Archive for the 'communication' Category

Business Analyst World 2009

Published by
Maria (Murphy) Horrigan
at 28 August, 2009 in User centred, Women in ICT, communication and business analysis. 0 Comments

This year I have been asked to give two presentations at BA World in Sydney (6 Jul), Melbourne (13 Jul), Canberra (21 Sep) and Brisbane (6 Oct). This is a great opportunity to talk about some exciting projects I have been involved in and also meet some of my BA colleagues.

The Sydney and Melbourne sessions have been fantastic and I am looking forward to Canberra in a few weeks.

I have put my presentations up on slideshare:

1. Communication and Connectedness in a Networked World and;

2. Capitalising on Female Strengths as a BA.

Hope to see you in Canberra or Brisbane.

What makes a good business analyst

Published by
Maria (Murphy) Horrigan
at 24 August, 2009 in ABAA, Business analyst, communication and business analysis. 3 Comments

At our recent ABAA meeting here in Canberra, Phil Rich, a Senior BA, discussed what makes a good business analyst (presentation is now on slideshare). Phil’s presentation was particularly interesting given his journalism back ground. His key points on journalism and business anlaysis were that:

  • if you can’t interview you can’t get information
  • if you can’t write you can’t communicate
  • if you can’t write quickly, you are already in trouble……

When interviewing, it is important to know who you are interviewing. This is critical and as I discussed in a previous blog on social networking analysis, often we can become unstuck when we work into an interview without doing some background only to find that the this person was the key influencer and you find that you didn’t make teh most of teh  session as you didn’t know “who was who in the zoo”.I recently spoke at BAWorld in Sydney and Melbourne on Communication and Connectedness in our Networked World. I stressed that it is important to know who you are interviewing, not just by their formal position on the organisational chart, but also by style, personality and group role on the project. This helps you identify who are the influencers, gatekeepers, blockers and supporters.

Ultimately one of the keys to successful requirements gathering and interviewing, is to know your audience.

Social Networking Analysis

Published by
Maria (Murphy) Horrigan
at 11 December, 2008 in social computing, communication, requirements and business analysis. 2 Comments

We now live in a networked world and relationships are important to do business and do business well. In order for projects to be successful we must understand:

  • Stakeholder relationships 
  • How people are connected
  • How they communicate
  • Why they are connected

 BAs often need to identify stakeholders and entities, but often it is the social connectedness  and centrality of these stakeholders that is crucial as the relationship between stakeholders often reveals much about the organisations culture, politics and climate. Knowing these social networks can help you to identify who to involve and when to involve them during project activities.

I recently presented to the Australian Business Analysis Association and discussed social networking analysis and how this analysis can be used to help understand the degree, closeness and betweeness of users and stakeholders in order to elicit requirements and enhance project communication.

Social Networking Analysis

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: social media)

By knowing social network position and reltionships I can leverage champions and understand who may be the blockers or gatekeepers. This analysis can also reveal who is the “go to” person for a particular piece of the puzzle and who has great influence within the group and who is the one that others go to for advice and expertise. It also allows me to know who is the person who has the access to others and can help me to quickly disseminate information about the project.——

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Communicating requirements to different stakeholders

Published by
Maria (Murphy) Horrigan
at 15 November, 2008 in Business analyst, communication and requirements. 0 Comments

We have all worked in project teams with vastly different stakeholders. This is challenging as we all think, act, make decisions, listen and want information differently. We therefore need to understand how our stakeholders want to communicate in order to ensure our requirements analysis is effective. This means that as BAs we need to recognise the different styles of behaviour and adapt our style to the audience we are communicating with.

There are many behavioural styles models and most stem from a sales focus to help salespeople better understand customer needs. Most of these types of behavioural models are very generalised and try to explain a very complex thing (behaviour) in an easily digestible form .

I have been using Ron Willingham’s Integrity Selling Behaviour Style Model recently as it is an easy way for me to remember to adjust my style to suit my stakeholder and by knowing my own style or behavioural preference, i can make sure that i compliment rather than clash with my audience or team members.

Like all of these types of models are very generalised and try to explain a very complex thing (behaviour) in an easily digestible form. Essentially this behavioural style model looks at a person’s orientation towards process vs results and their need for recognition vs need for security. This divides behaviour into four main styles:

  • Talker - outgoing, friendly and easy to approach. They are process orientated and need recognition therefore may find making decisions difficult as they don’t want to disappoint anyone.
  • Doer - people who get it done, are action orientated and decisive. They are often pressed for time and make quick decision once they have a grasp of the key facts as they are achievement orientated.
  • Supporter - easygoing, steady and dependable. They are often slow to make decisions as they are detailed minded and want predictability and security. They are risk adverse
  • Controller - Very logical and may appear reserved. They crave facts and information and are very analytical and organised. They will make decisions only after careful consideration as need to get it right is more important than the need to be quick.

