1 00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:04,400 The Better Business Analysis Institute presence, the Better 2 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:14,000 Business Analysis Podcast with Hi everybody, and welcome to 3 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:17,640 this week's episode of The Better Business Analysis Podcast 4 00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:20,920 with Benjamin Walsh. Now, in the last couple of 5 00:00:20,920 --> 00:00:24,480 episodes and across the series, we've been talking about a 6 00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:28,570 couple of. The dimensions one is the people 7 00:00:28,570 --> 00:00:33,410 dimension like the last episode around the experience 8 00:00:33,410 --> 00:00:36,290 ecosystems, that's where people play, that's where customers 9 00:00:36,330 --> 00:00:39,450 live. And I like to talk about the 4P 10 00:00:39,450 --> 00:00:44,050 plus model. So people process projects and 11 00:00:44,050 --> 00:00:47,570 products which then feedback to our people who use those 12 00:00:47,570 --> 00:00:50,330 products and services. And so you can think of those 13 00:00:50,490 --> 00:00:54,610 those P's in a in a quadrant of you know, people on the left 14 00:00:54,610 --> 00:00:57,900 top. Moving over to the top right 15 00:00:57,900 --> 00:01:03,900 which is process and moving down to the project in which that 16 00:01:04,620 --> 00:01:10,500 process is changed within or hypothesized to be changed and 17 00:01:10,500 --> 00:01:17,620 then to the bottom left which is the product service that we are 18 00:01:17,620 --> 00:01:23,100 tweaking or changing or adding to you know to the customer's 19 00:01:23,100 --> 00:01:26,950 experience. And then back that flips around 20 00:01:26,950 --> 00:01:29,750 and is delivered to people who use it and then we go around in 21 00:01:29,750 --> 00:01:33,630 circles. So that's the brief discussion 22 00:01:33,630 --> 00:01:40,630 around the four P plus model when you think about the job 23 00:01:40,630 --> 00:01:44,130 roles that make up. Those different dimensions I've 24 00:01:44,130 --> 00:01:47,610 talked about the fact that not only are there different job 25 00:01:47,610 --> 00:01:53,250 roles that play best in those quadrants, the almost thinking 26 00:01:53,530 --> 00:01:56,250 has developed from those quadrants. 27 00:01:57,290 --> 00:02:00,770 So you could think about the fact that in the people 28 00:02:00,770 --> 00:02:04,570 quadrant, human centered design, design thinking. 29 00:02:05,420 --> 00:02:09,699 Empathy mapping, customer journey mapping, customer 30 00:02:10,259 --> 00:02:13,740 experience ecosystem I talked about in the last episode has 31 00:02:13,740 --> 00:02:16,220 really all in the people's space. 32 00:02:16,220 --> 00:02:18,300 It's about understanding your customers. 33 00:02:18,300 --> 00:02:22,100 Being customer centric is a word we use to describe that. 34 00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:27,960 The only problem we're talking about customers per se is that 35 00:02:27,960 --> 00:02:32,320 it always themes externally facing when we talk about that. 36 00:02:32,320 --> 00:02:36,840 And you could have users which are internal users of systems 37 00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:39,240 and they could be just as important. 38 00:02:39,240 --> 00:02:43,160 So I like to use the word people to describe anyone who's using 39 00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:49,520 the service or product. If you then move to the right 40 00:02:49,520 --> 00:02:52,280 hand side, you then get to processes. 41 00:02:52,940 --> 00:02:57,100 I've had lots of debates with very clever Bas who in some 42 00:02:57,100 --> 00:02:59,740 places they're better than me and other places I can teach 43 00:02:59,740 --> 00:03:03,660 them that. Why is it that processes come 44 00:03:03,660 --> 00:03:08,380 after people don't Processes live within a project and I 45 00:03:08,380 --> 00:03:12,660 would have to say that most Bas that is their experience they 46 00:03:12,900 --> 00:03:15,540 project to spun up. The first thing they do is 47 00:03:15,540 --> 00:03:18,140 current state and future state analysis. 