. Go there early, or even theday before, and test it. Make sure youhave the right technical contacts so youcan call someone to get problemsresolved quickly.

No Parking Lot / BenchHave you ever been part of a meeting orworkshop where a side conversation hasdominated the session? When thishappens other participants quickly startto lose interest and disengage. All thateffort to set up the workshop and get itgoing is wasted.

A Parking Lot, or Bench, is a place tocapture items that need further discus-sion but are not central to the workshopobjectives. Any disagreements or relatedactions can be captured here to be dealtwith later.

The Parking Lot is a great tool to diffusetense situations and disagreementsbetween individuals and keep thingsmoving.

Ideally the Parking Lot should be visibleto everyone, a flipchart or whiteboard isperfect. Refer to the Parking Lot in theGround Rules so that everyone knowswhat it is and what it’s for right from thebeginning.

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No Workshop OwnerThe Workshop Owner is someone fromthe relevant part of the business withauthority to make key decisions duringthe workshop. Typically, you are theremapping processes and facilitating thesession as an outsider. Either you’re anexternal consultant or an Analyst fromanother part of the business.

You should work with the WorkshopOwner to make sure things runsmoothly. They help you manage chal-lenges, especially if they relate to thingsoutside of the process you are mapping.They will help select items for theParking Lot and ensure that those thingsget actioned afterward.

No Agreed Next StepsHaving got almost to the end of yourworkshop the last thing you want is allthat hard work to go to waste. So, beforeyou finish, make sure you have capturedand agreed all the actions and next steps.

Throughout the session there were lotsof questions and ideas. Some of thesemay have been captured on the ParkingLot and some elsewhere. Make sure thatanything that needs to be done isassigned to someone. Get their agree-ment and commitment before assigningthe task. If possible, agree on a datewhen you’ll follow up to check.

No Follow UpIf you’ve gone to the trouble of agreeingactions and next steps then make sureyou follow them up. This ensures that

the participants know you will do whatyou say. You never know when you mayneed to ask for their time again and theywill want to know it wasn’t wasted.

You will also need to make sure youhave completed any work you haveagreed to do. Finish off the process mapsin good time and share them with theparticipants and anyone else that needsto see them.

There’s a good chance some stake-holders, especially if they were not inthe workshop, will have feedback. Makesure you incorporate this, or organise afurther short session to share significantchanges with the rest of the group.

Final ThoughtsI’ve listed some of the many things thatcould go wrong during a workshop butdo not panic! Success really hinges onbeing clear about the purpose of theworkshop and being well prepared.

Workshops are great fun, engaging andvery informative for everyone involved.If they aren’t it’s normally because ofone of the reasons above. If that happensyou’ll know where it went wrong andmake sure the next one is even better.Good luck!

Craig Willis is the CEO of Skore, theProcess Improvement Software Plat-form. Designed to be used and under-stood by everyone in the organisation,Skore’s simple two shape system enablesyou to effortlessly map and manageprocesses in workshops whilst gainingvaluable insights into the business.

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Upcoming FREE #BACommunity EventsAttending a #BACommunity event is a great way to accelerateyour professional development. In just an hour you can hear a

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You’ll always find a list of upcoming community events on ourwebsite. Here’s a taster.

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Our organisation is responsible forcomparing how much electricity gener-ators and suppliers said they wouldproduce or consume with the actualamounts generated and consumed. Wethen calculate a price for the imbalancesand charge organisations accordingly.The rules and obligations for electricitybalancing and settlement in Great Britainare underpinned by various industryprocesses and systems. As the industryevolves, these rules change, which needto be reflected in the related regulatorydocuments, processes and systems. Theyoften impact the similar processes andcapabilities.

These rules and obligations are spreadacross multiple documents on ourwebsite as well as within team networkdrives. Work on recent scale industrychange has resulted in hundreds ofrequirements spread across variousExcel sheets. In parallel we also need toconsolidate and manage the businessrequirements for re-platforming our coresettlement systems.

We set out to implement a requirementsmanagement solution that enabled us toefficiently and consistently define, main-tain and collaborate on these businessrules and requirements. Given the scaleand complexity of change and the

Selecting a RequirementsManagement Solution

– Our JourneyShamaila Jawaid

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current manual way of working, we wereable to demonstrate the case for a scal-able and efficient solution.

Evaluating solutionsWe had some experience of using aproduct management solution. Whilethis was a great tool for collaboration,we found that it didn’t meet our needsfor organising and structuring ourrequirements. The main customers ofour requirements include industry partic-ipants, legal teams, development part-ners and product teams.

We researched the market and identified5 tools and evaluated them againstcriteria that was important to us, such as:

● Re-usability of existing rules andrequirements to adapt them toevolving regulatory requirements

● Traceability, from regulatory docu-ments / business outcomes throughto design and test materials.

● Collaboration on requirements

● Ease of use

● Adaptability for different projectneeds (e.g. a traditional businessrequirements document versus userstories)

● Auditability

● Exporting requirements

● Integration with our tool ecosystem– Enterprise Architecture and Work-flow Management tools

● User Management

Upon successful selection of a solution,we then embarked on a journey oflearning and implementation.

How did we implement thesolution?

