The Inquisitive Project Manager

As an Intermediate Business Analyst do you feel cabin, cribbed, confined in your role? Do you feel at a point of stagnation and frustration? Perhaps you need a change?

One way for effective change is to shift your gears and navigate your way to a Senior Business Analyst role.

To become a Senior BA there must be a conscious effort to understand the expectations of that job. You have to earn the role. You're not always given an opportunity. You need to grow into an opportunity by accepting more responsibility. Do not fear it. Embrace it as a challenge.

There are 5 main methods I will describe today that can help you grow into that Senior Business Analyst role.

1) Play a strategic part in helping your stakeholders bring their goals and objectives to fruition through the right initiatives. Build opportunities to influence senior stakeholders by becoming a trusted advisor to them. Be that purposeful partner to executives.

Embrace a holistic overview of the business so you can ask pertinent questions to ensure  business goals are met.

What are the steps stakeholders need to solve business challenges? Develop solutions that address the business goal, and make sure your solutions are aligned to the business strategy.

2) Develop concrete analysis skills to be able to provide a clear range of forecasts or estimates for business solutions. Provide scenarios using analysis tools, like a Monte Carlo diagram. Be able to explain risks with forecasts, and adjust those forecasts based on new data. Learn to easily diagnose business problems.

Can you identify risks within the business requirements; communicate an effective mitigation or contingency plan to the project team; and follow up on those risks throughout the project?

Offer more than one solution for a business problem, with a recommendation and rationale for each of those solutions.

Offer a strategic analysis on how to move the organization to a future state.

3) Work on larger complex projects. Take on increased responsibility in projects of larger scope. Work with the project manager to decompose a WBS into smaller units of work. Do you understand the contingencies, constraints, dependencies and missing components involved in a work package? Know how to incorporate change requests into those work plans. 

Can you work on integrated systems and communicate with multiple stakeholders with various perspectives, across different departments and organizations, with different resources?

4) Become a BA Team Lead or show leadership. Review and coordinate the planning, requirements, deliverables, and work effort, for a group of BAs on your team.

Show a sense of urgency for solving problems. Have a positive attitude, and a willingness to mentor and coach junior and Intermediate Business Analysts. 

Constantly seek feedback to know where you need improvement. Show an awareness of how you can apply your skills within the business context.

Are you fully familiar with your company's business model and how it operates within the market? Do you understand business concepts within your domain and how they relate to one another. Have the confidence to easily adapt to new business domains, and to work comfortably across multiple domains?

Deliberately share ideas openly with co-workers and stakeholders, so they can develop insights from your knowledge, and make informed decisions about business problems.

5) Develop Enterprise Analysis skills. Become an active participant in defining the business need, and building the business case for that need. Understand the desired benefits associated with all those business needs. Confirm and clarify those items by asking poignant questions.

Know how to define capability gaps at a high level. 

Understand Business Rules Analysis. What is a business rule? It is more than just a constraint. It can also be a fact, a definition or a derivation.

Know how to analyze processes. The root of the problem may not stem from the data, but from the processes that surround the data. For example, understand the software and how it impacts other users whom you support in the organization.

Leverage a variety of methodologies to tackle projects.

Conclusion
In summary, to transition from a Business Analyst to a Senior Business Analyst you need to see the big picture, that 360 degree view of the business. Have those core competencies and corresponding skills which provide a breadth and depth of knowledge and experience for stakeholders.

Be proactive, be self-aware, be able to influence change, and show strong leadership skills.

Develop and maintain a strong sincere relationship with stakeholders through trust, reliability, and credibility.

Be open to new challenges. Take the initiative to extend that range of knowledge and experience by cultivating your skills through continuous development.

Overall there needs to be that intentional momentum to move and maintain that transformation, to become a valuable Senior Business Analyst.

I once heard a Toronto entrepreneur for the Rogers Communication company give a speech about choice in the marketplace. He said customers make choices on what they can buy, but those choices are provided by the organizations selling those products. In other words, "a customer's choice" is pre-selected for him/her by those who own the means of production. Nonetheless it is still a choice, all be it limited. This selection of choice is no less apparent than with Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

The big 4 are so prevalent in our lives that it's hard to imagine life without being influenced by 1 or all of these 4 companies. Probably no different than households being influenced by the industrial revolution or the introduction of automobiles into the marketplace many decades ago. Technology has become more of a need than a want. Wants are always greater than needs. But converting a want into a need is far more profitable. It creates a form of dependence on a product, which is exactly what has occurred with Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

Take travel 25 years ago, for instance. Flights were booked via travel agents, and often group travel deals were popular. Maybe even travellers cheques were used. Calling on a land line to book hotels was the norm. All this planning took days, weeks or months. Now, to book a flight one need only to do a Google search for an available hotel or flight, pay online using a credit card or bank transfer, save the receipt or flight bar code on the phone (to be scanned during pre-boarding), and wait to eventually board a flight. All these steps can be done within minutes of each other. The time between completing a transaction and enjoying one's purchase is negligible. Compared to 25 years ago and today, transactions are so much faster and efficient. But, what is the price we pay for this efficiency?

