1 00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:04,400 The Better Business Analysis Institute presence, the Better 2 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,760 Business Analysis Podcast with Benjamin Walsh. 3 00:00:12,600 --> 00:00:15,800 Hi everybody and welcome back to the Better Business Analysis 4 00:00:15,800 --> 00:00:20,240 Podcast with Benjamin Walsh. Now today on the podcast we are 5 00:00:20,240 --> 00:00:26,000 going to be talking about frustrations and I just really 6 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:29,600 want to be straight up on this podcast and let you know that as 7 00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:33,160 a BA part of your role can be quite frustrating. 8 00:00:34,560 --> 00:00:39,560 There are challenges and there are strategies and tips for 9 00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:44,120 working around these frustrations or these roadblocks 10 00:00:44,120 --> 00:00:46,160 that you will experience as a BA. 11 00:00:46,880 --> 00:00:50,840 And so I wanted to talk about navigating the trenches, the 10 12 00:00:50,840 --> 00:00:52,280 frustrations. OK. 13 00:00:52,600 --> 00:00:56,520 So we're going to go through the 10 frustrations that I've kind 14 00:00:56,520 --> 00:00:58,640 of thought of. I'm sure there are others that 15 00:00:58,640 --> 00:01:01,160 you may have experienced. I'd love to hear from you. 16 00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:04,440 We're going to go through these 10 frustrations. 17 00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:08,480 I'll give you an example, and then I'll talk about some tips 18 00:01:08,680 --> 00:01:13,200 or strategies that you can use to kind of navigate your way 19 00:01:13,480 --> 00:01:18,280 through these frustrations or the trenches of frustration. 20 00:01:18,960 --> 00:01:23,560 OK, cool. So let's dive deep into the top 21 00:01:23,560 --> 00:01:27,360 10 frustrations that ABA can experience. 22 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:33,040 And #1, it's one of my favorite. It's one that you've experienced 23 00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:35,880 even if you're not ABA, but you've worked in the IT project 24 00:01:35,880 --> 00:01:42,400 space and it's scope creep, OK? It's the ever expanding project. 25 00:01:43,360 --> 00:01:47,360 So the problem that you're experiencing is that when you've 26 00:01:47,360 --> 00:01:51,280 got scope creep is when the business and and this may be 27 00:01:51,600 --> 00:01:54,280 this is not talking about you as a business analyst, but you as 28 00:01:54,280 --> 00:01:57,720 the project or the team that's working on this. 29 00:01:57,720 --> 00:02:00,760 Sometimes it's a, it's a formal project, sometimes it's 30 00:02:00,800 --> 00:02:03,680 informal. And the problem you're 31 00:02:03,680 --> 00:02:07,560 experiencing is basically in our language, the business 32 00:02:07,560 --> 00:02:11,880 requirements are fluid and they're changing mid project. 33 00:02:13,040 --> 00:02:15,080 OK. Now if you're an Agilist, you 34 00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:17,920 might go, well that's what Agile's about, not your high 35 00:02:17,920 --> 00:02:22,560 level objectives, not the high level job to be done. 36 00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:24,600 That shouldn't be changing midway through. 37 00:02:25,560 --> 00:02:31,080 If you are totally changing your business model or the the higher 38 00:02:31,640 --> 00:02:35,920 epics and the user stories and the objectives of your project 39 00:02:36,200 --> 00:02:40,400 midway through, then you know you've got big problems. 40 00:02:40,880 --> 00:02:44,120 That is not what agile is about. Agile is about the user stories 41 00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:47,520 and about elaborating them as you go through and any details 42 00:02:47,520 --> 00:02:50,480 and and changing the sequence and working on the ones that 43 00:02:50,480 --> 00:02:53,280 have the highest value. It is not around throwing away 44 00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:56,200 the baby with the bathwater and the fact you've decided to build 45 00:02:56,240 --> 00:02:59,080 a baby, for example. Then you know you need all those 46 00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:00,600 components. You need the arms and legs and 47 00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:02,920 the head and the torso. OK. 48 00:03:02,920 --> 00:03:06,200 So if you're doing that, then you're actually pivoting or 49 00:03:06,200 --> 00:03:07,920 you're changing completely what you're doing. 50 00:03:08,160 --> 00:03:11,600 And that means the project that you have formed, if it's 51 00:03:11,600 --> 00:03:16,520 informal, if it's formal or informal, either way, the cost 52 00:03:16,520 --> 00:03:19,000 and the benefit analysis needs to be redone. 53 00:03:19,440 --> 00:03:21,680 OK. So scope creep is really 54 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:24,480 problematic because it's not something necessarily that's 55 00:03:24,480 --> 00:03:27,960 huge, it's something that can happen overnight. 56 00:03:28,280 --> 00:03:31,720 It's slowly where, you know, you get a whole bunch of user 57 00:03:31,720 --> 00:03:34,400 stories added to the backlog, and then you're working on 58 00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:38,080 what's important and the sprints and an agile team, for example. 59 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:40,280 But suddenly the backlog's getting bigger and you're like, 60 00:03:40,280 --> 00:03:43,480 whoa, and you're getting pressure from the product owner 61 00:03:43,480 --> 00:03:45,400 or the business that's now saying no. 62 00:03:45,400 --> 00:03:48,280 You have to work on these items and the sequences are the most 63 00:03:48,280 --> 00:03:53,080 important, but no one is really looking after the fact that all 64 00:03:53,080 --> 00:03:56,040 those pieces of the puzzle or the baby I talked about before 65 00:03:56,240 --> 00:04:02,360 need to be in place. So that's a problem an an 66 00:04:02,360 --> 00:04:06,320 example would be you're defining a new e-commerce platform, 67 00:04:06,520 --> 00:04:08,840 right? And then weeks later marking 68 00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:12,560 directed demands additional features that weren't discussed 69 00:04:13,400 --> 00:04:16,000 upfront. So you agreed that you're doing 70 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:19,320 an MVP for a new e-commerce platform. 