The Business Analyst Mindset

Whenever you're trying to do something in an organization the desire to know "why" is at the core of the mindset of a good Business Analyst.

Innocent like a child

Business Analysts needs the innocence of a child. A bit like a five years old kid  constantly asking: "But why?" Consider the "Why" as an assistant in understanding the level of desire, commitment, and need for the change and how this change impacts both processes and other areas in the organization.

Understanding the context may also assist with how the need for the change can be justified. You'll need to reflect on the "Why" to be successful. Along with some other mindsets which include a constant believe that inefficiencies exist. 

The pace of change in today's business world is significant. Management might change, clients might change, priorities might shift and the marketplace itself transforms regularly. Well crafting processes and approaches to getting things done decay quickly, they simply become obsolete. Add to the fact of people who create processes initially really have a perfect crystal ball, or resolving issuing isolation without understanding the flown effects of the minor changes being made.

This is why inefficiencies are present in virtually every business processes. As an effective Business Analyst, you'll believe this fully and have a burning desire to find and fix these inefficiencies.

The best place to start is with what's happening today

The second mindset characteristic is "The best place to start is with what's happening today". It is easy to dismiss understanding what processes that exist today giving in the excitement and haste to get the new and improved "to be" state. However is very difficult to get a destination without knowing where you are today. Whether using a map or GPS the turns you'll have to make are determined not only where you want to get to, but where you are now.

As an effective Business Analyst, you'll want to expend significant time understanding the existing "as is" processes in order to facilitate effective changes in your organization.

Seek and enjoy

The next important mindset of a good Business Analyst is to seek and enjoy the details as well as the big picture. Exploring and documenting business processes can be very detailed work. It takes patience and the abilities to ask questions about exceptions and other nuances in about processes.

Although the devils in the details is a very accurate statement truly effective Business Analyst seeks to understand and optimize how processes interact with each other. Supporting the overarching goals and objectives of the organization is also critical to success in business analysis. A big picture view of what is happening and could happen in the business is just as important as capturing and tracking the procedural details.

Serve as the bridge

Lastly, the Business Analyst view is to serve as the bridge between business and technical personnel. It's rare to find an organization that doesn't have a language problem.

Technical teams talk about data flows, sequence errors, engineering specs and etc. Business personnel talks about turnaround times, customer preferences and capability management. The vocabulary between these two groups can be so different that discussions can be nearly useless as everyone scrambles to understand each other.

This is where the Business Analyst comes in. With an interesting knowledge of what the organization is trying to accomplish, and a view of what technical team needs in order to satisfy their needs. The Business Analyst serves as a facilitator and translator from those stakeholders requesting the change to those who will deliver the change.

They calm nerves and become diplomatic between people who often drastically have different perspectives about a problem.

Finally

When you as a Business Analyst embrace these varying mindsets business and technical people both feel heard, and more confident their needs are understood and can be met. Your organization can then move forward in a controlled and full manner and your projects and underlying processes will more likely deliver to the required change.

What's a Business Analyst?

When maintaining or improving a home, having a trusted handyman around that can come and fix or improve things whenever you need is invaluable.

In the world of IT projects the Business Analyst is like the handyman. From the start of the project to the end the Business Analyst plays a critical role in the successful project and delivering outcomes.

Here are the areas where a Business Analyst can make a difference in a project:

VALIDADE ORGANIZATION OBJECTIVES

Projects are used to create changes. That change can significantly improve the abilities and efficiencies of an organization. Without any proper analysis, any attempt of improving the organization can go very badly, resulting in confusing and difficulties to achieve organization objectives.

As a Business Analyst you'll seek to understand the strength and weaknesses your organization uses and then validate any improvements to be implemented by a project.

MANAGE REQUIREMENTS PROCESS

To do this you'll work with your organization team and get into the deep understanding of what your organization is doing today and what will make the organization more efficient. You then capture that information using several of the following tools:

• Flowcharts: Provides step by step "as is" and "to be" processes. This captures what the current state the organization is and what new desired state and outcomes will be.
  
• User stories: Provides a picture of what people in the organization will achieve.
  
• Context diagrams: Describes relations between business areas and clients and how they all fit together.
  

MANAGE RELEVANT CHANGE

This includes validating any changes proposed during the course of the project and promoting changes needed to the organization that is important to fulfill their mission. And ensure that any changes that occur within the organization are appropriately reflected in the project's products.