48 00:03:18,610 --> 00:03:24,370 Work out the gaps and to come up with some requirements for me in 49 00:03:24,690 --> 00:03:27,490 a in the world we live in. And I've talked about this in a 50 00:03:27,490 --> 00:03:30,610 previous episode, so I'm not going to go on about it too 51 00:03:30,610 --> 00:03:33,850 much. When people interact with 52 00:03:33,970 --> 00:03:38,930 things, we call those processes and it's really important to do 53 00:03:38,930 --> 00:03:42,810 upfront process modeling in order for you to get your scope. 54 00:03:43,090 --> 00:03:46,810 So I would argue the process of problem analysis, identifying 55 00:03:46,810 --> 00:03:51,170 the right pain points. Doing a link canvas potentially 56 00:03:51,170 --> 00:03:56,290 or a business model canvas all lives in this space. 57 00:03:56,810 --> 00:03:59,890 You could argue from a project point of view it may be pre 58 00:04:01,290 --> 00:04:03,930 implementation business case before you were even thinking 59 00:04:03,930 --> 00:04:08,410 about the solution or even decided on the architecture Bas 60 00:04:09,130 --> 00:04:13,890 that's where I think. Better Ba's play, it's all, or 61 00:04:13,890 --> 00:04:17,089 at least that is where their goal and intent should be, 62 00:04:17,290 --> 00:04:19,649 because it's where the biggest value is. 63 00:04:20,730 --> 00:04:24,370 If you are everything that happens before a project is 64 00:04:24,370 --> 00:04:29,170 conceived, a project is usually constrained because it's a 65 00:04:29,170 --> 00:04:33,010 condition, it's an experiment and it and it has an output. 66 00:04:33,250 --> 00:04:36,210 It's quite constrained, but before that you start having 67 00:04:36,210 --> 00:04:40,000 some of those really valuable. Objective level conversations 68 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:43,200 about what you're changing and what actually should even be the 69 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:47,600 scope of the piece of work you've focused on or planning. 70 00:04:48,680 --> 00:04:51,280 Many Bas don't get to experience that. 71 00:04:51,280 --> 00:04:53,920 But when you get to program level business analysis, 72 00:04:53,920 --> 00:04:58,120 enterprise and strategic level analysis, you start to see this. 73 00:04:58,360 --> 00:05:00,880 You start to understand that this is really important. 74 00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:04,160 So I'm not saying you know if you're working on a project and 75 00:05:04,160 --> 00:05:06,640 you're an intermediate, intermediate BA working on you, 76 00:05:06,640 --> 00:05:08,660 but. Do you bit, but it's important 77 00:05:08,660 --> 00:05:11,700 to understand these concepts and understand where the true value 78 00:05:11,700 --> 00:05:16,180 is of business analysis with again with an emphasis on 79 00:05:16,340 --> 00:05:20,900 business. So if I was trying to connect 80 00:05:20,900 --> 00:05:24,460 that dot with the last episode with the experienced ecosystem 81 00:05:24,460 --> 00:05:29,020 or people, obviously the that's a huge influence in terms of 82 00:05:29,060 --> 00:05:33,620 what what we might think is important for our business is 83 00:05:33,620 --> 00:05:35,820 the customers and this people that we serve. 84 00:05:36,810 --> 00:05:40,770 So for me that's almost 80% of anything we do. 85 00:05:40,770 --> 00:05:44,330 We should be thinking of the desirability and the impact to 86 00:05:44,330 --> 00:05:47,610 them and that's really where we might do our benefits for 87 00:05:47,610 --> 00:05:50,570 realization. And if you're doing investment 88 00:05:50,570 --> 00:05:55,170 logic mapping for all government departments, then that would be 89 00:05:55,170 --> 00:05:56,890 where you would map out what the. 90 00:05:57,860 --> 00:06:01,740 Investment case was for making a change to something for a 91 00:06:01,740 --> 00:06:03,620 government department for example if you were getting 92 00:06:03,620 --> 00:06:06,740 funding through the treasury Better Business case process. 93 00:06:07,820 --> 00:06:11,140 So there's the people element and then the the other the other 94 00:06:11,140 --> 00:06:13,980 side of course or at least you know I did say 8020 but it might 95 00:06:13,980 --> 00:06:18,580 be 5050 is your your business and the processes that your 96 00:06:18,580 --> 00:06:23,940 business need in order to run a successful business. 