71 00:04:19,320 --> 00:04:22,760 Maybe you're just implementing one like I don't know, Shopify 72 00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:26,280 or WooCommerce for example. And you know you've got those 73 00:04:26,480 --> 00:04:29,480 processes down properly about what the process is going to be, 74 00:04:29,480 --> 00:04:32,920 which is adding to CART, standard e-commerce platform 75 00:04:33,480 --> 00:04:35,800 kind of processes. You've got those epics and then 76 00:04:35,800 --> 00:04:38,560 suddenly he talks about integration with another system 77 00:04:38,560 --> 00:04:41,200 and that that's critical and that has to be done, whereas 78 00:04:41,640 --> 00:04:44,000 your team hasn't. You can add that to the backlog 79 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:46,120 and it gets pushed out. But he's saying that that is 80 00:04:46,120 --> 00:04:50,040 critical in order for this whole user journey or this job to be 81 00:04:50,040 --> 00:04:53,800 done to be, you know, to be met. But you haven't talked about 82 00:04:53,800 --> 00:04:55,880 that. You haven't planned that in and 83 00:04:55,920 --> 00:04:59,240 the amount of work to break that down would require more sprints 84 00:04:59,240 --> 00:05:01,960 than what you actually have time to do. 85 00:05:01,960 --> 00:05:04,080 So you can go, well we can do that, but we can't do the base 86 00:05:04,080 --> 00:05:06,480 functions. He's like I need both, OK, I 87 00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:09,040 need these two components and you could say they're two 88 00:05:09,040 --> 00:05:11,560 different projects. So that happens all the time. 89 00:05:12,280 --> 00:05:15,760 The impact is that you as ABA, if you're on that, you you can't 90 00:05:15,760 --> 00:05:17,800 meet expectations. It's really hard to say. 91 00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:22,520 Well the money that the whole process, the whole high level 92 00:05:22,520 --> 00:05:25,160 requirements, you gave us the epics, we've broken those down 93 00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:27,440 into stories. You know you've been involved in 94 00:05:27,440 --> 00:05:30,440 that and that's where your chunk of change is going. 95 00:05:30,680 --> 00:05:34,920 Now for us to now pivot and to then basically park what we've 96 00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:37,680 done in Sprint one and two to then introduce this new 97 00:05:37,680 --> 00:05:40,200 component for the rest of the sprints of which maybe you've 98 00:05:40,200 --> 00:05:46,560 got 12 in terms of fun, in terms in terms of time and in terms of 99 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:49,600 the people, resources and in terms of money. 100 00:05:49,600 --> 00:05:53,680 You could, you know maybe if you're looking at at that then 101 00:05:54,840 --> 00:05:57,040 we're going to spend all our time doing this integration. 102 00:05:57,040 --> 00:05:59,360 You're not going to get the base features that you've you asked 103 00:05:59,360 --> 00:06:02,360 for which apparent were your must haves to start off with. 104 00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:08,440 So that can be a real hard place to be and that really means that 105 00:06:08,440 --> 00:06:12,360 your project will continue on. So budget and timelines get 106 00:06:12,360 --> 00:06:14,840 pushed out. And even if you're working say 107 00:06:14,840 --> 00:06:17,000 like I said in an agile environment where you're adding 108 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:22,040 to a product, generally those but the budget and the time line 109 00:06:22,600 --> 00:06:25,600 in some sense the word has to be managed through product 110 00:06:25,600 --> 00:06:27,240 management or through the organization. 111 00:06:27,440 --> 00:06:30,680 No one has unlimited money to work on one product. 112 00:06:30,680 --> 00:06:32,840 OK, That just isn't the way the word works. 113 00:06:32,840 --> 00:06:36,800 Unless you're extremely focused, you're extremely focused, 114 00:06:36,800 --> 00:06:39,600 extremely well funded organization that's all about 115 00:06:39,600 --> 00:06:42,280 adding features to a product that people might not want. 116 00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:47,440 So that can happen. I mean the the real, the tips I 117 00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:51,400 can give you to kind of sort this out and this is a major 118 00:06:51,400 --> 00:06:55,960 problem everyone experiences as part of their career is to set 119 00:06:55,960 --> 00:06:58,560 expectations up front. You need to have kickoff 120 00:06:58,560 --> 00:07:01,600 meetings with all stakers. You need to define the scope of 121 00:07:01,600 --> 00:07:05,320 the project and potential limitations and we define that 122 00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:10,240 scope which is which is pre getting into the agile delivery 123 00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:14,240 framework. Use epics as a good way of 124 00:07:14,240 --> 00:07:17,720 chunking up the highest level processes and defining the 125 00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:21,640 project scope. Also acceptance criteria you 126 00:07:21,640 --> 00:07:25,760 know as part of those epics. So there isn't any ambiguity in 127 00:07:25,760 --> 00:07:30,000 terms of the fact that this e-commerce platform was supposed 128 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:34,440 to integrate with their ordering system which is a a typical 129 00:07:34,440 --> 00:07:38,160 integration and now suddenly you go well this person saying well 130 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:40,040 it has to integrate with the order system or otherwise the 131 00:07:40,040 --> 00:07:42,880 whole e-commerce project is a waste of time. 132 00:07:44,520 --> 00:07:49,360 You need to even though you are into you know scope, Creepers is 133 00:07:49,360 --> 00:07:51,480 around growth and agile is about growth. 134 00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:54,120 You need to embrace in a true agile mindset. 135 00:07:54,360 --> 00:07:58,960 You need to be prepared to adapt to changes but clearly impact. 136 00:07:59,240 --> 00:08:02,200 You know, communicate the impact on timelines and resources. 137 00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:06,440 We can do this, but the project will 00. 138 00:08:06,440 --> 00:08:08,600 I don't have that money or yes, I can seek that. 139 00:08:08,600 --> 00:08:10,400 It's not a problem. So don't. 140 00:08:10,560 --> 00:08:15,560 You've got to be really clear that your job isn't to say no. 141 00:08:15,840 --> 00:08:20,160 Your job is to define the impacts to that to a point that 142 00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:24,360 might become not very viable to do it in the 1st place. 143 00:08:25,600 --> 00:08:31,960 The next part is around just the maintenance really of the 144 00:08:31,960 --> 00:08:34,799 documentation. And when I say documentation, I 145 00:08:34,799 --> 00:08:37,679 don't mean 50,000 page specifications. 146 00:08:37,919 --> 00:08:41,440 What I mean is document every requirement, the decisions and 147 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:43,440 the changes. So the best way to do that 148 00:08:43,440 --> 00:08:46,000 without adding a whole lot of bureaucracy is to use a 149 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:50,000 requirements traceability matrix all along that that front 150 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:52,800 scoping side. And then once they've gone into 151 00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:58,440 the delivery cycle then use a tool like Jira or Azure DevOps 152 00:08:58,440 --> 00:09:03,840 or something like that to manage those requirements and record in 153 00:09:03,840 --> 00:09:06,440 the notes section or the description. 