Lastly, help managing changes to project's deliverables that need to be made as a result of the project change.

When changes are introduced to a project you'll need to adjust the project's schedule and potentially plan costs as well as other items.

With the breadth of knowledge across the project, the Business Analyst is well placed to help with this changes.

MANAGE TESTING

As a Business Analyst, you're typically best placed to ensure that the process and technology products created by the project do what is intended to move the organization forward. As this can require significant knowledge of the people and processes involved in the organization having you as a Business Analyst managing the testing process is efficient and effective.

ENSURE COMPLETION CRITERIA ARE ACCOMPLISHED

All project should be started with the end in mind. The project should then include detailed completion criteria which details what things needs to be accomplished prior to the project to be considered finished.

THE BUSINESS ANALYST

Is usually the person who can look at the overall accomplishments made by the project and the capabilities of the processes and tools produced and determine if those objectives were accomplished as intended.

8 PRODUCTIVITY TIPS

People fail to be productive daily, partly because they feel overwhelmed and partly because of the grandest enemy all professionals share – procrastination.

1. Use Lists and More Lists

A to-do list, a memory list, a tasks list, a breaks list, and even a workout schedule list. To be as productive as you can, free up the memory by writing down things. Lists are the best way to externalize the memory.
One of the biggest enemies of business analysts is the memory. Having a job that demands to remember dozens of things on daily basis is exhausting, and you can only manage to do it all for a limited time. Writing things down and organizing them in clear-to-follow lists will aid you in focusing on what needs to be done when it needs to be done.
This won’t take away the tasks you have, but it will certainly help you remember them all, prioritize them, and take a detached and critical look at the problems at hand.

2. Give Nature a Shot

A study by the University of Michigan shows that you can actually improve the productivity by no less than 20% if you just take a walk in the park. Why? Because a few minutes off that busy work schedule can do wonders for improving your memory and help you remain focused on what’s important.
Now the other question arises: why nature? Why not take a break at the coffee shop around the corner or have a walk in a busy, urban environment?
What we can all agree with is, nature has a great, calming effect on our minds. A peaceful break surrounded by nature and nothing that relates to your work and obligations is exactly what your mind needs to remain productive.

3. Daydream

Don’t go daydreaming about the next vacation or your bed at home. When we say daydreaming, we mean let your mind wander. And by this, we mean let your mind do whatever it wants to do.
Your schedules and lists come very handily here. Leave out short periods during the busy day to daydream. Get into a calming stage when you reach that default mode. This should help you solve problems and think of connections you probably wouldn’t consider otherwise.

4. Focus on the Big Things

Every business analyst must deal with small and big problems. However, being as great as you are, your job shouldn’t focus around the small problems. Learn to delegate these and focus on the big ones instead. The problems that can most impact the organization are your first and only priority, so give your maximum to solving those before you go solving anything else.
The idea of getting the small things done first to get fired up for the big ones or reduce the list of tasks is very wrong. It makes no sense to finish small things when the bigger ones are left unsolved.

5. Make Use of Presentations

Presentations are very useful for business analysts. As soon as you start a project, begin with a layout of the analysis presentation.
It might seem counter-intuitive at the beginning, but it is a very productive habit. Such a habit will cut down the turnaround time of the project in half.
How do you do this?
You do this by creating a presentation, a document, or a simple writing on a white piece of paper. The form doesn’t really matter. The thing that matters is to note down and layout the outcomes that may occur from the very beginning, both the good and the bad.
Once you are done doing this, you can start looking at each of the factors to see what you can and should change. Use reasoning and mathematical equations and simply, create a sure starting point before you take the action.

6. Define the Data Requirements

This step comes naturally after the previous one. Once you have the analysis laid out in a comprehensive manner, you will have the data requirements right there in front of you. When you do, you need to:

• Structure the data requirements
  Design the analysis tables instead of making a list of variables. Make a past campaigns table, a customer demographic table, a table for transactions made in the last year, policy changes for bank credits table, etc.
• Collect as much data as you can
  Even if you are unsure about the variables you need, collect them upfront just to be on the safe site. Including some additional variables now is much better and easier than doing so later in your analysis.