97 00:06:25,810 --> 00:06:30,530 Most companies and we've talked, we talk about processes often at 98 00:06:30,530 --> 00:06:36,450 that level 0 and level one process hierarchy step. 99 00:06:37,050 --> 00:06:41,130 There are common business processes that each industry 100 00:06:41,450 --> 00:06:43,810 carries out. So if you look up the APQC 101 00:06:44,130 --> 00:06:46,330 model, you'll know what I'm talking about if you know 102 00:06:46,330 --> 00:06:48,250 anything about it. So you can divide those 103 00:06:48,250 --> 00:06:51,330 processes into pretty common chunks that need to be done by 104 00:06:51,330 --> 00:06:53,570 businesses. And this is what I'm talking 105 00:06:53,570 --> 00:06:58,010 about with this upfront process analysis when it comes to making 106 00:06:58,010 --> 00:07:00,370 a change. Before you spend money on a 107 00:07:00,370 --> 00:07:04,210 solution and get down to your current or future state solution 108 00:07:04,770 --> 00:07:09,490 processes or even the project itself, the real project proper, 109 00:07:10,370 --> 00:07:13,490 you should really understand where in the business you're 110 00:07:13,490 --> 00:07:15,730 making this change or where in the customer journey you're 111 00:07:15,730 --> 00:07:19,290 making this change and and what that and how that maps down to 112 00:07:19,610 --> 00:07:23,110 the internal business processes. The processes live there, and 113 00:07:23,110 --> 00:07:28,830 for me this whole quadrant is BA owned, driven by BAS. 114 00:07:29,750 --> 00:07:36,190 We are by far the people to grab that quadrant and to elaborate 115 00:07:36,190 --> 00:07:37,990 the tools and techniques in that space. 116 00:07:38,350 --> 00:07:40,990 And a lot of those tools and techniques can be borrowed from 117 00:07:40,990 --> 00:07:44,350 things like. Process hierarchy, 6 Sigma 118 00:07:44,350 --> 00:07:49,030 rolling up even in an MBA and some of the external factors 119 00:07:49,030 --> 00:07:53,070 that we need to consider when we're doing proper business 120 00:07:53,070 --> 00:07:57,270 analysis with a capital B. You then after you've you've 121 00:07:57,270 --> 00:07:59,830 done that step of course you moved down into scoping a 122 00:07:59,830 --> 00:08:03,230 project and I have, I've said this before in the Lane Startup 123 00:08:04,230 --> 00:08:07,950 podcast and previously with the 4P Plus model. 124 00:08:08,630 --> 00:08:12,070 The project doesn't have to. It's project in the in the 125 00:08:12,070 --> 00:08:14,830 loosest sense of the word. This could be a feasibility 126 00:08:14,830 --> 00:08:16,990 study. This could be a proper lean 127 00:08:16,990 --> 00:08:19,270 startup. This could be a hypothesis test. 128 00:08:19,270 --> 00:08:22,790 This could be all the good things that product managers 129 00:08:23,070 --> 00:08:25,470 understand too. It's the same world that product 130 00:08:25,630 --> 00:08:29,310 managers talk about and project managers talk about. 131 00:08:29,630 --> 00:08:34,110 So project managers typically in a more of a structured 132 00:08:34,110 --> 00:08:36,990 environment when they're managing risk very much. 133 00:08:37,880 --> 00:08:41,400 Very much so. In the public service where you 134 00:08:41,400 --> 00:08:44,800 know you do a business case, link canvas in the equivalent of 135 00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:47,320 startup. Once you get bigger, then you do 136 00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:50,600 a project and you do a business case and you might have a stage 137 00:08:50,600 --> 00:08:52,960 business case as you go through. And if you've done your prints 138 00:08:52,960 --> 00:08:57,200 too or PMI certifications, then you will understand that 139 00:08:57,400 --> 00:09:00,080 projects have a certain way of working and you know we should 140 00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:02,960 adopt that. And this area is really much, I 141 00:09:02,960 --> 00:09:04,600 would say owned by project managers. 142 00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:08,410 Project managers are very much. Own this quadrant and they 143 00:09:08,450 --> 00:09:10,650 understand how to set up projects for success. 144 00:09:11,330 --> 00:09:17,130 In saying that, a typical, say, government program manager may 145 00:09:17,130 --> 00:09:19,370 not be the right fit for a startup company. 