Big brother is ever more prevalent than before. George Orwell's book 1984 is perhaps a past reminder of how much further we have come into the world of technology. The big 4 play a huge part in that role, whether it be someone filming a crime in action and posting it on Facebook; CCTV cameras catching suspected criminals, and having it posted on YouTube; or DNA in databases being used to discover missing persons or long lost relatives which a quick Google search on a MacBook might be able to find.

Perhaps at a closer look Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon may appear to be working more as an oligopoly, rather than allowing the invisible hand of laissez-faire economics to take it's natural course. Makes one think whether innovation is contrived and limiting, rather than allowing creativity to bolster.

Of course, it looks like we Westerners are overwhelmed with the big 4. But, it's nothing compared to how China has embraced technology. Having recently lived in China for a while, Alibaba has far surpassed Amazon in every way shape and form. Physical money is virtually obsolete in China's arena of hyper competition. Even the person selling food along the street uses a bar code to have customers pay via WeChat or AliPay apps. One phone number or one email address connects your bank account, to your WeChat app, and pays for everything with a quick phone swipe across a bar code. When and if the West will ever catch up to China electronically is yet to be seen. It's just another testament to the power of influence that the big 4, and some even bigger tech giants have over the everyday lives of everyday people.

John Bates in his book Thingalytics, details how connected devices today far surpass the number of humans on earth. We have seen the Internet of Things change from 500 million connected devices in 2003, to over 50 billion connected devices in 2020. This growth, which the big 4 are a monumental part of, have made not so much a Leviathan of Things, but more so a Perspective of Things, which has undoubtedly changed our everyday lives forever.

When I started teaching VoiceXML at Seneca College in Toronto, Canada years ago, I didn't realize I was embarking on a 4 year teaching career in AI. VoiceXML is a natural language speech recognition software, which involves automated voice communications. It's a feature-rich computer language for building interactive voice response (IVR) applications. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a sub-field of AI where natural language data is processed and analyzed by computers. You may be familiar with ringing up any call centre, and receiving a voice chatbot asking you "Tell me what you want to do today." Algorithms detect your voice, and provide customer-friendly responses based on interpretation of your words. IVR systems discern intent, and can be used for a variety of services from banking transactions, to mobile purchases, online retail orders, and travel bookings. It begs the question, how can the business analyst have a space in the world of AI?

"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change." (Mary Shelly, Frankenstein). AI is certainly a great and sudden change in the IT world, but perhaps not as frightening as Frankenstein. Change is at the core of what business analysts do, and change in the AI field is more prevalent today than ever. So, what type of impact does this change have on the role of the business analyst in AI?

Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
AI adoption is on the increase in businesses, and IVR is an area where there is large demand for business analysts. As businesses increase economies of scale and expand collaboration, there will be a stronger focus on AI tools, practices and procedures, at the centre of which will be people and data. This is where BAs will thrive on a grand scale within AI.

For example, an IVR Business Analyst might work directly with call centre leadership, telephony support teams, or network with vendors to determine business solutions for the IVR applications. AI could report on IVR retention and success levels, and fine tune speech recognition analysis in applications like Nuance Application Report (NAR) or IBM Watson. The BA would be responsible to manage the requirements needed to be programmed into the IVR system. And, the BA would be able to interpret and articulate that output data for management and C-Suite executives, to enable them to make informed strategic business decisions.

An IVR BA could also make recommendations on speech and touch-tone user interface design enhancements, and focus on managing risk within IVR systems by liaising with legal, audit, and risk and compliance teams. This involves effective communication skills, a key ingredient for all BAs. As a conduit between business customers and the technical teams, an IVR BA would still have to identify issues or gaps where crucial technical and business solutions need to be made.  

Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID)
RFID is a form of automatic identification and data capture (AIDC). RFID technology uses electromagnetic signatures with radio frequencies to capture data. For example, using tags RFID can track inventory goods like automobiles during assembly line production, or for pharmaceuticals in warehouses. And, it can be implanted in animals as a microchip to track livestock or pets. RFID tags can also be attached to money, clothing, various possessions, and even people. All the data collected from these tags need to be interpreted by BAs, to determine and understand product trends within the market place. RFID has been projected to grow to $15 billion USD within 2021.  This is definitely an expanding area where BAs in the AI field are in much demand.