7. Make a Reproducible Analysis

No, this is not as simple as it might sound. Any of the work you do might turn out to be less than reproducible, which can turn out to be a big problem afterward. If you are a beginner, perform your copy-paste steps in Excel. If you are advanced in your business, use a command line interface, but with care.
Similarly, a business analyst must be very careful when he works with notebooks. Don’t go changing previous steps if it uses some of the data set that hasn’t been computed yet. Notebooks are an excellent resource, but only if you maintain their flow.

8. Split Your Work and Take Regular Breaks

Everyone works better when rested. We mentioned taking a nature walk, but naturally, you won’t be able to do this all the time. To keep your productivity levels high, you need to do what every other person in the world needs to do – work in chunks and schedule breaks along the way.
Whenever you feel like you are overwhelmed with your work, take a short break. Get a coffee, take a walk, eat some chocolate – whatever makes you relaxed. Then you can back to that big project you are working on and stop when it is time to take another break.

Conclusion

These eight productivity hacks for business analysts are very effective when it comes to boosting the productivity. But, in the end, it all comes down to what works for you. Test them out to see and use the ones you find best for you to keep your analyst juices flowing.

The 10 Commandments for the Business Analyst

Business analysts use to have more contact with companies employees and sectors (the company they work for and clients company as well) than any other role. This happens because they're part of both IT and business teams.

The manner the business analyst interact with each of these people or sectors is a critical fact if he wants to establish solid relationships with them.

  1 - Be gentle

It is good to know things, but no matter how many books you have read or even wrote if people realize that it's hard to deal with you they'll start to avoid you. If you're in a contract, in the best scenario this will result, on not renewing of it. If you're an employee you can find yourself doing project secondary tasks that don't demand contact with people. Either way independently of your position the result is not good. So make an effort and be gentle with people.  

 2 - Listen

If you're a good analyst you have a lot of ideas and many stories to tell. The challenge is to limit the sharing of your professional experience and expand more time listening to what people say. It is hard to swallow this pill, but you may not be as interesting as you think you are and not everyone will be willing to listen to your stories of war. You won't learn anything if you're talking all the time, so put your ego aside and start listening. 

 3 - Remember their names

Have you ever been introduced to someone and forgot his name immediately? You're not alone! As a business analyst, you have contact with so many people, with so many names to be remembered that at some time you'll start not to save this information. However, there are some techniques that you can use to remember the names such as repeating the person name as you are introduced, for example, "Hello Mark" or "Hi Vanessa". 

 4 - Do a research about the client's company

To get equipped with some knowledge about the company you're starting a contact will demonstrate to your client that you are interested and also will allow you to use an approach that fits the client's company's culture. Here are some important facts to be considered in the research:


4.1 - Company's size and a total of employees.
4.2 - Culture, structure, and mission of the company.
4.3 - Company's history.
4.4 - Company's competitors.
4.5 - Conditions of work.
4.6 - Main product, services or programs.
4.7 - Location of parent company and subsidiaries.
4.8 - Roles descriptions.
4.9 - Dress code. 

5 - Make the client ideas your ideas

As a business analyst, you're hired to use the experience that you've gained along the past years to propose creative and innovative solutions. Your goal is to contribute to the project's success, this is your essence. We all know that you're not pleading a promotion, but your client might be. If the project is successful there is a great chance of your client get a promotion or at least a recognition, and that's because your delivery was good, because you delivered value.

Despite this, try to be humble and let the people who hired you to get all the credit for your good job. This will be noticed, your client will like and you will be rewarded with respect. 

6 - Deliver more than what's expected

Your client let his expectations very clear to you and obviously you'll prioritize them on your MVP, but this doesn't mean that you should deliver only what's expected by the client. To transcend the clients expectative will always promote that "wow!". Think out of the box avoiding the status quo, ask yourself if there is a better way to execute tasks and have in mind what's best for the client's interests and surely you'll transcend his expectations.

7 - Make new friends at the client's office

Despite the administrative employers don't get the biggest salaries on the company, they have a key role in the project's success. Naturally, their the first person on the client's company to answer your phone call. They're responsible to schedule meetings, document signatures and etc.

They're the communication link with the company's executives and they may harm you if they want to. If you treat them with respect they'll be more engaged in making things happen for you. If you treat them bad you might experience some difficulties delivering tasks that pass through them.

