The Better Business Analysis Institute.
Presence, the Better Business Analysis podcast with Kingsman
Walsh. Hi everybody, and welcome to the
show today. And today we're going to.
Be talking about four P's or what I defined at Assurity
Consulting as the four P plus model.
I developed this model at a charity.
When I was the General Manager of the Value Innovation team,
which included B, A's, Human centered Design, Change, Data,
Project Management, Agile, and our.
Continuous learning, if you like our education.
Area. So they were quite a different
bunch of people, basically everyone apart from the test.
Team which was managed by my colleague.
And it was really important and were clear to me that that team
needed to work together and not as individual squads within the
company and we also needed to be.
Very explicit with our clients what our value.
Was and so the full P plus model helped define that the full P's
are. What I've been talking about for
a while and the reason why we've added.
The plus is that full P's, the model itself.
That name has been used before in change management.
Actually, it's used by lots of. Clients talking about the value
that they generate SO4P. Plus was a little bit unique, So
what? Are the four P's.
Within the four P plus model, they are 4 fundamental areas
that you as a BA need to understand.
You can look at them as dimensions or ways of looking at
the world. From the point of view of the
doer. Of the job role.
So for example, human centered design.
Experts or a BA or a project Manager?
Or a product owner. Or a customer.
So they are the kind of where you it's it talks.
To where you are. In terms of your.
Role and how you link with others.
That was the original purpose of how I was using it at a surety,
but actually it talks. About how the world works, how
change works. Within an organization.
If you forget about the phases within a project and you just.
Talk about the flow of how a project works or how the.
World works in terms of the world of change.
This is where these. 4 P's. Come into play so you're sitting
there. Saying that's very nice.
What are the four p's and how do they work together?
I'll read you the statement that I put into the level.
One training, we talk. About this often within the
level. Two and Level 3 in our certified
better. Business analysis.
I'll read it first and then let's go into.
Let's jump into what that actually meant.
Business analysts have. To work across the dimensions
of. People, processes, projects and
products. People follow processes projects
aim to. Solve process problems.
Projects aim to solve problems through the introduction of
innovation or buying at by adding value.
To an existing or new. Product.
Products are improved through feedback from people who use
them, so that's the loop. The loop back part Business
analysts therefore need to work. With people to define their
processes and where the problems are in the.
Form of a project which leads to additional.
Products or product value, OK. So that's the formal teaching
that you know the formal words that we've used.
Throughout our curriculum. And now let's just step back and
explain that in a bit more detail here today on this
podcast. People, processes, projects and
products. A lot of peas here.
Why is that important? Now I've just.
Explained how they all connect together, but let's go.
Let's start with people. People every day, everything
that a person does, you as a family, think about your day.
You might get up. You may.
Drive to the train station. That's an activity.
That's a task you may like use. Your Rail card snapper card here
in New Zealand to. Pay for the train trip you sit
on the. The train takes you from A-Z
the. Train is performing a process.
You are performing a process. In terms of getting to work, you
might. Walk to work.
You know you might sign in. Use the lift.
Through your ID card, you may go to your desk, you might log in,
you may do your job. Perform many processes within
your organization. You may go home.
You know, You might get on that train.
Get back home. You check the mail, You make
dinner. You ask people.
What they want for dinner? You look after the kids, you
maybe watch TV and you go to sleep and that might be your day
and that's a pretty. Common day for a lot of us who
have. So that's you as just a normal
human on your normal day. But then also there's.
Processes that are performed by really.
Specialized or a way to define those kind of segments where?
Let's talk about them. As personas or representations
of different segments. Of the world we might have.
A police officer. Or we might.
Have a firefighter or we might have a teacher and those are.
Different. I guess they're different job
titles. But they're personas.
They have activities they perform that are really
important and not. All of those activities, of
course, touch technology, but every single one of those tasks
or activities, I'm. Defining as a process, and I'm
going to get back to this point at the end of the podcast to
talk. About where processes are used
in projects and the fact that maybe they are coming up in our
life cycle. A little bit late, so people
follow processes. We all comfortable with that.
I hope so. I hope you understand.
That I'm using process to define tasks and.
Activities, transactions that we perform.
And so everything happens or starts with the people, Yes, and
I have had feedback on this and good debate.