154 00:09:06,640 --> 00:09:10,680 There's usually like a little bit of a thread the changes and 155 00:09:10,680 --> 00:09:13,320 decisions that were made throughout the project. 156 00:09:13,600 --> 00:09:15,720 And if you don't, if your tool doesn't allow you to do that 157 00:09:15,720 --> 00:09:19,360 very well, then you know, link out to Word document or that 158 00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:24,160 that can or a website which or internal website that can 159 00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:27,880 document that, like Confluence. That's number one. 160 00:09:27,880 --> 00:09:34,000 Scope creep, #2 is stakeholder management. 161 00:09:34,520 --> 00:09:40,200 It's like herding cats. You generally will find the 162 00:09:40,200 --> 00:09:44,040 bigger the project you're dealing with or the bigger the 163 00:09:44,160 --> 00:09:48,200 the MO, bigger the amount of processes you're dealing with is 164 00:09:48,200 --> 00:09:51,880 that you have to deal with diverse stakeholders, OK? 165 00:09:51,880 --> 00:09:56,640 And they will have, because they might be across divisions or 166 00:09:56,640 --> 00:10:00,880 different teams, or even different one's internal, one's 167 00:10:00,880 --> 00:10:03,800 external. They will have competing 168 00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:07,160 priorities, they will have different communication styles, 169 00:10:07,520 --> 00:10:10,640 they will may have different technical understanding. 170 00:10:11,080 --> 00:10:13,600 And this is interesting. This I usually find sometimes 171 00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:18,680 when you work on projects which involved a complex solution that 172 00:10:18,680 --> 00:10:24,480 digital or the IT team start to have an unfair amount of input 173 00:10:24,520 --> 00:10:26,800 into the project. They should be talking about 174 00:10:26,800 --> 00:10:28,560 solutions. But sometimes they get involved 175 00:10:28,720 --> 00:10:31,720 also in terms of being the loudest voice in terms of the 176 00:10:31,720 --> 00:10:35,440 requirements, and you know that that can be problematic in 177 00:10:35,440 --> 00:10:37,560 itself. So how do you manage that? 178 00:10:37,560 --> 00:10:40,200 How do you tell digital just to hold off for a second and not 179 00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:42,840 get involved too early? How do you actually get the 180 00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:46,440 stakeholders you want to listen to, to communicate So they've 181 00:10:46,440 --> 00:10:49,240 got the the most valuable requirements for example, or 182 00:10:49,240 --> 00:10:52,600 they are the people you need to speak to to ascertain what how 183 00:10:52,600 --> 00:10:56,480 this logic might work. And when I say logic might work, 184 00:10:56,480 --> 00:10:59,320 your job as ABA is to make sure things are logical and that the 185 00:10:59,320 --> 00:11:02,960 pieces, like I said before, that the sum of the parts you know 186 00:11:03,160 --> 00:11:06,400 add up to something. OK, to add up to the ultimate 187 00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:11,800 goal here with stakeholder management, you know you should 188 00:11:11,880 --> 00:11:15,200 know who your stakeholders are. It is worth putting it into a 189 00:11:15,200 --> 00:11:18,840 spreadsheet or into like some kind of documentation so you 190 00:11:18,840 --> 00:11:22,760 know who they are. Not doing things like races, you 191 00:11:22,760 --> 00:11:27,000 know, knowing who, Definitely knowing who your your product 192 00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:29,840 owner is or the business owner if you change. 193 00:11:30,520 --> 00:11:33,760 Understanding who the players are within the project and 194 00:11:33,760 --> 00:11:35,920 understanding who the SME's are. And I think you need to 195 00:11:35,920 --> 00:11:39,000 understand that at a minimum, but it is worth knowing who 196 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:43,760 your, who your customers are and the true sense of different 197 00:11:43,760 --> 00:11:47,040 divisions and what impact what ownership do they have. 198 00:11:47,400 --> 00:11:51,920 And again you can use processes or process owners to associate 199 00:11:52,280 --> 00:11:54,200 ownership. So you say this process is owned 200 00:11:54,200 --> 00:11:57,640 by this division, that division is run by, you know Karen for 201 00:11:57,640 --> 00:11:59,520 example, the other one's run by Stew. 202 00:11:59,800 --> 00:12:05,080 So they've got, they do have interest, they are a stakeholder 203 00:12:05,080 --> 00:12:08,520 in this project because they're process owners. 204 00:12:08,520 --> 00:12:11,760 You can talk to them and maybe they can get delegates and you 205 00:12:11,760 --> 00:12:13,400 can say hello, we're impacting you. 206 00:12:13,400 --> 00:12:15,600 You're going to be impacted by this change. 207 00:12:15,880 --> 00:12:20,920 We want to, we want to talk to you about your piece in the 208 00:12:20,920 --> 00:12:23,320 puzzle. But in that example where you're 209 00:12:23,320 --> 00:12:26,360 talking to both Karen about her process and Stu about his 210 00:12:26,360 --> 00:12:29,960 process, and they might be two pieces of the puzzle. 211 00:12:29,960 --> 00:12:34,640 As I said before, you know, Karen might have opinions about 212 00:12:34,640 --> 00:12:38,240 Stew's process and vice versa. But at the end of the day, 213 00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:41,880 you're trying to get that person who owns and the people from 214 00:12:41,880 --> 00:12:45,160 those team that own that process to talk about their piece of the 215 00:12:45,160 --> 00:12:46,440 puzzle. And that's who you should be 216 00:12:46,440 --> 00:12:52,040 listening to the most. An example here would be you're 217 00:12:52,040 --> 00:12:58,280 juggling the demands of say like a tech savvy CEO who wants 218 00:12:58,280 --> 00:13:01,240 cutting edge edge features, right? 219 00:13:01,400 --> 00:13:03,920 And then on the other side, you're actually stuck in 220 00:13:03,920 --> 00:13:07,800 between, say the compliance officer or the compliance team 221 00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:10,120 who's really focused on security. 222 00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:13,520 So that can happen quite a lot. There's things like you've got 223 00:13:13,520 --> 00:13:16,960 certification, there's something that's like or the privacy team, 224 00:13:16,960 --> 00:13:19,840 it's quite hot at the moment, privacy officers and security 225 00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:22,360 acts. I actually went to a Microsoft 226 00:13:22,520 --> 00:13:26,040 presentation today talking about this topic, and there's the 227 00:13:26,040 --> 00:13:30,960 example where you know from a security point of view, you 228 00:13:30,960 --> 00:13:34,440 could be really careful about feeding personal information 229 00:13:34,440 --> 00:13:36,840 into AI tools. For example, right? 