146 00:09:19,370 --> 00:09:24,090 That's very lean and proper, but but there is the same methods. 147 00:09:24,090 --> 00:09:27,650 It's just a rapid prototyping and product managers are really 148 00:09:27,650 --> 00:09:30,730 good in this realm. So if you're in a product world 149 00:09:30,970 --> 00:09:32,970 and you've just got a product, you might lean on that. 150 00:09:33,570 --> 00:09:35,210 Set of processes which are well defined. 151 00:09:35,570 --> 00:09:38,090 Or you might be a project manager and that's why you have 152 00:09:38,090 --> 00:09:43,530 conflict between the two when you've got various different 153 00:09:43,530 --> 00:09:46,610 methodologies happening at the same time and no clear ownership 154 00:09:46,610 --> 00:09:48,890 around how you drive product change. 155 00:09:50,420 --> 00:09:53,540 So that's an interesting topic in itself, but you know they do 156 00:09:53,540 --> 00:09:57,420 play in the similar vein and a product manager though is more 157 00:09:57,660 --> 00:10:00,380 well I would say more closely related to some of the skills 158 00:10:00,380 --> 00:10:04,220 that a BA has, whereas a project manager which is creative and 159 00:10:04,260 --> 00:10:08,700 empathy driven and project manager is more risk driven in 160 00:10:08,700 --> 00:10:12,100 task management. So yeah, it is an interesting 161 00:10:12,100 --> 00:10:16,220 space and you usually find that when multiple like you know they 162 00:10:16,220 --> 00:10:19,820 say a company's gone agile or they've gone product and then 163 00:10:19,820 --> 00:10:22,020 you've got these waterfall projects, you've got these 164 00:10:22,020 --> 00:10:25,860 traditional project management. PMI officers usually find this 165 00:10:25,860 --> 00:10:29,380 conflict because it's not really clear which leans you're looking 166 00:10:29,380 --> 00:10:32,220 at. Now I that's a huge, yeah, I can 167 00:10:32,220 --> 00:10:35,260 debate about that for hours. Let's just say that they they're 168 00:10:35,260 --> 00:10:37,420 both valid and they're just different ways of looking at the 169 00:10:37,420 --> 00:10:40,570 world. Then in the final quadrant, we 170 00:10:40,570 --> 00:10:46,010 we really have the product world and it is fair to say that you 171 00:10:46,010 --> 00:10:50,170 as a BA have experienced this world when you've experienced an 172 00:10:50,170 --> 00:10:55,330 Agile Scrum project, an Agile Scrum project and in the sense 173 00:10:55,330 --> 00:11:00,050 of Agile delivery, this is what this is what has come into our 174 00:11:00,050 --> 00:11:03,290 world as being a new way of really managing efficient 175 00:11:03,290 --> 00:11:06,330 delivery teams. And it's from the world of 176 00:11:06,330 --> 00:11:08,330 product management. That's where it's come from. 177 00:11:08,770 --> 00:11:12,490 So in this space, this is really where Agile delivery owns this. 178 00:11:12,490 --> 00:11:16,170 And you could argue a Scrum Master or your Product owner 179 00:11:16,170 --> 00:11:19,450 owns this bit. So what does that mean for Bas? 180 00:11:19,810 --> 00:11:23,250 Well, it means that we are subservient to those roles if 181 00:11:23,250 --> 00:11:26,730 we're playing in that space. This is where lots of Bas play. 182 00:11:26,930 --> 00:11:29,370 They play in the delivery side, they play in. 183 00:11:29,370 --> 00:11:31,970 Once the project's been scoped, they plan this space. 184 00:11:32,530 --> 00:11:34,650 Can we add value? Yes we can, because we can do 185 00:11:34,690 --> 00:11:36,690 our current state and see what the gaps are. 186 00:11:37,050 --> 00:11:40,130 And if it's not a product then it's even more useful to be able 187 00:11:40,130 --> 00:11:43,930 to do that. In terms of the services, which 188 00:11:43,930 --> 00:11:49,210 aren't generally well changed through a Scrum environment, it 189 00:11:49,490 --> 00:11:52,290 could be using Scrum teams, but it's not, you know, you're not 190 00:11:52,290 --> 00:11:54,570 using, you're not working with developers per se. 191 00:11:55,010 --> 00:11:57,970 So that whole area Bas can add huge value in terms of adding 192 00:11:57,970 --> 00:12:01,590 the. The process view, the managed 193 00:12:01,590 --> 00:12:05,430 requirements, but this is where we overlap with product owners 194 00:12:05,430 --> 00:12:09,070 because this is their space there in the this is really 195 00:12:09,070 --> 00:12:12,030 where they, I would say own this space. 