Романа Косцик “New project begins. Jump in and keep calm. Everything will be fine”
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New project begins. The document provides guidance for business analysts on how to effectively start a new project by planning stakeholder engagement, clarifying their role, exploring the system, and communicating effectively. It emphasizes understanding the business need, gathering feedback, and focusing on business outcomes.
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Романа Косцик “New project begins. Jump in and keep calm. Everything will be fine”
- 1. New project begins. Jump in and keep calm. Everything will be fine by Romana Kostsyk
- 2. Content: 1. Know Your Stakeholders 2. Define the Business Need 3. Clarify Your Role 4. Next Steps 5. How to Learn About a New Business Domain 6. How to Explore the System 7. Effective Communication
- 4. The Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring knowledge area: • Plan Business Analysis Approach: Define an appropriate method to conduct business analysis activities (activities, tasks, deliverables) • Plan Stakeholder Engagement: Plan an approach for establishing and maintaining effective working relationships with the stakeholders • Plan Business Analysis Governance: Define how decisions are made about requirements and designs (reviews, change control, approvals, and prioritization) • Plan Business Analysis Information Management: Develop an approach for how business analysis information will be stored and accessed • Identify Business Analysis Performance Improvements: Describes managing and monitoring how business analysis work is performed
- 5. 1. Know Your Stakeholders • Meet one on one with the stakeholders • Their understanding of the project (scope, delivery dates) • Key and secondary stakeholders • Stakeholders involvement (RACI), same understanding • Communication method and frequency • What you need from them • Subject matter experts
- 7. 2. Define the Business Need Why a change is required? • Business Problem or Opportunity (current state) – problem to be solved • Business Goals and Objectives (future state) – results that the organization wants to achieve • Goals - longer term, often qualitative statements • Objectives - more granular, measurable statements Business need: • millions in revenue (new market expansion) • cost-savings • save 5 minutes of manual work each week
- 8. A business need may be identified at many levels: • Top-down: strategic goal that needs to be achieved • Bottom-up: problem with the current state of a process, function or system • Middle: manager needs to perform additional functions to meet business objectives • External: customer demand or business competition in the marketplace
- 9. What Problem Are We Trying to Solve? “Business need” is just a fancy word for “Why are we doing this?” Get to the Root of the Problem when you come to the project • Get context. Understand the purpose and scope of the project • Ask why. Few times and multiple ways to get to the real problem to be solved • Ask why with delicacy. Who, what, when, where, or how • Use provocative questions. They encourage thinking outside the box • Explore all sides of the Why. Business problem or opportunity, business goals and objectives
- 10. What was done to solve this already?: • Current project status. Stakeholders’ current mindsets • Don’t irritate stakeholders After everything is clear for you: • Common understanding of the business objectives • Business objectives are clear and achievable
- 11. 3. “What Do You Need From Me?” Or Clarifying Your Role • So much information about BA role • Jobs vary very widely among different companies • Clarify your role, ask what is expected from you • Confirm your understanding, ask questions when anything is not clear • Let your team know what you will do, and deliver on your promise • And do this not just once, but again and again throughout the project
- 12. Fulfill stakeholders expectations VS Starting new BA process • Sometimes what our stakeholders need is different from what we want to provide them • And sometimes what they think they need and what they really need are very different
- 13. 4. Next Steps: • Deeper view into the BA process • Review of technology tools used by the (BA) team • Review requirements documentation (deliverables). Refine or create if needed. • Learn communication logistics: • Setup needed accounts (email, Skype, etc) • Intranet (How information is shared. Review available information) • Schedule needed meetings (with team, stakeholders)
- 14. 5. How to Learn About a New Business Domain 1. Research and document analysis • Read as much as you can about the domain • You’ll eventually start “talking the talk” • Learn to sift through masses of information, take what you need and move on
- 15. 2. End-user and his journey map Experience the domain from the end-users’ perspective Persona http://www.businessdesigntools.com/portfolio-items/persona-canvas/
- 17. 3. Value chain analysis Explore the heart of the business. Focus on value and differentiation. Business model canvas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoAOzMTLP5s&feature=youtu.be
- 20. SWOT analysis
- 21. 4. Interview Key Stakeholders • Meeting with subject matter experts • Start with open-ended questions before asking specific questions • Research before you start interviewing key stakeholders • Avoid asking “basic” questions • Ask about the product business model (Validate or build Business model canvas)
- 22. Checklist of questions about the product business model: • Who is the customer? • What is the product? • How is the product sold? (online, phone, in-person sales) • What is the cost structure of the product? (subscription, pay-per-unit, etc) • How do we produce or service the product? • How do we support the customer? • How do we market the product? • What partners do we work with to do business? How do we manage these relationships?