Many of my stakeholders have a very different style to me.  I am a “Doer” and a “Controller” so I can be very analytical and results focused so I need to be mindful of bring people along with me rather than trying to push to hard as this is not going to work with my largely “Supporter” risk adverse audience.

It is important to know your own style and use the strengths of this style to communicate to your audience and adapt your style to the different stakeholders you will encounter on a project. When I am working with other Doers, it is great, however it is important to have a mix on a project team so diversity ensures we don’t end up with “group think“. There is no particular style that is better than the other nor one that as BAs we need to adopt in order to be successful. The style to adopt will be contextual and situational so be flexible and think about your audience so that your communication will be effective.

Communicating requirements is vital

Published by
Maria (Murphy) Horrigan
at 3 November, 2008 in Business Process Modeling, Business analyst and communication. 0 Comments

As BAs, our requirements analysis is not done by simply sitting down at our desk and developing requirements based on a template we used previously. It can only be done by getting out and talking to users about what they require the system to do and then building systems that satisfy these requirements.

Ultimately our requirements analysis results in a specification which clearly describes what needs to be built. The communication of this specification to users and developers is where it gets tricky as there are many different ways that requirements can be specified. There are models, business process maps, use cases, prototypes and simulations. There is no one right path and we need to use the tools and techniques most appropriate to our audience and context.

If the users or the business do not understand what we are specifying in the requirements, then how can they sign off on the specification? Equally, our developers need to use the requirements specification to build the system  and need to be able to understand what the implemented system will look like.

Whilst I like Use Cases, as this was the foundation for me when first learning how to do requirements specifications, I have found more recently, that business process modelling notation (BPMN) is perhaps a better way to communicate to my business user audience. So its not about me and how I like to write requirements, its about my audience (business users and developers) and finding a tool or technique that communicates the requirements in a clear manner and decreases ambiguity.

The communication of the requirements specification in this BPMN visual form is suited to the business user as it is business orientated. Whilst this notation is readily understandable by business users, it also speaks to the technical developers and can help to bridge the gap between business process design and process implementation.

As a communication tool, BPMN clearly shows the end to end process, where the user interacts with the system and how the process may change from the current “as is” process. More and more, the business area is being asked to take an active interest in the development of their business systems so we as BAs need to ensure our tools facilitate communication about requirements.

Capitalising on female archetype strenghts in IT

Published by
Maria (Murphy) Horrigan
at 9 October, 2008 in social computing, Women in ICT, communication and Uncategorized. 2 Comments

I recently was asked to speak at a conference on attracting and retaining women in the IT industry. This was mainly aimed at IT managers, HR managers and project managers.The topic I was asked to present was capitalising on female strengths in IT.

I stuggled at first as I wanted to ensure my presentation was positive and personal (tell my story). I really didn’t want the topic to focus on what women are good at and be seen as inferring that male colleagues necessarily lack these qualities (as they don’t). WE are all a mix of our background and experience and we use our strengths within the context of the situation we are facing.

What I discussed is that the typical female archetypes

Capitialising On Female Strenghts 4 Sept 2008 V5
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: women in)

These archetypes have both strenghts and weaknesses and the key is knowing when to capitilise on these.

The medium or the message and the changing role of the User

Published by
Maria (Murphy) Horrigan
at 23 January, 2008 in social computing, communication and business analysis. 0 Comments

I recently read an article in BRW by Neil Shoebridge about how the Internet, mobile phones and MP3 players have changed the business of selling and the creation of marketing messages and that the Internet and other new media had made the medium more important than the message. This means that messages need to be tailored to different media rather than the same message being spread across all media. I think this is an important point given the context of social computing and its impact on delivery of messages.

We have seen in the US presidential candidate race and indeed during our own Federal election here in OZ, that Politicians who want to have street cred are getting themselves on MySpace, Facebook and You Tube to try and tap into wider audience of potential voters. It’s very much about having a conversation and really connecting with your target audience. This makes it a really interesting time to be a Business Analyst or Information architect.

I am finding in my own work and that of my colleagues, that we are getting more and more requests from corporate organisations, media organisations and agencies, wanting help to scope out requirements for making their online presence more interactive and taping into social computing tools. My friend Matt and I have recently been discussing the role of the User in a social computing context and how this role has changed. As Business analysts, we need to be aware that stakeholders now play many roles and ensure that we incorporate these changing needs in our requirements specifications for web sites.
Users are no longer just the audience in a social computing context. They can also be the customer, the consumer, a participant, and part of a community. Users want to comment on your website, review and rate articles and through this contribution, can help the organisation understand what Users see as valuable information on their website. The communication channels to the User needs to recognise these multiple roles and move to greater interaction with the User. We need to ensure that the medium being used is able to fulfill the requirements of the User (in their numerous roles) and marketers need to ensure that the message is tailored and specifically relevant to the audience they are trying to involve and excite.