196 00:12:12,030 --> 00:12:15,630 These days Bas can play the role of a Product Owner and probably 197 00:12:15,630 --> 00:12:18,110 do a better job because we're skilled in how to get 198 00:12:18,110 --> 00:12:21,140 requirements. But this is really where I would 199 00:12:21,140 --> 00:12:26,540 say Bas need to move from. So for me the the, the value for 200 00:12:26,540 --> 00:12:29,980 the Bas, you know for I'm talking about a senior plus here 201 00:12:30,860 --> 00:12:32,980 is outside of that. So that might be where you start 202 00:12:32,980 --> 00:12:37,700 your journey and you move over to this pre project phase as you 203 00:12:37,700 --> 00:12:41,980 mature. There are other types of Bas as 204 00:12:41,980 --> 00:12:45,460 I've said a product manager for example is almost a type of BA 205 00:12:46,220 --> 00:12:50,090 and that. Roduct kind of space joining 206 00:12:50,090 --> 00:12:51,930 product all the way U to customer vision. 207 00:12:52,130 --> 00:12:54,330 So they kind of play around that, but they don't get down to 208 00:12:54,330 --> 00:12:57,010 the detail. Obviously there's the the 209 00:12:57,090 --> 00:13:00,120 product owner role. And then there's of course the 210 00:13:00,120 --> 00:13:01,920 people that need to help with the delivery, who are 211 00:13:01,920 --> 00:13:05,960 specialists now that Bas, some Bas have moved into like data 212 00:13:05,960 --> 00:13:11,280 analysts for example, or process model modelers who work down at 213 00:13:11,280 --> 00:13:15,160 the solution mode or technical Bas we call them, they work in, 214 00:13:15,160 --> 00:13:19,160 they will work in this space. So it's a really interesting 215 00:13:19,160 --> 00:13:22,800 model, the full P plus model. I talk about it often and the 216 00:13:22,800 --> 00:13:25,920 reason why I've just regurgitated and gone over that 217 00:13:26,360 --> 00:13:30,030 is I really want. To make it a little bit more 218 00:13:30,030 --> 00:13:37,070 real, the pre project, well those Bas, those Bas who are 219 00:13:37,070 --> 00:13:40,430 listening, who don't have never played in that space and may be 220 00:13:40,430 --> 00:13:44,110 interested in knowing why they would say why. 221 00:13:44,110 --> 00:13:46,110 I think that's the destination for Bas. 222 00:13:47,550 --> 00:13:51,070 The probably the area that you have touched on or you know 223 00:13:51,070 --> 00:13:55,350 about as part of your job is problem statements. 224 00:13:57,110 --> 00:14:01,070 Now the problem statement is where you define what the 225 00:14:01,070 --> 00:14:04,790 problem actually is. And I would argue you do not 226 00:14:04,790 --> 00:14:07,150 start a project until you know what the problem is. 227 00:14:07,870 --> 00:14:11,150 A lot of people think that a lot of people when you start a 228 00:14:11,150 --> 00:14:14,150 project, they've already come up with the solution, especially if 229 00:14:14,150 --> 00:14:17,830 it's technology driven. So it's to put in a new CRM 230 00:14:17,830 --> 00:14:20,750 system. It's not that we have a problem, 231 00:14:21,150 --> 00:14:23,750 you know, having a central viewable like customer 232 00:14:23,750 --> 00:14:25,510 interactions that might be the problem. 233 00:14:26,740 --> 00:14:31,700 So you end up starting projects incorrectly and you end up not 234 00:14:31,700 --> 00:14:35,540 being able to prioritize your requirements because you haven't 235 00:14:35,660 --> 00:14:38,900 really got any yardstick to measure whether or not this is 236 00:14:38,900 --> 00:14:43,220 going to improve anything or is more important than anything 237 00:14:43,220 --> 00:14:45,820 else because there is no measure of success. 238 00:14:45,820 --> 00:14:49,100 Benchmark put in the CRM system is very black and white. 