230 00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:39,920 If you ask an AI tool and you connect it Copilot. 231 00:13:39,920 --> 00:13:42,960 Microsoft Copilot as an example, it integrates with Office. 232 00:13:43,280 --> 00:13:45,120 If you ask IT information, it will give you all the 233 00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:49,400 information you want from your, you know, from all the 234 00:13:49,400 --> 00:13:51,680 information on the network potentially, if you've tuned it 235 00:13:51,680 --> 00:13:53,480 that way and allowed those features. 236 00:13:53,680 --> 00:13:57,440 Now that's hugely powerful and the benefits might outweigh the 237 00:13:57,440 --> 00:13:59,920 risk. But what you don't want to do is 238 00:13:59,920 --> 00:14:04,040 be using the public version of that copilot to share public 239 00:14:04,040 --> 00:14:07,720 information, for example, which happens at ChatGPT by default. 240 00:14:08,400 --> 00:14:13,680 Now the IT manager or the CIO might go well. 241 00:14:13,800 --> 00:14:17,040 I want my people using AI now because, you know, I've seen 242 00:14:17,040 --> 00:14:21,320 that our procurement documents aren't as written as 243 00:14:21,320 --> 00:14:23,600 consistently as they could be. We want to use AI tools. 244 00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:25,120 It's pretty easy. I've done it at home. 245 00:14:25,320 --> 00:14:26,720 Let's do it. That's great. 246 00:14:26,920 --> 00:14:29,120 But then you might have to weigh up the fact that you want a 247 00:14:29,120 --> 00:14:34,440 private kind of check GBT, which stops your information from 248 00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:38,720 going outside the network. And so you need to manage the 249 00:14:38,720 --> 00:14:41,720 risk profile of that and talk about that between those two 250 00:14:41,720 --> 00:14:47,680 stakeholders. Another kind of way of dealing 251 00:14:47,760 --> 00:14:51,800 with or what an impact of dealing with different 252 00:14:51,800 --> 00:14:55,880 stakeholders can do is it can be quite difficult, like I said 253 00:14:55,880 --> 00:14:59,400 before, gathering accurate requirements, right? 254 00:14:59,400 --> 00:15:02,080 Who, Who? Which requirements are the most 255 00:15:02,080 --> 00:15:07,480 important? OK, how do you address concerns 256 00:15:07,480 --> 00:15:09,640 effectively? Is everyone aligned with the 257 00:15:09,640 --> 00:15:11,960 goals? And so by using some of the 258 00:15:11,960 --> 00:15:14,200 techniques that we cover at the bit of Business Analysis 259 00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:17,800 Institute about, you know, process driven, the full PS 260 00:15:18,280 --> 00:15:22,800 using epics, allocating owners to those epics which may be 261 00:15:22,800 --> 00:15:27,320 across business units. That helps with making sure you 262 00:15:27,320 --> 00:15:32,760 know which requirements more a priority than others. 263 00:15:32,880 --> 00:15:35,400 And ultimately you can, you know, there's talk around just 264 00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:39,000 asking the the product owner, they're ultimately making the 265 00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:41,960 decision, but they need to make an informed decision and your 266 00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:44,560 job as ABA is to give them techniques for doing that. 267 00:15:45,680 --> 00:15:48,640 Some tips and strategies for dealing with hooting cats or 268 00:15:48,640 --> 00:15:52,520 stakeholder management is play close attention to stakeholder 269 00:15:52,520 --> 00:15:54,960 concerns. I think their concerns and their 270 00:15:54,960 --> 00:15:58,640 pain points and their problems are way more important then 271 00:15:58,640 --> 00:16:01,160 their solutions. So you need to get them to sort 272 00:16:01,160 --> 00:16:04,040 about their problems and their pain points not their solutions 273 00:16:04,200 --> 00:16:07,240 and tailor your communication accordingly to their level. 274 00:16:08,760 --> 00:16:12,040 Make sure that when you're doing the list of stakeholders you're 275 00:16:12,040 --> 00:16:14,680 doing some kind of mapping, stakeholder mapping we call it 276 00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:17,520 where you know who the key decisions makers are, who their 277 00:16:17,520 --> 00:16:20,520 influencers are and what impact they might have on the project. 278 00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:23,280 I've I've been involved in projects before where we've 279 00:16:23,280 --> 00:16:25,920 actually done a bit of a internal scale, like a really 280 00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:29,200 quite a secret scale of like who might be a detractor from this, 281 00:16:29,560 --> 00:16:32,280 who's got some political interest in not seeing this 282 00:16:32,280 --> 00:16:34,400 project succeed. Like there are literally those 283 00:16:34,400 --> 00:16:37,120 conversations you might have. Be very careful about how you do 284 00:16:37,120 --> 00:16:39,320 that. That could be career limiting. 285 00:16:39,320 --> 00:16:42,960 But you can have offline conversations across coffee and 286 00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:45,880 you do need to think about how you manage those stakeholders. 287 00:16:45,880 --> 00:16:49,200 That's where great change and PR people can help. 288 00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:53,920 When you facilitating workshops can help here too. 289 00:16:54,440 --> 00:16:57,880 You need to manage those, well, workshops and not just getting 290 00:16:57,880 --> 00:17:01,440 everyone into the room. Group discussions can foster 291 00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:03,240 communication and open communication. 292 00:17:03,240 --> 00:17:07,440 And so I think by grouping by using like voting group 293 00:17:07,680 --> 00:17:11,000 mentality on voting, getting people to work at individual 294 00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:13,520 level and then putting cards together and then getting them 295 00:17:13,520 --> 00:17:16,800 to vote and then group ideas together can be a really good 296 00:17:16,800 --> 00:17:20,520 way of using kind of democracy to manage difficult 297 00:17:20,520 --> 00:17:23,319 stakeholders. So that's you know, I can do a 298 00:17:23,319 --> 00:17:26,079 whole podcast topic on that, but I think it's there are some 299 00:17:26,079 --> 00:17:29,960 great techniques for managing stakeholders, especially through 300 00:17:30,520 --> 00:17:34,680 the democratic process. So for example, if you've got 301 00:17:35,120 --> 00:17:38,400 two people who are like NASA as they're going to take you on a 302 00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:41,280 journey, maybe take another three people to the meeting and 303 00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:46,280 get them to have just as much time or equal time to talk about 304 00:17:46,560 --> 00:17:52,960 The positives about maybe what you're trying to achieve #3 are 305 00:17:53,080 --> 00:17:55,960 unclear requirements working in the fog. 306 00:17:56,400 --> 00:18:00,520 Now you're not going to completely deal with this 307 00:18:00,520 --> 00:18:03,160 problem. This is just a general ongoing 308 00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:05,640 problem that ABA has. So I would say it's a 309 00:18:05,640 --> 00:18:08,960 frustration, but it's equally just part of the job. 310 00:18:09,360 --> 00:18:13,040 Now the problem example I'll give you here is when you 311 00:18:13,040 --> 00:18:16,680 receive incomplete or really ambiguous requirements from 312 00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:20,040 stakeholders. OK, so an example might be ABA 313 00:18:20,040 --> 00:18:23,560 has tasked with building a new data analytics dashboard. 