The Business Analysis Blog

"It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed." - Charles Darwin

Recently I saw Erin Brockovich for the nth times (yes I can't remember how many times I have seen Erin Brockovich). It is needless to say that it is a great movie but at the same time it teaches you so much about how to go about your work. How can we Business Analysts learn from Erin Brockovich and perform our tasks better:

• When you get a business case or a business problem investigate a bit further, just like erin did. 
• Talk to people, visit them understand their problem. 
• If the business is new for you talk to the subject matter experts no matter from where you get hold of them. Talk to them try to understand the business and the industry. 
• Get involved in the project and keep the positive energy flowing. Be available for others to come and communicate with you. 
• Always be aligned to the client, even when you are talking about their costs. 
• Always take time out to build relationships with the client, it pays a lot. 
• There will be resistance from some people in the client take that in your stride. 
• Continue doing your good work and the resistance will melt away. 
• Take good care of your loved ones, take time out for them as they are the ones who are going to keep your lifeline going on. You don't want to lose them.

As Business Analysts we face some very hectic days, especially at the start of the projects. All of us have seen days when we keep running in and out of Requirement Gathering workshops and meetings with the stakeholders. These workshops and meetings generally last the whole day and the routine continues for days.In midst of all these meetings the Business Analyst is supposed to make sense of the business problems and keep working on the deliverables as well. There are so many things going on that it becomes difficult to stay on top of your work.

Here are some tools that I have been using, it works really well for me. I hope it helps you.

• Get Offline and maintain a personal notebook to record all the project related info: Yes it is very important that you get off your laptop. Your laptop is your workstation and it believe it will distract you with so many things like mails, pings from other people, your use cases and other documents and deliverables. It is important that you move away from your laptop to organize your work. Invest in a personal notebook to maintain all the project related information.
  

• Keep calendar marked for important dates and tasks: As there are tonnes of things going around in the project you need to stay on top of the so many different dates. When is the next workshop, whne is the next meeting with the stakeholder, when is the deliverable due dats, when is the date to respond to all the queries, when is your boss visiting you, when is the meeting with the tech team .... Yes the dates will drive you crazy. We do use Outlook for organizing our meetings but it is also very important that we keep an offline record in our notebook. So that we can plan our work accordingly.
  
• Tip: Paste prints of monthly and yearly views of the calendars
• Tip: Color code the meetings.
• Keep all the important numbers handy: We meet so many new people in a project and you never know who you might need at what stage of your project. Though we all have a phone and you have their number in it but it is difficult to remember all the name (yes it is not easy for me) and unless we have a phone with great search tool (my phone doesn't have it) it is better to have the list of number ready to use.
  
• Tip: Take a printout and paste the list at the start of the notebook.
• Divide the notebook into sections: Divide the notebook logical sections. This will help you to find the appropriate information quickly. Also it helps you to better organize the information.
• Spend half an hour at the start of everyday to plan your day: This is the most important activity. When you start our day by going through the notebook you get a quick snapshot of the current status of the project. You should start your day with looking at the upcoming important dates and tasks for the day. It will help you to plan your day and keep tab on the day's activities.
  
• Spend half and hour at the end of the day to fill the gaps and updating the work book: End your day with updating the notebook with the learnings of meetings and workshops you attended during the day. You must do this exercise without postponing it to the next day. It doesn't take more than half an hour to complete this activity but it will help you to stay on top of your work.
  
• Carry the book to every meeting and keep taking notes: Do carry this notebook to every meeting you attend and make small notes. This will help you to sync up at the end of the day. Believe me when you are attending more than one meeting everyday it takes a lot out of you and it becomes difficult to remember each and everything. These notes will help you to retain pointers to important decisions or discussions you had in the meeting.
  
• Over the time it will become the most important BA tool: If you maintain the notebook properly it will become the most important BA tool as it is going to help you to do you Business Analysis tasks better.
  

Points to remember:
Not easy to do, there is a learning curve.
Tip: Keep doing it religiously for a month and it will definitely help you to stay on top of your work.

Alrite it's been a really long time that I have posted anything here. Blame me, curse me but please excuse me for the long absence. I promise I will make up for the lost time in coming months.

I was recently reading a book from the Dalai Lama the leader in exile of Tibet and a quote just got stuck in my head. I modified the quote to make it relevant to the Business Analysis Blog (the embolden words are my modification).

We must ultimately develop more than mere academic knowledge of the Business Analysis. We must integrate the truths of the Business Analysis teaching into the depths of our very being, so that they become reflected in our lives.

Collaboration is of little value if it remains an idea. It must become our attitude towards others, reflected in all our thoughts and actions.

