Archive for the ‘Investigation’ Category
Posted by James King on May 10, 2012
I have previously blogged about a number of approaches to assessing a team’s readiness for change, including the 7-S framework and the arenas of change approach, but today I thought I would explain a less well known approach – the “moments of truth” assessment.
Actually I made it up so it is not too well understood outside of my own loungeroom. The approach is essentially the same as the 7-S style of assessing the interaction of the multiple systems, skills, stucture and other elements of the team’s whole ecosystem. But this is a little different because we start by looking at when (and why) the team’s internal or external customers interact with it. Then we assess the team’s ability to support those interactions.
Moment of truth(n) a moment when a person or thing is put to the test
Collins English Dictionary as quoted at www.thefreedictionary.com
Any interaction with a client is “a moment of truth” for the team. It tests the connection between the team’s value proposition, strategy, implementation, staff, skills and systems and it generates the experience that lasts in the customer’s memory until he or she interacts with the team again.
A “moments of truth analysis” therefore starts by identifying the interactions a team has with its customers, stakeholders and potentially vendors.
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Posted in Implementation, Investigation, Leading change | Tagged: moment of truth, user based service design | Leave a Comment »
Posted by James King on May 7, 2012
The goal of your interview is the single most important thing to know before the interview, but it is also useful to know a bit more about what you are hoping to achieve before you start the interview.
So that is where I use the powerful “GRIFT” model to do my preparations.
Actually it is not a very powerful model, it is simply a checklist of things to think about, in some sort of order, before interviewing someone. GRIFT is short for the following headings
- Goal (as defined in my previous article)
- Roles (What is your role in the interview? What about the stakeholder?)
- Issues (What issues to you think you might encounter? What will you do?)
- Focus (What is your focus for the interview?)
- Takeaways (What will you deliver as a result of the interview? Are there any action items?)
Since I explained the goal in my previous article I will explain the remaing items in this one – RIFT, I guess.
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Posted in Idea management, Investigation | 1 Comment »
Posted by James King on May 7, 2012
You might be surprised to find out that people often turn up to interview a stakeholder with little or no preparation.
You would probably not be surprised to find out though, that when the interviewer is poorly prepared, the interview results in a conversation without a real resolution and the interviewer has missed an opportunity to get off to a clean start.
So I thought I would add a simple (but very long) guide to some ways you can prepare for an interview. This article, and a couple that follow, are based on the “GRIFT” model that I developed while training BA’s.
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Posted in Idea management, Investigation | Tagged: GRIFT, interview techniques | 2 Comments »
Posted by James King on February 27, 2012
When I started to learn agile approaches to projects, OODA was all the rage, but it seems to have disappeared from view as modern agilistas move from Scrum to lean to Kanban to ultra-velocitus development.
I guess I am still a bit old school, because I still think the OODA loop is the essence of the agile approach.
So what is an OODA loop?
OODA loops began as an approach for fighter pilots to avoid dying. It is a way to train fighter pilots and also a way to design fighter aircraft, develop tactics for air combat and win wars in the air. It turns out that it is also really useful for agile projects, production support teams and anyone rolling out a product in a competitive market.
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Posted in Agile development, Idea management, Investigation | Tagged: agile, OODA, success | 1 Comment »
Posted by James King on February 17, 2012
I stumbled on a letter from Mark Twain where he comments on “the interview”:
Inteviews are pure twaddle
Controversially, he claimed that interviews are appalling and should be completely abolished … which would seem to be a strong position for a business analyst to take these days. But then Mark Twain was around at the beginning of last century and we have learned a lot since then. Maybe he just didn’t know any better.
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Posted in Idea management, Investigation, Observations, Reflection | Tagged: business analysis; interview; agile; requirements | 2 Comments »
Posted by James King on January 30, 2012
I wrote an article on stories for production support teams quite a while ago. But I always meant to add a couple more.
The problem with production support is that nobody has time to ask for what they want, but it is all urgent and super critical. So the last thing you often feel like doing is to slow down and understand the context that the user is in (annoyed, relaxed, sitting in a cafe, in their most important sales meeting ever etc). Instead the focus is usually on fixing “it” before you know what “it” really is.
But this often leads to rework. So whenever I am doing enhancements I always spend a little time understanding why the enhancement is needed, who it is needed by and when/how it is likely to be used in the real world. To do this though, I think we always need to spend a little time understanding the people who will use the system and why they need something new.
There are many approaches to doing this, but one I often find useful is “PAC” or “People, Activities and Context”.
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Posted in Agile development, Implementation, Investigation | Tagged: production support, testing, usabilty | 3 Comments »
Posted by James King on July 3, 2011
Force field analysis is a good way to analyse the constraints and the drivers of success when leading change, delivering projects or problem solving in general.
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Posted in Idea management, Investigation, Risk | Tagged: Analysis techniqes, problem solving | Leave a Comment »
Posted by James King on May 1, 2011
I have my own favourite set of questions to ask at the beginning of any assignment or project. I call this my “question compass” because the questions help me to find my way at the ambiguous beginning of most of my projects.
People often write the questions down when I explain them, so I assume they like my question compass too. But often a senior BA will listen politely and then reveal that they have their own “question compass” that works better for them than mine does.
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Posted in Idea management, Investigation | Tagged: questions to ask a stakeholder, Starting a new project | Leave a Comment »
Posted by James King on April 28, 2011
I have always believed that a good business analyst will be able to work on any project because he or she will ask good questions. At the same time though I have always believed that different projects need different approaches and therefore potentially different skills.
Which begs the question – should our approach to starting a project be based on the type of project or on a generic set of questions aimed at understanding the problem to be solved (or the opportunity to be seized)?
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Posted in Idea management, Investigation | Tagged: questions to ask, starting a project | 1 Comment »
Posted by James King on April 16, 2011
I am running an “advanced BA course” next week and as part of the course we will be exploring the concept of strategy from a business analysts point of view.
One of the trainers I work with (Shane) recommended we provide the participants with a book called “Stand Back and Deliver” by Pollyanna Pixton, Niel Nickolaisen, Todd Little and Kent McDonald.
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Posted in Decisions, Idea management, Investigation, Observations | Leave a Comment »