That of course, systems can perform processes.
They can be scheduled. You know AI, right?
Now as obviously a hot topic and.
That can just perform processes, but it's always.
Leveraged or triggered through programming.
Or code by person at some point, So let's not get into semantics.
People follow processes, so if people follow processes and our
world as Bas. Is all about process and
changing those. Processes or improving those
processes, then we need to understand people.
Just as much as we understand processes.
And within my previous life running this quite diverse large
team, the human centered design experts, the designers that.
Were very much in the upfront space they understood people
they used. Personas, which is from the word
of ba, but they also from the word of design.
And these two never overlapped. I mean, you could.
You could argue that the human centered design world didn't
even. You know, doesn't refer to
business analysts. These are.
That's the reason why we're talking about to mention some of
these disciplines within these different realms of.
Of Ba's own process and human centered design experts own.
People at a very high level, you know those worlds continue on in
their. Own cycle and and they don't
necessarily value or understand how to.
Link with other disciplines, which was the point of the
model. Now if we just step away from
that kind of. Problem or situation we need to
deal with, we can still accept. That the people that the the
sort of the. Roles that play in the people's.
Space are quite experts at that, right that there are some
techniques that we can learn as BAS.
From the world of. Human Centered Design We can
start. To use empathy mapping.
To really understand our clients and.
Our people, our end users, much more than we than we've really.
You know that we. Really had.
The tools and techniques within the PA world to understand.
We need to leverage that. We'll work.
With experts in that space we need.
To take customer insights, we need to, you know, get feedback.
From our people we need to embrace.
That where if if that information.
From our people where we jump into processes and training
processes and we don't get the input from people.
When our customers first or understand that that's been done
before we start. Making a change.
We really don't understand the true.
Value to the organization, so that is the that is.
The trick? Here, this is.
This is why it's so important and within the world of human
centered design. If you like the people that own
the people space. They talk about the desirability
of the. Thing we're going to create
either the thing we've got. Or the thing that we're going
to. Create the product.
So desirability is. Whether or not whatever we
create so think about it. It might be good to put your
head on and think about a startup company thinking of an
idea if you had a new idea. To solve a problem, let's think,
let's, let's let's. Let's hypothesize here that
within the journey we talked about.
Earlier for an everyday person catching the train that we
worked out that there should be, I don't know, a shuttle.
That takes everybody from away from the train station.
Or pretty close to the train. Station instead of them driving
down and parking. To catch the train, we
hypothesize. That actually a shuttle that
goes around and collects everyone and gets them down to
the train station. Would be desirable because they
wouldn't need to use their car and they wouldn't need to maybe
potentially. Pay for parking and then you
know it could. Save lots of CO2 emissions and
we're going. To attract, you know people that
are more associated with like saving the planet and that's
really popular and we, I don't know we.
Do all this work now at the end of the.
Day whether or not someone signs up and wants to use the shuttle
and pay. For, it is the factor that
determines whether or not. Something's desirable, right?
And what you want to do is you want to do that work much before
you start actually entering a project.
So understanding your people and your target market is the people
space and that's. Really, really important what
I'm what I'm not suggesting is you go back and do that.
Every time, for every project I would say that.
If your company understands your customers enough, it may not.
Add extra value to go back and reiterate.
Understand your people. You may know enough to do.
Your project some projects. What I will define as mysteries
when you don't know if this. Product is even desirable or
feasible. Or viable.
And if that's the case, then you do want to spend time with your
your target customers. And you want to go through a
kind of a product market? For product testing phase,
before you spend any money on that, we'll get to that in a
minute. That's called Lean Startup.
So people you need to understand.
Your people, right? Either you already have a great
understanding of them, or if you're creating something new
then it's really important to check with your customer.
That this thing that you are going to spend money.
On is actually desirable and they'll they'll want to use it.
And when I say that it's not necessarily you can do this for
non paid services too, that's whether or not you don't have to
your measure of. Success might not necessarily.
Be number of paid. Customers it could be a number
of. Drivers or users?
Of the service. So people is where you where you
start. Not all the time, but that's
where you need to understand that people.
Are at the start of this this thing and are important and then
we. Move into processes.