239 00:14:49,340 --> 00:14:52,230 You don't have any objectives. You haven't defined what the 240 00:14:52,230 --> 00:14:55,550 problem is, so how do you know which features are more 241 00:14:55,550 --> 00:14:58,670 important than others? So this is the important factor 242 00:14:58,670 --> 00:15:02,470 of defining what the problem is. And in order to define a 243 00:15:02,470 --> 00:15:06,830 problem, there are lots of techniques for doing that, and 244 00:15:06,830 --> 00:15:10,710 here I guess two ways. One is to find out what the root 245 00:15:10,870 --> 00:15:14,910 root cause of the problem is once you know what it is and we 246 00:15:14,910 --> 00:15:17,070 can use the five why's to do that. 247 00:15:17,150 --> 00:15:20,670 That is simply the technique of asking the question why five 248 00:15:20,670 --> 00:15:23,670 times. Again and again until we get 249 00:15:23,670 --> 00:15:27,350 down to what the root causes, we can use the Fishbone diagram, 250 00:15:27,790 --> 00:15:32,030 which is the effectively the same outcome of finding out what 251 00:15:32,030 --> 00:15:36,070 the root cause of a a problem is. 252 00:15:36,630 --> 00:15:40,150 So that is just if you if you don't know what it is, please 253 00:15:40,150 --> 00:15:42,550 please Google it. Please understand what it is. 254 00:15:43,110 --> 00:15:46,150 It's like a child asking, OK well. 255 00:15:47,740 --> 00:15:51,300 This isn't working or what happened in the movie is usually 256 00:15:51,300 --> 00:15:54,460 the the question you always get and it's like, oh, that man just 257 00:15:54,460 --> 00:15:55,340 died. Why? 258 00:15:56,740 --> 00:16:00,380 Oh, and you, you know you get you, you you pause the movie if 259 00:16:00,380 --> 00:16:02,660 you're at home and you say, well, he died because he was a 260 00:16:02,660 --> 00:16:07,100 spy and he's like, oh, why? Well, he was working for the 261 00:16:07,100 --> 00:16:09,460 Russians and the American guy shot him. 262 00:16:10,180 --> 00:16:13,580 Why Russian America don't particularly like each other 263 00:16:13,580 --> 00:16:17,350 during that period. And so spies were around, and 264 00:16:17,350 --> 00:16:20,990 they were like secret agents that worked for one side or the 265 00:16:20,990 --> 00:16:23,190 other. And, you know, they were, they 266 00:16:23,230 --> 00:16:26,510 were stealing secrets. So they needed to get rid of the 267 00:16:26,510 --> 00:16:30,990 spy so he didn't steal some of their secrets and take it back 268 00:16:30,990 --> 00:16:34,190 to their home country. That's nice. 269 00:16:34,310 --> 00:16:36,990 Why? Wow, they stole secrets. 270 00:16:36,990 --> 00:16:39,630 Then they might know their plans when they go to war. 271 00:16:40,740 --> 00:16:45,260 And so the idea is, if you ask the question why five times on 272 00:16:45,260 --> 00:16:47,300 the same topic. And it can be a little bit 273 00:16:48,740 --> 00:16:51,460 repetitive, but it is really important and you actually get 274 00:16:51,460 --> 00:16:55,140 down to why, you know in that example why the man was killed. 275 00:16:55,380 --> 00:16:59,180 But why was the spy killed? Because he was killed because 276 00:16:59,180 --> 00:17:03,540 there was a chance that he had intelligence that could have 277 00:17:03,540 --> 00:17:10,520 been used for creating. Or a demand during the Cold War, 278 00:17:10,520 --> 00:17:14,520 for example. And so this is it sounds really 279 00:17:14,520 --> 00:17:17,240 really simple. And it sounds even silly when 280 00:17:17,240 --> 00:17:22,000 you explain it, but I would be amazed if every single one of 281 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:26,740 you bas went to your product. Manager or your product owner or 282 00:17:26,740 --> 00:17:31,780 your sorry or even project manager or your sponsor and ask 283 00:17:31,780 --> 00:17:33,740 why they were doing this piece of work. 284 00:17:34,060 --> 00:17:36,660 And I I'm sure you'll get answers like because it's in our 285 00:17:36,660 --> 00:17:41,220 plan for the year or because we're implementing a new cerium 286 00:17:41,220 --> 00:17:44,980 system so it will be better. And and I I think you would find 287 00:17:44,980 --> 00:17:47,460 that a lot of them would struggle to articulate the real 288 00:17:47,460 --> 00:17:49,700 root cause for why you're doing something. 289 00:17:50,740 --> 00:17:53,900 You usually find that a lot of these reasons can if you go 290 00:17:53,900 --> 00:17:54,740 through this. Technique. 