Working with our implementationpartner, we first had to work through ourprocesses so that we could configure thetool in the best way possible. As we weredue to go through organisational changewhere working practices would evolveand change, this was not straightfor-ward. We worked as a team to configurethe solution and were trained as admin-istrators on it. Subsequently, we organ-ised training sessions with thoseinvolved in the BA process such assubject matter experts, collaborators andreviewers. Most importantly, we tried itout on upcoming projects and created aculture of sharing our learning within theteam. Below is a list of some of theactions we had to take

● User management processes andlicencing needs – determine level ofusage, i.e. floating and dedicatedlicences, and type of users (creator,contributor, reviewer, approver,admin etc.)

● Configuring templates – setting upthe repository so it can be exportedwith our branding and recognisedrequirements format, as well astemplates for individual businessrequirements and user stories withacceptance criteria

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● Considering how we organise ourrequirements – e.g. enduring repos-itories for product areas and changespecific repositories to create newand amend existing requirementsthat can be merged into the enduringrepository

● Amending our framework, processand guides to remove the traditionalrequirements template and referencethe work we do

● Consolidating / migrating require-ments spread across various loca-tions / documents – we are doingthis on a change by change basis

● Constant learning, adapting andembedding. There can be more thanone way to configure the tool or useits capabilities’ to achieve anoutcome, so thinking about the bestway was essential. For example, weachieve traceability through addi-tional fields or setting up upstreamand downstream relationships. Thetwo approaches provide differentbenefits.

● Integration with our wider applica-tions and work management tools

● Listening to user feedback (e.g. onthe review process) and makingtweaks in the tool or process tomake it more user friendly

Did we achieve the intendedbenefits?

We set out to increase efficiency andreduce unnecessary manual effort in the

end to end change process / agile productdevelopment process. We’ve found thata dedicated requirements managementsolution has provided greater visibilityand better collaboration on require-ments. While the evaluation criteria isbased on best practice, simply having adatabase of requirements for multipleinitiatives, in a single location that canbe grouped, categorised and organisedhas supported more efficient working.

The ability to incorporate templateswithin a business requirement or user-story is enforcing consistency and thereview feature allows for all commentsto be managed from a single location.

Specifically, our solution enforces ashort title for each requirement tosupport navigation of items in a treestructure. This has led to an improve-ment in the way we communicaterequirements by ensuring the essence ofthe requirement is stated up front.

I don’t think we can ever go back tosiloed documents again!

However, it’s not been without its chal-lenges. As the organisation movestowards a new structure and ways ofworking, we’ve integrated our solutionwith a recently implemented backlogand product management tool. As eachteam has different needs there has beenconfusion on when to use each type ofsolution.

We’ve applied the principle that ourrequirements management solution isthe enduring, reusable repository ofrequirements across all products; and ourproduct development tools used for

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visualisation of work to develop theseproducts. The lifecycle of a requirementcan vary as needed by the teams, but itmust be categorised and organised in ourrequirements management solution toenable future re-use, alignment andassessment of changes.

The number of core users has alsoincreased over a short period of time,and keeping up the learning and embed-ding has not been easy.

Spotlight on specificcapabilities

Here are some of the features that stoodout for us:

● Configuration of ‘item types’ i.e.Business Requirements, UserStories, Capabilities, BusinessRules, including adding andremoving fields to support tracea-bility

● Re-use and sync – we can re-userequirements across multipleprojects and identify when they arein sync / out of sync

● Baselining a set of requirements andcomparing those baselines

● Managing and comparing versionsof individual requirements

● Collaboration on individual andgroups of requirements

● Merging and branching of require-ments across workspaces

● The ability to manage upstream anddownstream relationships

● Unlimited read only access

● Organising and tagging items

● Importing requirements into a folderstructure

● Dedicated review feature for collab-orative reviews

What’s next?As the team learns to use a wider rangeof capabilities of the solution, our focuswill be on supporting the integrationwith agile workflow tools in a way thatsupports our product teams in the bestway possible, as well as continuousknowledge sharing. Other potentialimprovements include combining ourrequirements data with analytics tools tohelp customers filter and search forrequirements in a way that suits them,building our reusable library and consid-ering how we best use our solution in amulti-vendor environment.

If you would like more info on any ofthe above, please do not hesitate to getin touch. I would love to hear from youto share ideas and experiences!

Shamaila Jawaid is a Business AnalysisPractice Lead and you can contact heron LinkedIn:

www.linkedin.com/in/shamaila-jawaid-a502b831/

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A term that seems to have takenincreased prominence over the lastdecade or so is digital transformation. Ithas become such a frequently used partof the organisational lexicon that it israrely questioned. It’s a term that isaccepted, it sounds like something thatis self-explanatory and somehowobvious. I mean who doesn’t wanta digital transformation? In the nextbreath there will be the inevitable clichesof Blockbuster, Netflix, Uber and others(cliches, by the way, that I am just asguilty as anyone as using…).

Within the business analysis communityI hear a lot of discussions about how to

work within a digital transformationprogramme, whether the tools and tech-niques are different to “other” types ofinitiative. I occasionally hear debatesabout whether there should be a “DigitalBA” role. These are sensible questionsfor us to ask ourselves—but shouldn’twe start by asking what does digitaltransformation actually mean anyway?

Far be it from me to reinvent the wheel.A bit of research will uncover scores ofbooks and papers about this topic, hereare two definitions that I find particu-larly interesting.

Digital Transformation:The Emperor Is Naked!