8 - Be a friend of a not like-minded client

Certainly, in a project, you'll find a person that is very hard to deal with. This is the kind of person that irritates you when not cooperative when disagreeing of everything that you do, when is not friendly and etc. If this hasn't happened to you yet stay calm, it's just a matter of time. And if this already happened, it will happen again, so it's a good idea to get prepared.

The first step is to understand the line that when crossed makes the difficult person a difficult person. That person might be feeling insecure in your position, he or she might be thinking that his or her co-workers don't treat him or her well or this person might even have some personal issues. You don't wanna be one more threat on this person's life. Try not to put this person on meetings or chats where she or he will feel threatened and choose wisely the topics to discuss with him or her. Your goal is to make this person feel valued.

9 - Check all documentation before send it

We're all writers that need to understand and that needs to be understood. Any documentation you produce will become a direct representation of the quality of your work.

With the orthographic corrector, there is no apology for orthographic mistakes and a poor grammar might get the reader confused and generate ambiguity.

 10 - Sometimes the good enough is perfect!

Until now all we've talked is how to be the best in what we do when acting as a business analyst. We've talked about less talking and more listening, remember people's names, about being humble, about dealing with difficult people, about rite documents e so on.

But, sometimes there is nothing wrong with taking a rest of all this perfection and be satisfied with what you are. I'm not talking about being negligent, but to achieve a balance between what's wanted and what's possible.

A perfect documentation that never finishes, for example, will never be more efficient than an 80% quality documentation already delivered which the remaining 20% might not be worth the effort to finish.

Wanna migrate from analyst to project manager?

 

How to successfully make the transition from analyst to project manager?

 

 

Not all project managers want to be in this position forever. Sometimes some of them may want to have a better and more technical interaction with the teams, as the analyst does.

The same way, there are some analysts that don't want to be an analyst forever. They might want to achieve a new level of responsibility in project managing dealing more with clients and less with the team, considering that the analysts are the pivot to a good relationship between project participants.

If you are considering moving from analyst to project manager, here are 5 points that I believe you gonna have to dedicate more energy in order to successfully achieve your goal. 

Training and certification

If an analyst is decided to make the full transition to project management a good start would be proper training and certification. Acquire a PMP (Project Management Professional) certification is the best way.

The candidate must have a certain experience to make the test, but there are places where you can study and get this certification in five days. 

Learning the system

Yes, there will be software involved. We are in 2018 and you don't want to manage a project with more than 100 hours without using more than a simple sheet. Independently of your favorite tool, the ones that your friends are going to recommend or the ones that your client will tell you to use, just use it. Generally, they are very similar to each other and you might be able to input tasks with due dates, the dependency between tasks and resources associated with tasks and costs. Once you're doing that you're almost ready. 

Learn to see the big picture

As an analyst, you probably are used to seeing tasks, requirements, business processes and diagrams in a more detailed level. As a project manager, you have to consider this details, but you are going to have to get used to seeing things from above, to get the big picture.

This means to analyze in a higher level the tasks impacts, the tasks progress, resources, and dependency. You'll need to know how this affects the project right now, a week from now, a month from now, how it affects the team, how it affects the client and how it affects other projects. 

Make decisions

The analysts are always making decisions - probably as much as the project manager or even more. The decisions generally are different, with the analyst focusing on technical issues, next steps for the development and specification, backlog definition and problem-solving. The project manager usually is focused on taking high-level decisions such as distribute tasks, change resources, dates and etc.

Having this in mind the analyst that is making this transition must feel comfortable with some situations where he's gonna have to make decisions faster and with less information, without the presence of the team, the client or any other stakeholder that can provide crucial data. 

Communicate and facilitate

The analyst making this transition to project manager must be a great communicator in his current position. Disseminate information is not enough. You gonna have to be a great listener. You'll need to understand what's being communicated, what's behind it and what's beyond. The product expected from a meeting must be previously communicated to the ones invited so they can get prepared. 

Summing up

Project managers and analysts, they're both leaders. Both have to be excellent communicators, facilitators team leaders, decision-makers and also must know how to deal with a client in different manners. Each role gets you well prepared to migrate to the other. Maybe the migration from analyst to project manager will be easier because of the analyst's technical background, which is not mandatory to a project manager but it might be handy in some situations.