- 23. 5. Keep a Knowledge Book • For any project keep a “Knowledge Book” • Excel workbook, OneNote, etc • Enter all the information you have gathered about the domain
- 24. 6. Continuous Improvement • Networking with business users, domain experts and customers • Subscribing to newsletters that provide industry updates 7. Gain Industry Certification • Longer and perhaps tougher route • Preferable if you would like to have a deep knowledge of a business area 8. Find Training Courses
- 25. 6. How to Explore the System • Just start clicking! • Explore the system as fully as possible by yourself • Think of a goal the app should help you fulfill and start navigating to achieve it • Click, review, think, click again • Read users guidelines, training materials, product documentation • You’ll also need input from stakeholders • Visualize (visual map, feature list, use cases list) • Questions for your stakeholder interviews
- 26. How to Stop Your Exploration Before it Becomes a Time Sink • Stop when you’ve gone through every link you can find • Stop if you spent more than 10 minutes for something with no luck • Clarify what you are hunting for and add a question to your list • If it becomes exciting, time-box these activity • Outcome - list of features with list of questions tied to each one • Do not ask stakeholders about unexplored areas • Iterate
- 27. 7. Effective Communication Communicate with Business Stakeholders: • It is never a waste of time to define the problem before discussing solutions • Turn off your analysis hat and really listen to what your stakeholders are saying • When getting into the details: • Can you give me an example? • What does that mean? • The Only Stupid Question is the One You Don’t Ask (http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/the-only-stupid-question-is-the-one-you-dont-ask/) • As you are closing a discussion: • Is there anything we didn’t discuss? • Is there any reason we can’t move forward?
- 28. Glossary: • Identify your terms (acronyms, confusing terms, organization-specific phrases) • Mandatory part of your documentation • Ask if you don’t know what something means! (If anyone is going to ask stupid questions, it better be you functioning as an analyst. That is why you are there… and don’t forget that! We ask the questions that people having been avoiding for years while they were trying to look smart. Why do you think they need analysts now?) • Validate your terms with ALL stakeholders • Share glossary with team • Take ownership of controlling this glossary
- 29. Your Technical Team Needs Business Context Too • Engage the technology team in actually solving the problem • Without a focused and engaged IT team you’ve got a well-defined problem that may never be solved • Everyone deserves the opportunity to understand the larger context of the work they are doing • This doesn’t mean that everyone will get it or even care, but the opportunity should be there
- 30. Making it Work Between Business and IT As a BA-side analyst: • Don’t just define the problem, explain why it’s important • Gather feedback on your work from your business stakeholders • Call the business stakeholders to check in with them for no initial reason • Approach every communication with a “What can I do for you?” • You are probably the ONLY person in IT to protect the interests of your CUSTOMER
- 31. As a IT-side analyst: • Participate in IT conversations • Proactively inform IT of business-side problems and ask them for ideas on resolution for the benefit of both teams • Gather feedback on your work from your IT team • Remember that in today’s electronic environment of doing business, IT has the capability to make core business operations successful
- 32. Get Feedback on Your Work • From business stakeholders: • If needs are being heard • Meetings you facilitate • Requirements documentation • From technology stakeholders: • If you are getting them involved at the right times • If you bringing up the most relevant issues • If the requirements documentation helps them during implementation process • From your manager: • If you are fulfilling their expectations • If they are receiving positive feedback from the team • If there’s anything you could do to help even more
- 33. 3 Ways to Get Feedback • Ask For Feedback on a Meeting (Deliverable) • We’ve been running meetings the same way for awhile and it would be great to know how this is working for you. • Do you see any areas we could improve? • Is there a way I could help run these meetings more effectively? • This is the first time we’ve tried this format for a meeting. How did it go? Anything we should adjust for next time? • Ask for Direct Feedback • How did you see my efforts contributing to the success of this project? • What did I do that was particularly helpful to you? • Do you see any ways I can made a contributions to help with some issues we faced as a project team? • I felt like this {meeting, email chain, etc.} didn’t go so well and I’d like to improve how I handle similar situations in the future. Do you have any specific suggestions for me based on your own experience? • Watch For Non-Verbal Feedback
- 34. In the end: • Don’t Expect Perfection • Instead of demanding perfection watch out and respond quickly • Take the Positives Forward • Create “Do not repeat” file • Take “Best practices” with you • Stay Focused on the Business Outcomes • You can lose sight of the forest while looking at the trees • If you are in the middle of a project without clearly defined and understood outcomes, the most important work you have to do is to bring this level of clarity to your project. And sooner rather than later.
- 35. Links, literature: • http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/ • https://businessanalystlearnings.com/ • BABOK 3.0
- 36. Business Analyst Manifesto • Out of chaos, we create order • Out of disagreement, we create alignment • Out of ambiguity, we create clarity • But most of all, we create positive change for the organizations we serve