Adrian Reed

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Digital transformation:

“…involves the usage of new technolo-gies to drive significant improvements[…]. This includes capitalizing on newopportunities as well as effectively trans-forming existing businesses and tech-nology that enable them.”

— Anup Maheshwari (Maheshwari, A.,2019 “Digital Transformation”, Wiley)

“…encompasses the profound changestaking place in society and industriesthrough the use of digital technologies.At the organizational level, it has beenargued that firms must find ways toinnovate with these technologies”

—Gregory Vial (Vial, G., 2019 “Under-standing digital transformation: Areview and a research agenda” in Journalof Strategic Information Systems)

Now, it’s hard to argue with either ofthese. Yet, haven’tpractically all projects that involve infor-mation technology in the last 40 yearsmet these definitions? Here are some(deliberately provocative) examples:

● Banks providing automated tellermachines (ATMs)

● Electricity companies moving frommanual records to batch processingwith punch cards and stored data onmagnetic tape

● Banks offering automated servicesvia touch-tone phones (in the 1990s)

● The online services providerCompuserve offering FTP and

Gopher access (this actuallyhappened, look it up, it’s fasci-nating)

● Shops implementing electronicpoint of sale (EPOS) systems sothey can better track stock andpredict demand

● Just about every project you (or I)have ever done that have seized anopportunity (or protected against athreat) by using technology

I know, I know, there are projects thatdeal with entirely manual informationsystems. Yes, there are industries thatstill (sometimes for good reason) havestacks of paper files or where there’slittle technology at all. But in our worldsas BAs, in my experience it’s normal tohave at least some technology as part ofthe future state. It might not be sexy, itmight not be Netflix or Uber, but prettymuch everything we do has an elementof ‘digital’, surely? So why the excite-ment over ‘digital transformation’, andthe suggestion (from some) that it issomehow new and more important? Orare there really people working onpurely ‘analogue’ projects, writing theirdocuments on a typewriter and makingedits with correction fluid?

The Emperor Has NoClothes!

I’m being deliberately facetious ofcourse. In practice, I find that at leastsome organisations use the term digitaltransformation to mean “moving theboundary of automation closer to thecustomer” often combined with

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“changing the business model”, and thislast part is often more important than itappears. Let’s be honest, the often-cited examples like Netflix andAirBnB were just as much about busi-ness model innovation as they wereabout technical innovation. Imagine ifNetflix had reused Blockbuster’s busi-ness model (You can rent any film for£3.99 per night!) rather than a subscrip-tion based model…. History wouldlikely have been very different.

And of course if the automationboundary is moving closer to thecustomer (for example, customer self-service), then user experience, customerexperience design and similar topics areimportant. But is this really anythingnew? Surely whoever designed the firstATM had to make sure people couldactually use it? It’s important, but is itnew?

So, as in the classic Hans ChristianAndersen story of “The Emperor’s NewClothes”, with ‘digital transformation’ Ithink the emperor really is naked!There’s nothing fundamentally new ordifferent about how they need to beapproached. That’s not to sayprojects have always been approachedin the right way in the past. As with somany things context is what matters,there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach and(in my view) there never has been.

It Reinforces The StrategicView, Innovation &Customer Insight

However, some things have changed:

● Speed of technological change

● Ability for new entrants to disrupt(some) industries

● Societal fashions, trends and expec-tations

What this highlights is the need forthe strategic business analysis before,and throughout change initiatives.Scanning the external environment,using techniques such as STEEPLE (andothers) to understand what is coming andhow the organisation and the specificinitiative might respond. It alsohighlights the need for innovativethinking, re-designing work and reallyunderstanding customers, users andbeneficiaries of the services we define.

Plus of course stakeholder engagement.And perhaps a question we should askof our stakeholders is:

“When you say digital transformation,what type of digital transformation isthat?”

Adrian Reed is Principal Consultant atBlackmetric. He speaks internationallyon topics relating to business analysisand business change. Adrian wrote the2016 book ‘Be a Great ProblemSolver… Now’ and the 2018 book‘Business Analyst’.

Connect with Adrian on LinkedIn

Check out Adrian’s blog

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For BA related Videos,Interviews & Webinars subscribe

to Blackmetric on YouTube.

Search ‘Blackmetric’ on YouTubeor visit

www.blackmetric.co.uk/youtube

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Judy Alter AKA “The Optimistic BATM”

The Other Side of a Business Analyst

When thinking of a Business Analyst(BA), many people think of businessmodels, requirements documents, work-shops, data flow diagrams, Visios, andmore. I agree that in most cases, thisdescription is correct. I am thankful thatno respectable person thinks of a BA asa note taker or just a bridge between thedeveloper and the stakeholders.

What I feel is the most critical skill fora BA are the soft skills. About 85% ofwhat a BA does relates to soft skills. Ifa BA can’t relate to the people, they willnot be successful. A study published in2020 by Zety asked employers, “Whichskill set is most important?” The study’sfindings were that employers hire forsoft skills almost twice as much as hardskills. The results showed Hard Skills –39% and Soft Skills – 61%. To readmore about this survey, here is a link.

It was great to see that the one thing Ibelieve in the most was validated. Manyof my courses and presentations tie intoor are about something related to softskills. As the last eighteen months havegone by, many of my BA buddies havetalked about the importance of softskills. I have had to keep a straight face

as I was shocked more than anything. Ithas also made me happy when some ofthe well-known BA speakers compli-ment me on what I’ve done with softskills.