314 00:18:23,560 --> 00:18:24,720 This is pretty common at the moment. 315 00:18:24,720 --> 00:18:27,080 You know, build me a Power BI dashboard or a tabular 316 00:18:27,480 --> 00:18:31,440 dashboard, your stakeholder doesn't give you the data 317 00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:34,040 points. So for example, it's there's a 318 00:18:34,040 --> 00:18:36,720 hot topic in New Zealand at the moment for politicians, which is 319 00:18:36,720 --> 00:18:39,000 route attendance, school attendance. 320 00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:42,640 And I happen to be helping one of the government departments 321 00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:46,200 with that problem. Now they want daily attendance 322 00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:48,800 to be reported. Now let's say if the minister in 323 00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:51,920 charge of that particular request said, look, I just want 324 00:18:52,120 --> 00:18:55,400 to see graphs on daily attendance, but they didn't say 325 00:18:55,840 --> 00:18:58,320 what they meant by that. They didn't say, you know, they 326 00:18:58,320 --> 00:19:01,120 wanted to see it by school or region, but they didn't want to 327 00:19:01,120 --> 00:19:06,320 show individual data or they didn't want to show ethnicity on 328 00:19:06,560 --> 00:19:09,440 the on the graph. Sometimes what they don't want 329 00:19:09,440 --> 00:19:11,920 to show is just as important as what they do want to show. 330 00:19:12,200 --> 00:19:15,600 And so by actually not having a true specification or even a 331 00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:18,520 mock up of that, it's really difficult to know what to 332 00:19:18,520 --> 00:19:21,360 include in the report. And of course when someone tells 333 00:19:21,360 --> 00:19:26,600 you this is this is the old kind of red T-shirt example where 334 00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:29,560 someone goes into a shop and goes, oh, I really like to have 335 00:19:29,560 --> 00:19:31,600 a red top. And then the, you know, there's 336 00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:34,920 maybe a shop full of 300 different types of red tops and 337 00:19:34,920 --> 00:19:37,080 you just go through them one by one until you find them a top 338 00:19:37,080 --> 00:19:38,920 that they might want or they don't like it. 339 00:19:38,920 --> 00:19:41,360 It's not quite right. All the rest of it, it's the 340 00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:44,600 Goldilocks situation. Too hot, too cold, just right. 341 00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:48,560 It is not an efficient way of doing business analysis. 342 00:19:48,560 --> 00:19:52,960 So if you you can't just go. If you don't give us really 343 00:19:52,960 --> 00:19:56,920 clear, unambiguous requirements about what you want, then of 344 00:19:56,920 --> 00:20:00,440 course we can come up with 50,000 solutions and they may 345 00:20:00,440 --> 00:20:04,360 not ever meet your expectations about what you want. 346 00:20:05,240 --> 00:20:08,120 So that's an example. And and the the the impact of 347 00:20:08,120 --> 00:20:12,000 having these incomplete or unclear requirements is there's 348 00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:14,280 extra effort required to clarify those. 349 00:20:14,640 --> 00:20:16,560 Through extensive back and forth. 350 00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:19,200 Like I said, you know, there's this T-shirt, this T-shirt, this 351 00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:22,880 and T-shirt potentially leading to rework and delays. 352 00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:25,840 And you sometimes that becomes worse when we start talking 353 00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:28,280 about solutions instead of going, well, what are you trying 354 00:20:28,280 --> 00:20:30,520 to achieve? And the answer is, well, you 355 00:20:30,520 --> 00:20:32,720 know, I really want a a red T-shirt. 356 00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:34,280 It's like, why do you want a red T-shirt? 357 00:20:34,280 --> 00:20:36,760 Well, I'm actually going to a fancy dress party and I need the 358 00:20:36,760 --> 00:20:39,200 red T-shirt to go with the white pants. 359 00:20:39,200 --> 00:20:42,160 So I look like a certain character and it's like, oh OK, 360 00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:46,600 I I get ya. So I've got more clarity on you. 361 00:20:46,600 --> 00:20:50,640 So I'm going to go over to the kind of fancy dress, red T-shirt 362 00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:52,480 area or whatever the case may be. 363 00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:56,200 So that is the importance. You can't deal with unclear 364 00:20:56,200 --> 00:20:58,120 requirements. So if they are unclear, they 365 00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:02,400 should never ever ever ever get down to the delivery level. 366 00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:03,800 That's just a waste of their time. 367 00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:06,000 Don't be. Don't cop out by just making it 368 00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:08,360 someone else's problem and then getting the development team, 369 00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:12,360 which is the well oiled machine to waste any resources making 370 00:21:12,360 --> 00:21:15,400 and manufacturing something that isn't clear. 371 00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:21,800 Now the tips for dealing with unclear requirements are around 372 00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:24,680 using user stories. Of course, using use case 373 00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:28,400 diagrams, interviewing techniques, and elicitating 374 00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:31,440 clear requirements. This is easier said than done, 375 00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:36,160 but you can do better elicitation of requirements by 376 00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:39,400 probing questions, asking specific details from 377 00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:41,040 stakeholders. What do you mean by that? 378 00:21:41,560 --> 00:21:46,000 Focusing on problems like I said, not solutions, and using 379 00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:48,960 feeble of visual use process diagrams. 