- Modified version of The Dalai Lama's Golden words, taken from his book An Open Heart

Matt was recently looking for a job shift. Matt is a Business Analyst and is open to relocate to any place given that the work he gets should be good and in the profile of a Business Analyst. When Matt started his search on internet job portals he stumbled upon a lot of job openings for Business Analysts. He soon realized that BAs are required almost all over the world be it USA, UK, Rest of Europe, South Africa, Australia, India, Singapore or New Zealand (place he always wanted to visit).

Here are some of the Business Analysis Job Ads that Matt found:

1. Where is the customer and
2. Where is the development team?

1. Lead working sessions with client to capture product requirements and translate those requirements into structured Product Definition Documents.
2. Developing process flows from high-level concepts.
3. Ask the right questions at sufficient detail in order to capture the essence of the product requirements.

1. Liaise with technology team to provide constant business understanding and support.
2. Serve as a client representative in briefings, meetings, and conferences.

1. Liaise with offshore and onshore teams to provide constant business understanding and support and keep both the team on the same page.

1. Experience in Solution Design, Business Analyst (BA), Architecture, Consulting
2. Ability to lead working sessions with client to capture product requirements and translate those requirements into structured Product Definition Documents

1. Demonstrates strong interpersonal skills, with the members of the Development Team.

1. Excellent Communication and Inter-personal Skills.

What are Storyboards?
Storyboards are graphic organizers such as a series of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of previsualizing a motion graphic or interactive media sequence, including website interactivity. [Wikipedia]

How Storyboards are used by the Moviemakers and Business Analysts?

Movie makers use the storyboards to illustrate the story better. They break the story into scene and then they work on the details of one scene at a time. It is not necessary that they do the storyboarding of each and every scene. Sometime movie makers do the storyboarding of only few important scenes. In the software industry we learn from a variety of fields and storybording is something that we have picked up from movie makers. As a Business Analyst we try to see the bigger picture of the business problems of the client. To get it right storyboards help a lot.  Just like movie makers we break the bigger picture of Business into smaller sections and then focus on one section at a time. This way we enrich our knowledge of client's business piece by piece, section by section. We can easily identify where we need to more research, where we need more analysis. Storyboarding not only helps BA in creating a bigger picture but a High Definition bigger picture where you can zoom to finer details.

Uses and Benefits of using Storyboards:

1. Helps a BA in identifying the areas where more information is needed.
   
2. Helps a BA in identifying the areas where more analysis is needed.
   
3. View the bigger picture (in High Definition)
   
4. Easy to communicate the understanding to clients
   
5. Helps in organizing the work.

Storyboards help a Business Analyst in creating a High Definition Bigger Picture of client's business.

1. In the Enterprise Analysis Phase, for creating the Business Case.
2. In the Requirement Elicitation Phase just before the Prototype is created.

Creating a Storyboard on a brown paper wall with help of Storycards and Post-its helps in identifying the right sections to focus on. I use legend post-its (notice pink one) to identify sections where I need to do more analysis (dark pink) and where I need input from the client (light pink). Also I keep myself reminding about the Horizontal Analysis and Vertical Analysis.

1. Keep it simple: Keep the story simple, do not make it complicated. 
   
2. Break the story into scenes: Breaking the story into scenes or sections will help you to organize the story better. It will also help you in identifying the shortcomings, if any, in the story. While making a Storyboad, do the Horizontal and Vertical analysis of storyboard, that will ensure completeness of the story.
   
3. Make it collaborative: The idea behind storyboarding is to make the complete picture clear. To make sure that you have covered every aspect of the story, involve your clients in the storyboarding session. Check the logic flow (“necessary and sufficient” arguments)
4. Tell a good story: In the end keep in mind to tell a good story.
   

Business Analyst is the person who interacts directly with the client. Business Analyst is the face of implementation team for the client. As Business Analysta we have to communicate a lot with our client, it's important to keep in mind that we represent the whole team and the whole organization (especially in the current scenario of outsourcing). All our actions will make a difference in the manner client perceives our team or our company. It's the responsibility of a Business Analyst to build the confidence of client in himself and that in process will build the client's confidence in our team and in our organization.

Tarun Chandel
The Business Analyst

One of the tools that I have recently started using for carrying out my work as a Business Analyst is Mindmaps. It is a simple yet very effective way of organizing your thoughts. I personally find it very useful during the brainstorming sessions. During the brainstorming stage a Business Analyst has tons of ideas flying all around. Mindmaps allow a BA to clearly organize these ideas.

It is not necessary to use a Mindmap software to draw the mindmaps, we can simply use a notepad and a pencil. I personally tend to use the brown paper and stickies to make the mindmaps during the brainstorming session and after the session is over, I quickly make a soft copy of the final map using the software.