I feel that people are more excited to talkabout hard skills. I have challengedanyone to tell me about a project wherethe BA didn’t communicate with anotherperson. No one has or will win thischallenge. As you look at what BAs doon requirements elicitation, workshops,observations, and meeting with stake-holders, those activities require excellentpeople skills.

BAs need to be great communicators andcollaborators. The foundation to succeedwith that is to be a great listener. Itwould be best if you listened to under-stand, not to reply. The BA can nod,smile, and use other visual clues toensure the speaker knows you areengaged. You can study facial gestureseither in person or if the speaker has acamera on. Even if the cameras are noton, the BA needs to focus on voice clues.

For successful communication, theBAs need to follow the three C’s. They

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are Concise, Clear, and Complete.Your communication only requires thenumber of words necessary to make yourpoint. The communication needs to beas transparent as clean glass. Finally, itneeds to be complete, so everyoneunderstands what is required and whenit needs to be completed. The Three C’sapply to both verbal and written commu-nication.

BAs need to be great collaborators asthey need to bring groups of stake-holders, customers, vendors, etc.,together. The BA needs to figure outwhich stakeholder is the key becausethat is the main person they need toplease. It is not always the top-rankingperson, but this is the one you need tomake friends with. Get to know thisstakeholder as a person and share some-thing about yourself. You don’t need todo lunch every day or go on a trip, butif you go to this extra effort which willpay off as the BA gains their confidenceand trust.

The easiest way to do this is to ask themabout a favorite sport, activity, or eventheir family. If you are in person, noticethe personal items in their office or cube.If virtual, see the room they are in andask them about a picture. You would beamazed how they warm up to you withthis. If you work with the same stake-holders, you will get to know them on adeeper level. BAs who go from area toarea with different stakeholders can dothe same thing but just a little quicker.Many BAs don’t do something like this,and I feel they are missing out.

Once you know what you need tocommunicate to your stakeholders, doyou use the same method for all stake-holders? If you answered no, you arecorrect. The standard rule is the higherposition a stakeholder has; the lessdetailed the communication needs to be.The end-user needs all the detailsbecause they need to be able to use it.They can also review the documentationto determine if anything is missing. Theearlier that happens, the easier it is tomake changes.

Before I conclude, I want to share themost important thing about what a BAneeds to do to succeed with people on aproject. Treat every person you talk withas they are the only person in the worldat that moment. By connecting withthem like this, you would be amazedhow that makes them feel and increasestheir confidence and trust in you. Youcan also use this on family and friends.It is a great thing to make someone’sday, and it is free. I owe this to two ofmy BA friends who do it in differentways. I don’t think they realised how thiswas so important until I explained it tothem. This little tip has helped to makeme a better person along with a betterBA. I hope you enjoyed reading this asmuch as I enjoyed writing it.

I always enjoy new connections:

My website: www.theoptimisticba.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/judy-alter-cbap-l-i-o-n-56a62213

LinkedIn Optimistic BA:www.linkedin.com/company/69433161

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Recently a study appeared in the maga-zine 'Nature' in which researchersshowed that people systematically over-look subtractive changes. When askedto improve something, most people tendto add elements to it, even if would bemore effective to take something away.When I read that, it occurred to me thatI also have a (slight!) tendency to makethings more complex. For example, Imight add a feedback-loop and an extracheck in the workflow…

In the old days at tech university, we hadthe magazine 'Elektuur', full of diagramsfor building all kinds of electronicdevices yourself. If you connect all thecomponents of the schematic on aprinted circuit board, you get, forexample, an amplifier, radio or timeswitch. These were often impressiveschematics, full of feedback loops,resistor bridges and capacitors. At theelectronics lab was this assistant, whoalways wore a blue dust coat with animpressive row of ballpoint pens in hisbreast pocket. It was advisable to checkthe schematic with him before buildingit. He would then look at it, take a penand start scrapping. “That capacitor isnot necessary, this resistor bridge is not

needed …” and other such improve-ments. Based on his knowledge andexperience, he went through the designwith a fine tooth comb. The result wasinvariably a more compact and morestable design.

Another example: at the Oscars in 2017,the movie La La Land was mistakenlydeclared the winner, while Moonlightshould have received the Oscar for bestpicture. This mistake happened eventhough there were a series of securitymeasures built in to prevent problems .For example, on each side of the stagethere was an accountant with the sameseries of envelopes. (That way, if onefails to reach the stage, there's always abackup on the other side). A third set ofresults was with the notary. But thingswent wrong on stage and the wrongmovie was declared the winner. Thisshould of course not happen again, andthat is why the Oscars organisation hasimproved the procedure by introducingan additional check.

In our work as business analysts weshould be aware of this, and try to getaway from the “addition bias”. Yes,

Dust Coat on andFine-tooth Comb

Danny Kalkhoven

49

some processes need checks or feedbackloops, but not always.

An example: in many financial proce-dures the team lead (or even the depart-ment head) has to approve certaindecisions or transactions. So every nowand then you see someone walk up tothat desk with a stack of forms, and theteam lead quickly signs them all off. Jobdone.

It might be tempting to include thischeck in the design of the digital work-flow procedure that you are imple-menting. It’s an extra check, so it helpsfor a better quality, right?