380 00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:53,320 Use mural boards. Use lo fi prototypes to 381 00:21:53,320 --> 00:21:57,320 represent the solution or context and then provide 382 00:21:57,320 --> 00:21:59,000 feedback on it so I can work on it. 383 00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:02,040 Gives them to draw a picture of the solution. 384 00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:05,440 That's a really good technique. OK, so there are ways of 385 00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:08,760 unpacking and making requirements clearer now. 386 00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:12,000 Sometimes just don't get confused between unclear 387 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:14,360 requirements and big requirements. 388 00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:19,120 OK, so something is big and needs to be broken down into its 389 00:22:19,120 --> 00:22:22,000 components. So epic to user story, and even 390 00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:26,200 user stories can break into, can evolve into other user stories. 391 00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:28,480 And we didn't call them child user stories, but they do 392 00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:31,560 effectively evolve into a series of user stories from 1:00. 393 00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:37,360 So and don't be don't make sure you know the difference between 394 00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:40,760 unclear requirements and just a requirement that needs to be 395 00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:42,880 broken down. And sometimes breaking down 396 00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:46,600 those requirements into smaller pieces makes it easier for you 397 00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:51,960 to then define them. OK #4 Lack of recognition, the 398 00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:58,040 invisible hand. So B as sometimes feel that 399 00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:04,600 their Critical role role in a project goes unnoticed or 400 00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:07,320 unappreciated. And I, if you're not a BAI, 401 00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:09,680 really need to make this clear. I think I've kind of touched on 402 00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:14,360 it before. No one becomes ABA to get a 403 00:23:14,360 --> 00:23:17,920 medal. At the end of the day, OK, we 404 00:23:17,920 --> 00:23:24,400 are not in the our job is difficult and you usually get 405 00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:28,680 paid well for that. But what you don't get is 406 00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:31,880 generally other recognition. So if you one, if you're one of 407 00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:36,640 those people that really thrives on being singled out and getting 408 00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:40,400 a medal at the end of the day and I'm I'm I'm actually trying 409 00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:45,880 to There are lots of people that are successful because they get 410 00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:50,560 rewarded in a way which you know either it's promoted self 411 00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:54,280 promotion or in front of a group and people go man Daniel did a 412 00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:58,560 great job today. That kind of environment and 413 00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:02,200 that kind of reward which is really really important to some 414 00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:04,960 people like and and partially important to others. 415 00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:09,120 I think all of us want some recognition that you know 416 00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:14,040 situation you might get from like a sales team where you know 417 00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:16,480 they make a sale and they ring a bell and they go out for dinner 418 00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:20,280 and celebrate success or maybe something that maybe a project 419 00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:24,120 manager might get. Or maybe it's a situation where 420 00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:27,720 if it's not sales like you're really you're giving directly 421 00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:31,440 back to an end customer by like donating money to them. 422 00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:36,080 Whatever the case may be B as don't generally get that just 423 00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:40,200 want to be really straight up. OK, so you might spend months 424 00:24:40,360 --> 00:24:43,520 meticulously gathering requirements, crafting user 425 00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:48,600 stories, working with customers, and at the end of the day, they 426 00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:50,760 might. The CEO will most likely say, 427 00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:54,840 man, the development team really smashed out this great 428 00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:58,200 e-commerce platform. No mention of you. 429 00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:00,600 OK? And you might say, well, I'm 430 00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:01,960 part of the development team. That's fine. 431 00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:06,960 So that can lead to feelings of demotivation or undervalued. 432 00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:09,600 It can make some people even move on. 433 00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:14,600 Now I think that the way to deal with that is one, except that 434 00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:18,680 that's the type of role you're in, and two, be really your 435 00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:20,720 project manager, your program manager. 436 00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:24,720 Your team as a collective should be proactively sharing product 437 00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:27,640 project updates with stake items. 