Now processes like I said, a task, activities, and we've
talked. Before around process hierarchy
and I'm not going to dip. Into processes within this.
Podcast that you know that's a whole other conversation but
what I. Am strongly suggesting is that
processes should be defining should understand the scope.
Of your project how people? Interact before creating an
official. I'll say that again, you should
have some. Idea of how people are
interacting within these. And which part of the?
Process your problems occur in before.
Starting a project so you don't generally perform a piece of
change if things are working. Well, right, people say.
Don't you know? If it's not broke, don't fix it.
Now that's not. Quite true if it's, if it's.
Not broke and prove it. It's probably a good way of.
Saying it and keep relevant however projects exist because
we generally are making. A change so people.
For example, I just said before around my shuttle example.
We're assuming with that hypothesis.
Which a lot of startup. People forget about, which is
why they fail. Is is that.
A problem is me driving through the train station in my car and
parking by myself as an individual.
Do I find that a problem, right? You're really working out
whether or not the problem that you've hypothesized is.
And so when you work out whether or not something is.
Actually a problem not. And then the second point is not
only is it a. Problem people who actually want
to pay for the. Solution that you're peddling,
so. You always start with problems
there, so we're not with the link between the people.
And the process side is really the problems that people have
with the existing. State the current state is
another way of saying it and two.
So there's two things we can do in this.
Process phase before a project starts, one is identify where in
the world. Of processes this this customers
interacting. What our scope is and what are
these pain points? What are these problems that our
people, the important people, either internal staff?
Or end customers are experiencing with the process
and what that gives us is enough of the.
Scope to move into. A project.
And what a project is. A project exists when you've
really business cased either officially.
Or not officially, that it's worth spending money on this
piece of work. Not only we, we start to in the
human centered design world, we talk about feasibility.
It's. It's actually.
Possible to deliver and it's. Viable and viability.
Is a is a business case. So when we say a business.
Case We're not necessarily talking about a 50. 1000 page
document. It could just.
Be A1 pager. We've worked out that the
problem that we think is worth spending money on.
That's the pro that's going to be.
The project is desirable, so we should know that.
Before we start the project. So we've worked that out.
That's the D side and then we've.
Worked out that throughout the project, the first stage may be
a feasibility study to work at. Is it feasible to solve this
problem actually? Like technically, feasibly
feasible generally, or you've got the resources.
And funds to support it. The other one is.
So is, which is what a business case really is defining.
It is saying that the money we invest to.
Put to start our shuttle, train, shuttle business, we are going
to get a return on that investment and we're going to
generate. Some kind of profit or it's
going to be cost neutral at least And that's the business,
that's the business. Case not only is it, the
business model is. Effective.
It's also saying that the amount of money that we spend making
this change is. Worth it.
We're going to get some benefit out of it, so this.
Is the value side. So a business case is really
just defining the justification. Of the project and of course we
can at least say as part of that business case.
Process where the problem's occurring, who it's occurring
for. That it is actually a problem
and that we're going to spend. X solving that point and that's
how a. Business case will be formed
also. When we talk about projects that
project so I'm using that in the very.
Loosest word I am saying pro in a project is any change program,
right? So an example of what?
A project could be for a startup is Lean Startup.
It's spending some money. To test the hypothesis through
an MVP. That this is a problem.
So these projects could happen many times.
This cut this is not necessary the.
End project. There might be many phases, so
if it's a new product, you always want to start with the
Lean Startup kind of. Project to work out whether or
not. This thing is a.
Desirable product and then you'll release.
Into the product world as an M. VP where whereas you might loop
around. Again, this whole process and
now you're spending, I don't know, $2,000,000.
To do a data integration project, or in in this case,
we've now moved to a different. Phase of the project we were
actually justifying buying the shuttles.
For our. Problem we just talked about so.
That's what a project is and what?
A lot of people will come at me at IS saying hold on, I'm a BA,
I get. Hired in the project phase and
then the first thing I do. Is a project, sorry, process
bottling? Yes you do, and that should be
the next level down of understanding.
The current state. Or defining the future state.
I'm not suggesting that you. Don't do processes within a
project. But what I'm saying is, is that
you should understand the. Process hierarchy where the
process problems are occurring before you get into a project
and it's usually find that an enterprise.