Well, maybe not! Take a step back, andask yourself: this check, this additionalelement, is it necessary, does it addvalue? What would happen if I take itout?

Well, it actually improves the process.It will be quicker for one thing. And doesthat team lead really check all theseforms carefully? No, they are signed offalmost without looking at it, trusting thatall is good, checked by the employeesthemselves. So the speed goes down, andthe quality does not increase as a resultof this step.

Remedy: subtract instead of add!

When you take it out, it might be a bitof shock for some stakeholders. But youcan explain that the people are alreadytrusted to do the job correctly, and thatit’s very rare for the check to lead tocorrective actions. Mind you, I am notsuggesting that legal obligations orstandard accounting procedures should

be neglected. When a 4-eyes principle ismandatory, it needs to be included. Butmaybe that second pair of eyes does notalways need to be the team lead. Manyof our processes hold checks or extrasteps that were added because of this“additional elements is better” bias.

A lesson I took away from the article andthe book that explains and illustrates thisbias:

Put on your imaginary dust coat andwalk through the designed processwith a fine tooth comb. Ask yourselfwhat real value the steps and checks add,why they are there, and what wouldhappen if you take some out. You’ll besurprised how much more compact androbust many (of your own) designs canbe!

I know I did…

More to find out:�� “Subtract, the untapped science ofless” by Leidy Klotz (ISBN 978-1250249876)�� Nature volume 592, pages 258–261(2021)�� Tim Harfords "Cautionary tales"podcast no 3 (“La La land”)

Danny Kalkhoven is a business analystand trainer with Le Blanc advies in theNetherlands.

He has worked in banking, insuranceand health care environments as a busi-ness analyst for over 20 years, and is atrainer for a series of BCS BusinessAnalysis courses in NL.

Contact:linkedin.com/in/dannykalkhoven

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Job VacanciesCompany: British Business Bank

Role & Salary: Business ArchitectUp to £50k (depending on experience)

and excellent benefits(incl 30 days leave)

Location: Sheffield/Homeworking

Closing Date: 11 October 2021

Job Description: Great opportunity for an experiencedBusiness Analyst to step up to a strategic, high-profilerole. You will be responsible for developing model andartefacts to assist the Senior Leadership Team with abetter understanding the business, the businessenvironment, and the impacts of developing initiatives.Expect 2 interviews.

British Business Bank Careers (changeworknow.co.uk)

High Quality BA Jobs For High Quality BA Candidates

The 'Job Vacancies' section is a new feature within BA Digest.The employers advertising jobs in this section have agreed to:

● Identify the hiring company and location

● Specify the salary or salary range

● Make it clear if the recruitment process involves more than oneinterview

● Give feedback to anyone who gets to interview stage and not "ghost"any candidate

If you have a BA job to advertise, and can agree to the terms above,contact us to find out how to advertise in the next edition of BA Digest.

www.blackmetric.com/contact-us-2/

50

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Company: Coller Capital

Role & Salary: Senior Business Analyst (Contractor)Up to £750 per day

Location: London

Job Description: Exciting opportunity to join Coller’sTechnology group as a Senior Business Analyst on thefirm’s Data Transformation Programme. This role is abridge between the business and the technicalstakeholders of an ecosystem of off-the-shelf andbespoke solutions. The Senior Business Analyst willtranslate business needs through requirements intosolution specifications taking into account taking intoaccount people, process, technology and dataperspectives.

Recruitment process will be two rounds of interviews

Coller Capital - Senior Business Analyst

Company: Coller Capital

Role & Salary: Business Systems Analyst (Contract)Up to £500 per day

Location: London

Job Description: Coller Capital are looking to hire aBusiness Systems Analyst into their IT function on aContract basis. This role is a bridge between thebusiness and the technical stakeholders of an ecosystemof off-the-shelf and bespoke solutions. The BusinessSystems Analyst will translate business needs into aprioritised backlog of user stories taking into accountpeople, process, technology and data perspectives.

Coller Capital - Business Systems Analyst

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"All the world's a stage, and all the menand women merely players", so saidShakespeare. Like in a play, each of usin a Scrum team has our role. TheProduct Owner is no exception. Don'tthink of disbanding this role on a Scrumteam, as some organisations might do.Resistance is futile. A Scrum team needsto embrace this role. A Product Owneris as much an actor and contributor inbuilding a Minimum Viable Product asanyone else on the team.

But, what is the crux of the ProductOwner role, and why do we need it?Let's take a closer look at this question.First, let's back up a bit. Without addingfuel to the fire, ask whether a BA shouldalso be on a Scrum team? Well, no onetitle is mentioned on a Scrum team,whether BA, Product Owner, or Devel-oper. Not naming job roles is the tradi-tional convention for a Scrum team.

We know that Agile inherently tries tominimise requirements documentationand potential roadblocks between the

Product Ownership -Resistance Is Futile

Marcus Udokang

Product Ownership -Resistance Is FutileMarcus Udokang

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business and technical teams. BAs aretraditionally known for being require-ments junkies and for bridging that gapbetween business and technical teams.Does this mean there are now minimalor almost no duties for a BA on a Scrumteam? This also begs the question, wheredoes the BA fit in a Scrum team?Without focusing too much on a BA,let's see not only what a Product Ownerdoes on the Scrum stage, but how theBA can be an indispensable actor on thatstage, too. The end result should makethe Product Owner role far more irresist-ible.