438 00:25:28,360 --> 00:25:32,360 You should be highlighting the work that you've done on the on 439 00:25:32,360 --> 00:25:38,800 the project outcome. You should track the kind of you 440 00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:42,040 should think about the time you saved, think about the positive 441 00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:47,960 feedback you got, which around the demo of the product, You're 442 00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:51,640 all part of that. So get your joy from some of 443 00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:57,160 those other data points and make sure that one of the things we 444 00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:01,560 need to do as ABA is we do need to promote and advocate for BA. 445 00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:04,520 The reason I do this podcast and the reason I'm involved in the 446 00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:08,000 institute and the reason I've, you know, been team leader, so 447 00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:10,440 lots of BA teams that I continue to coach people. 448 00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:14,080 It's not for the money, trust me, OK, it's not. 449 00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,440 Obviously I've got money as ABA manager, but all my other stuff 450 00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:21,080 generally covers this cost. The reason I do it is because I 451 00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:24,400 really believe that business analysis as a profession makes a 452 00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:27,960 difference when done well, when it's better, OK? 453 00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:32,120 And you, we need to advocate for BAS as a profession. 454 00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:34,520 So Fbas aren't getting recognition. 455 00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:36,960 And if the development team's getting all the recognition or 456 00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:41,480 the architect's getting recognition, then you also need 457 00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:45,080 to kind of make it really clear, maybe not for yourself, but 458 00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:47,400 maybe do it for a colleague and go, well, actually look, 459 00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:50,720 Samantha did a fantastic job getting those requirements 460 00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:53,320 through a whole lot of processes, whole lot of 461 00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:56,680 different stakeholders. It's really difficult work to 462 00:26:56,680 --> 00:27:00,160 wrangle those cats, you know to manage those stakeholders to 463 00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:07,320 keep the scope on track in order to you know get this project off 464 00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:10,080 the ground that there have been 5 attempts of doing this project 465 00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:12,920 previously and man, Samantha really smashed it out. 466 00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:17,040 The way that she was able to take all of that information and 467 00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:20,480 synthesize it into a summary which we finally got to get 468 00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:23,240 bring over to our development team who also did a fantastic 469 00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:27,320 job was amazing and and we should recognize her for that. 470 00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:31,560 You know and and you know even buying a cup of coffee or a pat 471 00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:33,480 on the back you know can sometimes be enough. 472 00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:40,360 So make sure you as ABA also promoting BA as a profession and 473 00:27:40,360 --> 00:27:43,960 but also like I said at the start of this kind of point, it 474 00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,680 isn't a full of recognition. You're not a sports 475 00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,320 unfortunately you are a sports player on the team, but it's 476 00:27:51,360 --> 00:27:53,720 you're not going to get the same recognition as like your 477 00:27:53,760 --> 00:28:00,000 favorite sports team. Winning you know a World Cup #5 478 00:28:00,120 --> 00:28:04,720 is something I've experienced a lot actually in New Zealand more 479 00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:08,600 than anywhere else. And this comes down to the last 480 00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:11,440 point around the fact that sometimes B As just aren't 481 00:28:12,360 --> 00:28:15,600 acknowledged and and part of that reason is the fact is there 482 00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,280 are some really bad B as out there who just aren't doing a 483 00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:20,680 great job or aren't keeping up with their learning. 484 00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:25,200 Same as PM, same as any IT professional and you know and so 485 00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:30,640 some of those people and and the circles that I work with you 486 00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:34,760 know can do just as much harm that that then they can do good. 487 00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:37,880 So ideally you're working on the good side of actually making a 488 00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:41,080 difference here. And So what that can lead to, 489 00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:46,280 and this can also happen because people really want output, is 490 00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,400 you can end up with a situation where if you're working with an 491 00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:54,760 solution architect that they can kind of disregard the 492 00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:59,640 requirements process and dictate technical solutions without your 493 00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:01,840 involvement. I've seen this happen many a 494 00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:07,160 time, even with great architects I I respect and I love and it 495 00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:09,560 happens a lot. All they said is a means to an 496 00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:11,240 end. So it's minimized, the time to 497 00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:14,960 do the requirements capture is minimized and there's a lot of 498 00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:16,760 more time doing the solution side. 499 00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,800 And actually it's built on a false premise because we haven't 500 00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:21,920 actually worked out what our customers want. 501 00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:25,120 So you know, there should be at least equal time there to do 502 00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:27,360 things. An example would be an architect 503 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,560 starts building a new system based on assumptions and then 504 00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:32,680 you have to do retrospective requirements. 