Business analyst plays in that space.
Before a project or enterprise architect and they work together
on that and that's been a role that I've done previously.
And actually it's a very important kind of role in a
program level, OK. So we have.
Our project it's running. The output of that project is
something OK, it's a measurable. Something and it should be an
MVP or depending on the size. Of the project, it could be an
agile project, could be a waterfall project, could be a a
a report, could be the output, but generally throughout that
process. We're going to call that a
solution or a change or a widget, a thing, something
tangible at the end of that project.
And we're going to call that a product and then the most common
way that would be an. MVP, right.
And then the. Product side you that is your
output. That's your release?
And what? And so your.
Widget, whatever it is. The widget and let's talk about
in our easy model. We talked about before with the
shuttle example what our MVP might be, is literally we're
just releasing a sign up sheet to see how even we're doing what
we call conjures kind of MVP. Or in this case, we're just
doing a landing. Page a very loose MVP, where we
are just seeing whether or not there's any interest in our
idea. So we've done a project to work
out. We we want to do this as part of
Len startup and now. We want to just All we're going
to do is. Release a landing page with a
sign up sheet to see who's going to be interested in our shuttle.
To train service. So we throw that up.
With all the, maybe with a fake video showing how it's going to
work, maybe with a sign up sheet, maybe with a.
A questionnaire around how much you would pay for the service,
maybe a description. Of how it would work and we ask
for people's names. And the project's success will
be people filling that in and the fact that I don't know.
We get positive reviews and and the idea.
Of this project is to to define whether or not.
This product. The shuttle service.
Is desirable and we're gonna make get enough customers.
Effectively desirability. So our product in this case
could be the landing page and it could be the release.
Of that. Back to our target customers to
remaining list or Google ads is a very common way of doing this.
OK, so we've released our product, which is a landing page
for our shuttle service to the train.
And who are we releasing that to?
Well, in this case. Because it's a customer facing,
you know, target market of people.
Who take the train to work. We're releasing that to end
customers, to people like you and me, anyone who might.
Travel to work. So you were releasing that?
Product that landing page back to people and that's where we
loop. Back around, so we've gone from
people to the process area and the pain.
Points within the process to the product, to the project.
Sorry, the project then back down.
To the product. Which is a landing page, then
back to people. And we loop back around because
now we. Learnt more, we can then do more
stuff. We've now worked out.
This is desirable. And then our next phase is going
well. We've worked out the pain point
is actually. Or, well, we've.
Improved our process and worked out that it is a pain.
So it's desirable, but we've worked out they're not going to
pay they're. Only going to pay $20.
A week for the service, right? Because.
They're going to be with other people and that's going to be
the price. Point they're willing to pay.
So then we might have to work out at this point is this.
Viable idea you know, is it? Actually going to make sense.
To carry on and we might say yes it is and then we have to start
working on the next. Phase, which is OK.
How much is it going to cost to actually run these shuttles?
And what's the I don't know. Timetable and you know can we
cover our. So you look back around and
that's what you do in the startup.
But you do the same thing on in an.
Enterprise project. You do exactly the same thing as
you. Go through different phases,
maybe getting some money to test an idea.
Or a pilot. Then you learn from it.
You should. Release that back to users and
then you get some more money. To do the thing properly right
and that. This is how this.
Is how the world of change works, and it allows Bas to
really understand that even though we might work in the
world. Of processes, either upfront or
within a project or. Actually on the product, you
know, managing requirements potentially or even in people if
you've moved more into the human centered.
Design space Bas could. Work in all those places.
But we can also appreciate the disciplines.
Of human centered design experts.
Might be in the people space. Project managers who work in the
project space. Product owners who work in the.
Product space, or at least the development team.
And this is how all those. Elements come together.
So recap the four P. Plus Model talks.
About people first who use processes, there are.
Problems with processes. We are hypothesizing.
We know that there's a. Problem with the process.
We create projects to try and solve those problems, or at
least test that they are. Problems and.
At the end of a project, you release something.
We call that the product, the tangible.
Thing. The product is released back to
people to give us feedback and we loop back around.
Think about that model. It's a very, very useful model
and I hope that you've learned something and you can apply that
thinking and those dimensions within your realm as a BA.