Product BacklogThe receptacle for requirements in aScrum team sits within the ProductBacklog, which is managed by theProduct Owner. In that sense, like a BA,a Product Owner is a connector betweenclients/business, and the technical team.The PO prioritises backlog items with afocus on the value side, and adding valueto the user experience. Scrum is product-centric, not project-centric. This doesn'tautomatically exclude the value of a BA.On the contrary, it enhances the BA rolebecause it allows both the BA and PO tohone each of their roles with a concen-trated effort, to dig deep to delivergreater value to the customer.

Owner of the VisionThe Product Owner essentially is theowner of the vision, which is articulatedto the team, based on a good under-standing of the product and the needs ofthe customer, for whom the product isbeing built. Both the BA and PO are

practitioners of change. However, for thePO that change is exclusive to theproduct, to the exclusion of anythingelse. To make any changes the PO is thatone voice speaking for the many on theteam. The PO must consult the team,understand and assess the impact of anypotential change to the product, and beable to communicate the necessity forthese changes to the customer.

If there is any uncertainty, the PO shouldbe the central de facto decision maker,because he or she knows all the apparentactors, what they want, and what valuethey need. The PO has a well-definedacceptance criteria. It's this knowledgethat determines how to refine the priori-tisation of the backlog items, and givesclarity to the developers on how to buildfeatures or components. Minimisingwaste by capturing a succinct user storywill allow for a smooth flow of delivery.Think of a story as a placeholder for aconversation we can have later. And,that delivery helps shape the vision ofthe PO, that helps bring the product tofruition.

CommunicationProduct Ownership is all about commu-nication, with a dose of passion. It's allabout individuals and actions over proc-esses and tools. To deliver early andoften, stories are truncated into bite-sized chunks, so each story takes just afew days to tackle. A just-in-timefashion allows for attending to productand user needs so much more effec-tively. Backlog grooming should includeestimation of stories, splitting stories,and acceptance criteria for those stories.

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The team, developers, stakeholders, oranyone in the loop should attend a onehour weekly meeting. A frequent feed-back loop of steady delivery to end usersor other stakeholders, with constantcommunication between the PO, thedevelopers and the stakeholders is key.The PO sees the big picture, taking intoaccount any risks, whether business,technical, cost or schedule-related.

The PO is there to avoid gold plating,that is, doing more work than necessary.Inefficient resources could makeassumptions that are not correct, whichcan add to gold plating. If a missedrequirement is discovered, verify it withthe PO.

Driving the ProductWhen it comes to sizing a story, as youunderstand more, complexity changes,and the understanding of the storychanges. Some might see this aschanging the scope. Have the mindset tounderstand the end goal, which is tocontinuously deliver useful products.The PO is driving where the product isgoing. He or she is responsible foriteration goals, defining epics, storiesand success criteria. The PO is all aboutexpectation management, and is thevoice of the customer.

And, involved POs have direct access tothe BA, with a concrete idea of where tomove next. The BA in a sense is thefacilitator for the Product Owner, acritical role providing solutions todeliver value, and managing the BAartifacts and process flow. The BA

provides enough information for the POto make the right decisions.

The Product Owner needs to constantlycommunicate progress and performregular retrospectives, while definingexpectations. Common vocabularyneeds to be used to have the team on thesame playing field. POs are creativeproblem solvers, with a strong technicalbackground, and can easily see differentpoints of view.

ConclusionAs in any play each actor has theirentrances and exits. Know when andhow to use the PO role, for it can playmany parts. It is one of the most impor-tant roles on a software team. In short,the Product Owner role is very muchneeded. Embrace it, for resistance isfutile!

Marcus Udokang is a Business Analyst,Project Manager, writer and presenter.He is also host of the Podcast andYouTube channel The InquisitiveAnalyst, which focuses on the triumphsand challenges within the BA and PMfields.

LinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/in/marcus-udokang/

The Inquisitive Analyst

YouTube:http://bit.ly/theinquisitiveanalyst

Podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-inquisitive-analyst

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Citizen Developers are business powerusers of technology that can imagine,learn, and apply new technologies. Weare undergoing another technology para-digm shift. There are many contributingreasons for the shift. One of the majorreasons is that the demand for highlyskilled developers is out passing thesupply of new developers. Anotherreason for the shift is the rapid maturityof No-Code and Low-Code developmentplatforms. According to Gartner Group,“by 2024, low-code application develop-ment will be responsible for more than65% of application developmentactivity.” With the right guidance fromIT, Citizen Developers can help closethe application development gap.

All applications don’t require the samescrutiny for development. Highlycomplex applications, or applications

that require substantial integrations orsecurity measures, still require special-ised developer skills. Many applicationsare temporary or only require a simpleinterface to collect or display data. Thisis where Citizen Developers fit in.

What is the difference between No-Codeand Low-Code? All BAs should have astrong understanding of Excel. Here is asimple example comparing No-Codeand Low-Code using Excel’s function“VLOOKUP”.

A No-Code version of VLOOKUP isclicking the function icon, selectingVLOOKUP from a list of functions, andfilling in the parameter boxes. Behindthe scene Excel is translating the param-eters in the form into a Low-Codeversion which is represented as“=VLOOKUP(A2,A:G,7,FALSE)”.