Brand Marketing
Noticing and understanding marketing trends are paramount for many businesses, and is a task within the AI sphere where BAs are much needed. For instance, social media campaigns are heavily influenced by the data gathered from TagBoard, which collects hashtag information from social media, or from OneQube, which is an audience development platform. Business Analysts would manage these tools, which track online conversations that focus on detecting keyword usage associated with branding. Of course, this inevitably influences target advertising and marketing use cases via AI.

Crunching and calculating all this data would be done by AI software, while the BA would be better suited to interpreting the analytical data. The results from data queries and reports can be used to understand customer patterns of behaviour, which enables businesses to personalize products based on geographic location, income, age, gender, and a myriad of other categories. Segmenting customer characteristics is at the core of AI. Undoubtedly the outcomes from predictive analytics can heavily impact customer purchasing decisions, allowing more streamlined access to new markets or to new products, delivering products faster to market with greater value, being first to market, or forging new business ventures.

Whether in banking, manufacturing, retail, tourism, and the like, a BA can use data points, produced through AI, to discover what motivates a customer to access a business, and what converts that movement into sales. The objective is influencing buyer behaviour, improving quality assurance, and increasing competitive advantage. 

GPS
I once rented a minivan for a return road trip from Phoenix, Arizona to Southern Utah. It turns out these minivans are equipped with GPS technology. Imagine the hundreds of rental minivans and rental cars all over the world that are being tracked by GPS technology. All this data is collected, managed and analyzed by AI software. BAs are needed to interpret this data to maintain quality customer service: to predict when vehicle maintenance is required; to locate customers during an emergency; to learn how to market a wider range of customers, and so on.

Conclusion
Whether it be IVR, RFID, brand marketing, or GPS, BAs can work within different contexts using a variety of tools from root cause analysis to decision modelling, to determine the performance levels of organizations. 

The BA can look at the holistic picture, and with the assistance of AI, can break down large projects into smaller manageable bite-sized chunks, devote more focus on the crucial people aspect of the business, and contribute to interpreting deeper insights into rich data. These aspects are instrumental in exploiting services and increasing ROI for businesses.

By leveraging AI, a BA’s role within an organization can ultimately be enhanced by effectively adapting to change, no matter how great, and devoting more time to contribute to critical business decisions. Such decisions could include forecasting market trends, providing different perspectives on a problem, facilitating workshops, collaborating with key stakeholders, enhancing current capabilities, understanding customer environments, or promoting an AI strategy, all of which add immense value to a business.

On a project, especially an IT project, the Project Manager (PM), the Business Analyst (BA) and the stakeholders each complement one another. The relationship between these roles is a critical one on the engagement of projects. Each role really needs to spell out to one another what they need and want within the project. Strong communication between these parties and finding a nice balance between people, process and tools, is vital for project success.

Some of us may not think of the end users as stakeholders. The end users are probably one of the most essential stakeholders in the entire project. How do the Project Manager and Business Analyst engage stakeholders?

The Commitment Curve

If we look at a commitment curve. On that curve we start from how do you get the stakeholders on board. Whatever you rollout, take a good look at the communication plan, how will you compose it. It should include how you communicate with the sponsor as well as the end users. A Communication Plan is used to agree on how to share ideas and expectations, and how to stay informed. How big the communication plan is depends on the size of the project and what team members and stakeholders are involved, and to what degree you will communicate with stakeholders. Is it a minor, medium or major roll out? Will people be trained, do they need to be trained. If so, by how much? Is a presentation format adequate for training, or do you need more advanced hands-on trainings? 

Communicating with Executives

And, communication with executives is very different from communication with other stakeholders. The Communication Plan, Stakeholder Engagement Plan, the Sustainment Plan (for when the project ends) are all critical forms of documentation that spell out the path on how the PM and BA get buy-in from stakeholders.

Stakeholder Engagement Plan

Take the stakeholder engagement plan for instance. Within change management trying to get stakeholder buy-in during a project, it's essential that you know how to engage stakeholders throughout each step of the commitment curve. You need to engage those stakeholders in ways that are specific to their needs. You want to use the right engagement activities at the right time to gradually build that commitment to change. How do you assess your stakeholders along that commitment curve? You will need to assess where your stakeholders currently sit on that level of commitment, and where it is you want them to be the end of the initiative, and how you can involve them in adopting that required change. 

Level of Unawareness

The BA needs to move that stakeholder from a level of unawareness to one of being aware of the vision, mandate, objectives, and set the foundational key messages in place for the project. 

Level of Understanding

Then you want to move to a level of understanding with your stakeholders, a level which avoids negative perceptions. Here you need visible leadership commitment, and to engage stakeholders through targeted communications (whether it be email, or face-to-face, for example). 