291 00:17:54,740 --> 00:17:58,940 It could be because the IT manager wanted to do this. 292 00:17:58,940 --> 00:18:00,780 That's simply the reason you're doing it. 293 00:18:02,020 --> 00:18:07,340 One reason could be that it's a new piece of technology that you 294 00:18:07,340 --> 00:18:11,340 want to try and that it starts to really drip away some of the 295 00:18:11,340 --> 00:18:15,220 fluff statements that may have existed and makes your life 296 00:18:15,220 --> 00:18:16,940 easier. Even if you might not expose 297 00:18:16,940 --> 00:18:20,380 that you know in documentation, you know why you're really doing 298 00:18:20,380 --> 00:18:24,340 this piece of work and. So that's the five Y's. 299 00:18:24,340 --> 00:18:28,020 You can do this a similar technique using a fishbone 300 00:18:28,020 --> 00:18:29,420 diagram. You can Google that. 301 00:18:30,220 --> 00:18:35,580 It's really the same purpose is to figure out what the root 302 00:18:35,580 --> 00:18:37,660 causes of of a particular problem. 303 00:18:38,620 --> 00:18:43,220 Now one of the techniques I use, instead of asking someone five 304 00:18:43,220 --> 00:18:47,380 times why is I use the technique of the five W's. 305 00:18:47,580 --> 00:18:51,620 Not to be confused with the five Y's, 5 W's plus the two H's. 306 00:18:52,370 --> 00:18:55,930 And the reason I like this template, which we have a 307 00:18:55,930 --> 00:18:59,050 template online at the Better Business Analysis Institute, 308 00:18:59,050 --> 00:19:04,610 you're welcome to request that we use this technique and we, we 309 00:19:04,610 --> 00:19:08,010 think it's the best. And the reason, the reason why 310 00:19:08,570 --> 00:19:12,770 is because it encompasses effectively the business case on 311 00:19:12,770 --> 00:19:15,370 a page. So it's the most closely related 312 00:19:15,370 --> 00:19:18,450 to a business case on a page. And that is why you're doing 313 00:19:18,450 --> 00:19:21,730 this. You're defining this particular, 314 00:19:21,930 --> 00:19:24,090 you know. The elaboration of a product 315 00:19:24,210 --> 00:19:29,490 problem statement using the 5H5 W's and two H's to find out a 316 00:19:29,490 --> 00:19:32,770 bit more around the problem. Not just the problem, but what 317 00:19:32,770 --> 00:19:35,290 how much you're willing to pay to fix this problem. 318 00:19:35,810 --> 00:19:41,290 And So what we the questions we ask the W's are the simple why 319 00:19:41,570 --> 00:19:43,370 we start with the why. Thanks Simon. 320 00:19:44,170 --> 00:19:48,810 You talk about what you're going to do, you talk about where 321 00:19:48,810 --> 00:19:50,810 you're going to do it and where isn't. 322 00:19:51,280 --> 00:19:53,640 People get confused about this and say, Oh well, I'm going to 323 00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:59,440 be doing it in New York now. Where should relate to those 324 00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:03,240 higher level processes? Where in the organizational 325 00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:07,520 highest level processes and where in the customer journey 326 00:20:07,520 --> 00:20:10,280 potentially are you making the change? 327 00:20:10,560 --> 00:20:12,960 OK, that's really, really important. 328 00:20:12,960 --> 00:20:17,440 Most Bas get it wrong top tip. That is what you're filling in 329 00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:20,320 for the where you're talking about when. 330 00:20:20,660 --> 00:20:23,460 When does this occur? How often is it a regular thing 331 00:20:23,460 --> 00:20:27,260 you're fixing? When talks about frequency, When 332 00:20:27,260 --> 00:20:30,900 talks about when something is triggered. 333 00:20:31,140 --> 00:20:34,540 So you need to think about properly, not just you know in 334 00:20:34,540 --> 00:20:37,140 March is not a valid answer here. 335 00:20:37,980 --> 00:20:44,700 So we've got the why, the what, the where, the the when, and 336 00:20:44,700 --> 00:20:48,340 then The Who. Who is this problem affecting? 337 00:20:49,230 --> 00:20:52,310 Not you're not writing down the business sponsors name here. 338 00:20:52,790 --> 00:20:55,750 You're writing down who has the issue. 339 00:20:57,110 --> 00:21:01,870 Who is this problem affecting the direct person that's 340 00:21:01,870 --> 00:21:04,590 affecting? Not Samantha from accounts 341 00:21:04,590 --> 00:21:06,870 necessarily. Unless you're putting in a new 342 00:21:06,990 --> 00:21:09,870 accounting system and you are hoping to get rid of Samantha, 343 00:21:10,270 --> 00:21:12,990 you know The Who wouldn't be an individual in that sense. 