An Introductionto “CitizenDevelopers”Lawrence Reid

56

Alternatively, one may type the sameLow-Code formula“=VLOOKUP(A2,A:G,7,FALSE)”directly into the cell. I know this is arather simplistic example, but it doesemphasize the subtleness between thetwo.

There are now several No-Code Low-Code development platforms that allow“Citizen Developers” to create completeapplications with no code at all or simpleedits to formulas like Excel’sVLOOKUP. Imagine the power andflexibility of these platforms that canstart by connecting to your data source,whether Excel or a corporate databaseon the premises or in the cloud. Theapplication templates can generate andpublish applications for desktops,tablets, and phone form factors. Theplatform will analyse the data and auto-matically generate a simple, yetcomplete, application to display the datain a scrollable list view of items withadditional forms to display and editdetails of each item.

Customising the base applications canbe as simple or complex as your needs

require. Existing forms can be dupli-cated, and new or existing text labels ordata controls can be dragged into posi-tion. The labels and controls can beupdated by changing property settingslike the label’s text to display, or the datasource field connected to the datacontrols. Updating the navigation can beas simple as updating the properties ofthe navigation icons to point to thecorrect form by selecting the form froma list or typing it in as with the ExcelVLOOKUP example earlier. With alittle extra effort and modifying codesamples, this application can even sendemail notifications.

Where to get started? Does your organ-isation already subscribe to one of thesedevelopment platforms? If so, ask to getaccess to the platform and training. Ifnot, there are several vendors providingNo-Code Low-Code development plat-forms. Search for “Citizen Developer”or No-Code Low-Code. The platforms Iam most familiar with are MicrosoftPower Apps and Salesforce, and thereare many others. Platforms vary in capa-bilities, security, stability, and of coursepricing. Start with a free trial. Follow

Looks for a value in the leftmost column of a table, and then returns a value in the same row from a column you specify. By default, the tableMust be sorted in an ascending order.

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their examples to get an understandingof their capabilities and limitations.

Think of simple examples in your organ-isation to leverage what you learnedfrom the vendor’s samples.

�� What are my appointments today?

�� Which items are approaching lowinventory levels?

�� What would be useful in a dash-board?

�� I would like to be notified when…

Continue to build your skills and capa-bilities that can be leveraged for morecomplex projects.

Many organisations are recognising thebenefits of increasing their technologydensity. The synergy of learning andsharing of process improvement andautomation through technology,empowers the individuals and the organ-isation. Organisations are forming multi-discipline teams to identify and analyseexisting processes and applications foropportunities which improve efficien-cies or generate new capabilities. Team

members may include business analysts,project managers, subject matter experts,and other departmental stakeholdersfrom Operations, IT, HR, and Finance.Organisations that learn together, growtogether.

Like all corporate project teams, thesenew teams need a sponsor, and a statedpurpose of how the team will providevalue to the organisation. These teamsmay conduct surveys or workshops tobrainstorm ideas for potential projectsthat may be candidates for No-CodeLow-Code applications. The best candi-dates for early apps will have low tech-nical requirements and low risks.Technical requirements measure thecomplexity based on variables like thenumber of data sources, departmentsimpacted, and the level of programmerexperience required. Risks are measuredon variables like read-only to fully edit-able access or the sensitivity of datafrom not critical to classified, etc.

I believe that Business Analysts arecritical for the success of these projectsand are positioned to gain the most inskills, experience, and exposure.

Connect with Lawrence on LinkedIn

www.badigest.co.uk

If you enjoy this magazine, subscribe to receivethe free BA Digest magazine every quarter

58

One of my more unusual “claims tofame” is that I’ve performed magic infront of a paying audience at Caesar'sPalace, Las Vegas. I’ve also performedthe same act in London, Johannesburgand Minneapolis—although all of thisbecomes far less exciting when you findout it’s actually a presentation that drawssimilarities between business analysisand magic (and there are a surprisingnumber of similarities….)

Preparing for that presentation meantthat I carried out research into variousbranches of magic and I was particularly

interested in cold reading. This tech-nique is used by magicians who want toappear to be able to read a subject’smind. There are a whole range of waysof achieving this effect, from illusionsand misdirection to clever languagepatterns and use of psychology. One thatparticularly stood out to me wasthe Barnum Statement.

Barnum Statements can be described as:

“…artfully generalised character state-ments that most people will accept asreasonably accurate” (Rowland, 2015)

ProjectOutcome

orBarnum

Statement

Adrian Reed

59

A good Barnum statement maywell feel personal, but it actually appliesto a significant chunk of the population.It somehow simultaneously feelsspecific but actually says very little.Take the following statement:

“You enjoy elements of your work, butsometimes feel held back. You sometimesfeel you have untapped creativity thatyou want to unleash”

Does this resonate with you? I suspectat least part of this statement resonateswith a whole number of folks in thebusiness change community.Who doesn’t sometimes feel held back?Who doesn’t feel that they haveuntapped creativity that they want tounleash?

Politics: It Can MeanWhatever You Want It To

MeanArguably, one of the reasons that tech-niques like Barnum statements work isthey are beautifully non-specific. Theyallow the subject (whose mind is being‘read’) to project any meaning ontothem that they want. They are easy toagree to, they feel so personal, sotargeted… but they’re not.