Level of Acceptance

Then move to a level of acceptance where you build buy-in for the change by providing the right information and support; and engage stakeholders by getting people involved as early as possible in the project. Stakeholders are more likely to adopt the decisions and plans, they've had the opportunity to influence. By getting stakeholders involved early, they can feel their contributions will be highly valued.

Level of Commitment

Then you move to a level of project commitment where you bring the project benefits to life for stakeholders, sustaining the future state and embedding change as the 'new' way of operating.

The BA and PM need to know

a) the Who? Who is your target audiences or who are your target stakeholders?

b) the What? What key messages (communications) or activities (engagements) do you impart to the stakeholders?

c) the When? When do you communicate? Knowing the timing before, during or after the change, with specific dates for that communication to take place in important.

d) the How? Figure out how the message will be delivered within the delivery channel.

e) by Whom? Who is the best person to communicate or engage the stakeholder group?

Note that face-to-face channels are the most effective form for engagement.

Sustainment Planning

In the case of sustainment planning the BA and PM need to consider people, process and tools.

a) For People you need to determine an 'owner' in the business who will sustain the change, champion and model the behaviors that are needed. For example, you need to know how to integrate the changes into the onboarding process.

b) Create an ongoing Process to reinforce the change, and update other processes (if needed) and measure the outcomes (the metrics). For example, establish audits of the success metrics.

c) For Tools and technology ensure there is a plan in place to manage and maintain new technology or tool requirements.

Conclusion

Effective communication and engagement is an essential component in managing the change along the commitment curve within a project. So, the PM and BA need to move those stakeholders from a state of unawareness, to being aware, to understanding, to acceptance, to commitment, in order to implement that change, to bring that project to fruition. How do you convey the right message, from the right communicator, to the right audience, through the right channel, at the right time. As a BA, in your planning, consider when you need to communicate with each stakeholder. Include the PM in these plans so both of you can work cohesively with stakeholders to deliver a project on time and on budget.

To be sustainable does your own company culture need to change? How?

Perhaps Walt Disney expressed it best when he said "It's kind of fun to do the impossible.". The Disney corporation has managed to be sustainable within it's organizational culture, by doing what might appear as the impossible. That is, by building franchises while adapting to change.  

Walt Disney did a fabulous job in embedding a solid foot print in the franchise business. Later Michael Eisner, as CEO of the Disney corporation, filled those leadership shoes well, by focusing on creativity, branding and synergies. But by the late 1990s, Eisner's centralized management style had created a rather contentious culture. Older management styles were not working. A sign of the times no doubt.
  
Since change is constant, Robert Iger, having taken over the reigns as CEO from Michael Eisner in 2005, showed fresh modern visionary thinking. Iger's more unifying framework helped to integrate executives internally. This allowed him to better align with the external environment, such as promoting cooperation by mending sore wounds between Disney and Steve Jobs of Pixar Animation Studios. But most importantly, Iger's early sustainable strategy was to adapt to changing competition and market forces by embracing a less rigid, and more flexible system with self-managing teams, allowing employees a wider span of creative control. 

Walt Disney's horizontal organizational design with a flattened non-hierarchical structure, needed to become highly organic under Robert Iger, which is better suited to a faster changing business environment. Especially, where the emphasis is on the Internet and increasing globalization. By delegating autonomous business units, Iger increased trust and accountability throughout all levels of the business. 

By incorporating creative content, technological innovation and global expansion, Iger had the recipe for modern day success. This combination had a disruptive effect because Iger recognized how to take an external market force, like technology, and make it an opportunity to expand Disney's financial arm to reach across the world, enveloping many complex and sometimes simple-unstable forces. Thus, Robert Iger restructured Disney to comfortably fit into the external environment, by using their resources and capabilities to create a competitive advantage.

Iger created a business vertical whereby the Disney corporation could produce and distribute its own products and services, and diversify in investments and acquisitions of companies like Lucas Film, Touchstone, Marvel Studios, worldwide theme parks, media networks like ABC, licensing deals, comic strips, TV, and publications. Take a box office hit movie and capitalize on it with merchandise and product spin offs: an impetus for proud profits. Adding a video streaming platform was the icing on the cake. And, accessing emerging markets like Latin America, Europe and China helped to bolster beyond predicted profit margins. 

By focusing on core business drivers for change, Iger was able to overcome key obstacles. And, by exploiting technology, what might appear to be a threat to some, the Disney corporation was able to succeed and thrive substantially in the external environment. 

Though it might be impossible to believe, I'm sure that Robert Iger found changing Disney's company culture to a more efficient and effective business model, kind of fun to do.