344 00:21:12,990 --> 00:21:14,790 It could be the end customer, it could be. 345 00:21:15,330 --> 00:21:19,210 It could be this whole problem could have been sparked from 346 00:21:19,210 --> 00:21:21,890 insights that you've measured about your customer. 347 00:21:22,050 --> 00:21:25,330 Customer insights should be driving a lot of the problems 348 00:21:25,330 --> 00:21:27,370 that you have. So it's customer driven. 349 00:21:28,230 --> 00:21:32,350 So you would, if it was driven by customer insights, you would 350 00:21:32,350 --> 00:21:35,510 know where the problem was occurring because it would be 351 00:21:35,510 --> 00:21:36,830 somewhere in the customer journey. 352 00:21:37,030 --> 00:21:40,310 You would understand who because it would be your customer, you 353 00:21:40,310 --> 00:21:45,910 would understand the frequency, you'd probably understand who in 354 00:21:45,910 --> 00:21:48,270 terms of numbers as well like how many. 355 00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:52,120 Would be really important and and you could start to define 356 00:21:52,120 --> 00:21:54,280 this problem. So if you if you're an advanced 357 00:21:54,280 --> 00:21:57,600 company in terms of using customer analytics and really 358 00:21:57,600 --> 00:22:01,120 customer focused and you're at a higher level of maturity this 359 00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:02,600 will all and your product company. 360 00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:05,000 This will all be driven by your customer the you know the 361 00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:07,440 problem statements drop out customer insights. 362 00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:11,680 So that's really interesting space in itself and I'll get a 363 00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:14,920 friend of mine to come on board who's a senior product manager 364 00:22:14,920 --> 00:22:18,400 to have a bit of a chat around how you. 365 00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:22,440 Make that happen. So that's that side of it. 366 00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:30,520 And the other two H's is now. So how you might solve this 367 00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:35,280 problem in a real theoretical conceptual way might be to 368 00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:39,800 replace technology, it might be to introduce new capability and 369 00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:41,880 so on. And then the final question is 370 00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:43,560 how much? How much? 371 00:22:44,630 --> 00:22:50,830 Dollars are always good or time as well and energy or resources 372 00:22:51,590 --> 00:22:54,670 would it take in order to solve this problem. 373 00:22:55,590 --> 00:22:59,070 And if you can define that on A1 pager like the template we use 374 00:22:59,470 --> 00:23:02,510 then you have you as a BI should be able to do that. 375 00:23:03,350 --> 00:23:07,630 And for me that's more in the enterprise analysis space pre 376 00:23:07,630 --> 00:23:09,510 project and you're working with the project manager. 377 00:23:09,970 --> 00:23:14,610 And then the project manager who isn't necessarily taught and 378 00:23:14,690 --> 00:23:17,250 trained in these techniques or even the best person to have 379 00:23:17,250 --> 00:23:20,290 those conversations, you've just provided them with the outline 380 00:23:20,290 --> 00:23:25,290 of their business case. OK, so I've given a bit of a 381 00:23:25,290 --> 00:23:27,330 background about where this fits. 382 00:23:27,330 --> 00:23:30,770 This fits before projects in this enterprise analysis space, 383 00:23:30,770 --> 00:23:33,210 in the in the process space and problems. 384 00:23:33,210 --> 00:23:35,770 That's where problems are identified and that's why we do 385 00:23:35,770 --> 00:23:38,960 projects. So problems may only be 386 00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:41,840 identified at a very high level and your job as a BA. 387 00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:45,840 If you want to like get ahead and get to that senior level or 388 00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:49,480 just be a bit of senior BA, then start to define your problem 389 00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:52,160 statements effectively like I've just described.