Being provocative, it could be said thatsimilar language patterns are used inPolitics. Broad and aspirational state-ments that are very difficult to disagreewith, are repeatable ‘ear worms’ butcould be open to many different interpre-tations. Now I’m just not braveenough to quote any recent politicalslogans here (it would distract from the

core message of this blog), so here’s arandomly selected slogan from the 1992UK General Election:

“It’s time to get Britain Working Again”

What does this actually mean? If youread this and you’re unemployed, youmight assume it’s about job creation. Ifyou read it and you’re concerned withgovernment bureaucracy, you mightthink it’s about getting ‘Britain working’by streamlining processes. If you arecraving the simplicity of the past youmight centre on the word ‘Again’ andassume it means moving back to simplerstructures and different social norms.

So what does it mean? Who knows…. Isuspect a politician would argue that themechanisms for delivering that state-ment is in the manifesto. The manifestothat, let’s face it, very few voters willactually read.

Business Is Political TooSo what has all of this got to do withbusiness change, product and servicedesign? Well, often large programmesof change start with an aspirational goal.A set of ‘strategic imperatives’ ordesired outcomes. The challenge is thento understand what capabilities arenecessary to achieve those outcomesand how we’ll go about doing it.

Yet, we should watch out for ‘BarnumStatements’ in organisational changecontexts too. Statements that seemspecific but are open to multiple inter-pretations. They might creep incompletely unintentionally, or there

60

might be a broader political motivation.Ponder over the following statements: Isuspect different people would drawdifferent interpretations to what thesemean:

● Becoming an organisation thatthinks “digital first”

● Cultivating a winning culture

● Becoming the best place to work

● Creating true customer delight

The danger is that different folks will(quite understandably and rationally)project their own meanings onto this.Even if other documentation exists,much like the voter who hasn’t read themanifesto, they ‘support’ somethingbased on their understanding of what itmeans (rather than the detailed intent).Then conflict will ensue when we actu-ally try and define and deliver somethingto achieve it. No wonder we spend somuch time navigating disagreement….

Understand DifferentPerspectives

As business change professionals, onething we spend a lot of time doingis understanding different possibleperspectives/purposes. Whether it’susing techniques like CATWOEor PQR (both forms of ‘root definition’from Soft Systems Methodology), 3Es(efficacy, efficiency, effectiveness)or UCOB we have a whole range of toolsat our disposal that we can use to assessand tease out different possible perspec-tives. It’s important that we use these at

the strategic level as well at the detailedlevel of requirements or granularchanges.

We should expect that there will bedifferent interpretations of what adesired future state should look like.Consensus is unusual, and successfulchange is about arriving at what has beenreferred to as an ‘accommodation’; asituation that everyone can at leastaccept and commit to (see for example,Checkland & Poulter, 2001). Of courseconsensus is better, but in most large-scale changes some folks are happierthan others. We might think scanning allthe old paperwork is a benefit, try tellingthat to the person who has worked withthose paper files for the last 40 years…We should be bold and have thecourage to cultivate conscientiousconflict and accept that consensus isunlikely. We should help organisationsnavigate through and get beyondconflict, ensuring that a diversity ofrelevant voices are represented (espe-cially those that are normally forgottenabout).

A potential antidote to misunderstandingand mechanism for achieving an ‘accom-modation’ is co-creation. Having abroader set of stakeholders involvedwith the definition and agreement ofoutcomes will reduce (but not eliminate)the risk of miscommunication. It’s rarelypossible to have everyone at the table,but ensuring there is enough; a ‘criticalmass’ will really help. This doesn’t justapply to strategy at organisational level,it is equally valuable when discussingthe ‘change strategy’ (see IIBA, 2015)that a particular initiative is pursuing.

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Let’s face it, you’ve probably foundyourself working on a really trickyproject haven’t you? And it was painful,and you had to work long hours?*Perhaps it was built on Barnum State-ments… and perhaps as a community ofprofessional practitioners we can helpavoid this.

* Bonus points if you spotted the BarnumStatements in my closing paragraph!!

References & Footnotes:

Checkland, P. & Poulder, J.(2001) Learning for Action: A ShortDefinitive Account of Soft Systems Meth-odology and its use for Practitioners,Teachers and Students, Chichester,Wiley

Rowland, I. (2015) The Full Facts bookof Cold Reading (6th ed), UnitedKingdon, Ian Rowland Ltd

IIBA (2015) A Guide to the BusinessAnalysis Body of Knowledgev3.0, Toronto, IIBA

Note: “It’s time to get Britain WorkingAgain” was a slogan for the UK LabourParty (ref: Wikipedia). Discussion of theslogan itself was not intended as anycritique/support or otherwise of anypolitical party or political philosophy.

Adrian Reed is Principal Consultant atBlackmetric. He speaks internationallyon topics relating to business analysisand business change. Adrian wrote the2016 book ‘Be a Great ProblemSolver… Now’ and the 2018 book‘Business Analyst’.

Connect with Adrian on LinkedIn

Check out Adrian’s blog

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Thanks to all the authors who kindly allowed us to use their content.

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Penny PullanNnenna Stevenson

Suhas KerurkarPaula Bell

Nick de VoilAdrian ReedJoanne Fahy

Oluwakorede Asuni

Nicole ReillyCraig Willis

Shamaila JawaidJudy Alter

Danny KalkhovenMarcus UdokangLawrence Reid

63

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