As a Business Analyst we should always keep ouurself updated with the future plans of our client. If the client is planning to change their strategies for future where can we fit in?

If we don't it may happen that one day we will wake up and project will be over as the client decided to move on to something else. Remember the idea is to be a trusted partner with our client.

Also we should keep your eyes and ears open about the market state of your client. It should not happen that your client is going bankrupt and we are the last one to know about it. We want to make sure that our company has sent the invoice to the client before such calamity hits them.

Follow the KYC Policy (Know Your Customer Policy) it will lead to less surprises and much less shocks.

Tarun Chandel
The Business Analyst

A Business Analyst should focus on the customers of his client.

You got it; the idea is to get more business from the same client.

1. What are the numbers they (client) are interested in?
2. Who are their customers and what do they serve to them? It is important that you do your share of research. It will help you understand better how your solution is going to help your customer.
3. How are they better/worse than their competitors? It is important because in case their competitors start eating the market share it will hit you someday.
4. Who are the decision makers? It is important to know the organizational hierarchy of the customer and at the same time do a RACI mapping of it. That way you will know the exact role everyone plays in the organization. This will help you to target right people to build your bonds with.
5. How can you help them?

A Business Analyst acts as a face of Customer to the Development team, most of the time. A Business Analyst should be credible enough and the team should have absolute faith in him. Development team should be able to ask any question regarding the system and they should believe in the answers that BAs provide.  If they start having doubts on the answers BAs provide they may get tempted to develop something that is not needed by the business or spend extra time in clarifying the doubt from various sources.

The development team should trust a BA; this was the first lesson that I got from a senior BA. When I asked him how to do it, he told me that you have to figure that out for yourself there is no proven formula. Some of the things that I tried and how they helped me in building a good rapport with the development team. 

• Interact with the developers regularly and keep asking them if they have any doubts. The idea is not to overdo it as they may get a feeling that you are trying to judge their work. Keep it simple and just make sure that they know you are there if they need any clarifications in the requirements.
• Make sure you run the development team through the requirements before they start with the implementation. Do it on module-to-module basis, plan with the Project Managers and Team Leads. Make sure you keep these sessions as informal as possible and try to make them understand the business pain points rather than teaching them (as they may switch off).
• Encourage the team to approach you for any clarification in the requirements. When they approach you make sure you clarify their issues or get the issues raised to correct person, if you are not the right one.
• It is a good idea to explain the business side to the developers and also let them know about the domain, as you have that knowledge. Have these talks at non-work timings like lunch, coffee or while traveling. Make sure you don't come out as a person who is bragging about his knowledge but as a person who is genuinely helping. Keep it honest; if you are not comfortable don't try it.

Stephan (name changed), a Business Analyst, was handling a small project. It was in very initial stage and he was interviewing the stakeholders, trying to understand the business problem. Somehow he was not able to link the problems, stakeholders were narrating, to their business. After a lot of interviews he realized that they were trying to automate a very small portion of a complex process. He prodded further and realized that this would solve their problem for just a department and overall time taken to complete the process may not shorten, it may even elongate as the other department will suddenly be dealing with high work volumes. He shared his findings with one of the board member of the client; he had become friend with while interviewing. Board member realized that they have to automate the overall process and not in bits and pieces. Stephen shared his calculations that if they automate the process across the departments then only the delivery time to client's customers will reduce else it will hardly make any difference. Stephen was asked to study the processes across the department and come up with a plan. Stephen studied the overall processes and mailed his findings back to his sales team, realizing that this project can be 10 times of the existing one. One month later Stephen's employer got a project that was more than 10 times of the existing project. Stephen later on got two more projects from the same client.

As the business is getting more and more dynamic, the requirement changes with every passing day. In such a dynamic scenario the role of a Business Analyst is becoming more and more important. With more and more IT solution providers in the market the role of a Business Analyst has evolved from being a mere requirement gathering person to a business ambassador of the IT Solution provider. BA has to use a lot of his soft skills, negotiation skills and social skills to build relations with the stakeholders on the customer side. Strong relations only will not help you to get more business from the customer but it will help you to understand what the customer needs and also what the customers of your customers need. Once you have understood the business needs of your customer, you should map out clearly where you can provide a solution that will help your customer to satisfy his customer better. Remember only having strong relations will not help unless you can provide solution that help them grow.

As a Business Analyst you should focus strongly on:

1. Building strong relations with the stakeholders
2. Build a strong understanding of the business of your customers
3. Learn about the customer of your customers
4. Keep mapping how your solutions will help your customer to satisfy their customers.