505 00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:35,560 And what actually happens is once you do that, you find 506 00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:38,680 there's a big gap between the business need, the actual 507 00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:41,080 problems you're trying to solve and what they've already put 508 00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:43,720 into place where they've got a predefined idea. 509 00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:46,880 It happens all the time. Architects on average are paid 510 00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:50,320 more and they sometimes have better seats at the table. 511 00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:52,840 And This is why I have a cave for enterprise. 512 00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:56,840 Basi talk about Basi don't talk about business architects as 513 00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,680 much. It's because BA is a profession 514 00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:01,880 and it needs to step up or it's not going to. 515 00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:04,320 It's going to be at the kiddie table and it's not going to be 516 00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:06,960 at the adult table with the architects and with the CTO. 517 00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:10,120 We need to do a better job as BAS to make sure this doesn't 518 00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:12,160 happen and call it out when it does. 519 00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:16,640 When you're bypassed by design, OK, and this can the impact. 520 00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:21,280 It means rework, it means delays, it means that a solution 521 00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,480 is in, but it doesn't meet user expectations and everyone might 522 00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,560 clap and and celebrate that. And then of course, three or two 523 00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:29,520 years down the track, no one's using the solution. 524 00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:34,280 The key to dealing with this is around collaboration. 525 00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:37,600 Foster, open, communicate communication with architects 526 00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:40,840 from the outset. Share your requirements as you 527 00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:43,720 go. They may want to start working 528 00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:47,640 in parallel and that is fine. It's not a waterfall situation. 529 00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:51,560 Be involved in discussions. Listen to their ideas. 530 00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:54,960 They do no solutions. They are involved in the non 531 00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,000 functionals. They they're experts in the non 532 00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:58,920 functionals. I would say architects in some 533 00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:01,920 ways are non functional requirements so you know you'll 534 00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:03,560 have a good idea about what they are. 535 00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:06,560 It's a circular conversation. If they know that some of these 536 00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:09,200 requirements and say you've defined them to a level in which 537 00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:13,400 they can be understood are going to be really impossible, then 538 00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:16,240 maybe get them to do an early response to those requirements 539 00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:17,800 so you can talk to your product owner. 540 00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:21,440 Just online items which might be really expensive, so they can 541 00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:25,040 help provide more clarity to the requirement which is your job. 542 00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:29,320 And you can communicate that to the product owner and you can 543 00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:32,040 have a conversation about the fact that this requirement might 544 00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:35,400 be too big or too expensive and we may need to break those down. 545 00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:40,320 You need to escalate to your project managers and senior 546 00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:44,240 stakeholders if your concerns are not addressed. 547 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:48,320 OK, you need to raise this. It's really hard to do, but 548 00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:52,920 ultimately you need your PM should be managing you the two 549 00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:57,760 sides of the coin and it's a bit like a a fighting mum and dad. 550 00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:02,120 Architects and BAS do have conflict most of the time. 551 00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:06,920 That conflict should be healthy. It should be healthy between you 552 00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:10,640 managing both requirements, advocates for the requirement 553 00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:14,000 true and proper, and that advocates for what's possible 554 00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:16,480 and what the solution is and ultimately how much it's going 555 00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:18,360 to cost. Because ultimately most of the 556 00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:20,280 cost comes from the solution itself. 557 00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:22,840 Now those you should have battles. 558 00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:26,440 Here I I had a conversation actually yesterday with an 559 00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:27,680 architect. I was a little bit nervous 560 00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:30,480 beforehand and we were talking about a couple of options. 561 00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:34,920 Now I sometimes you dip into solution mode right as ABA and I 562 00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:38,960 hate stepping on having my toes stepped on by an architect and 563 00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:43,040 I'm sure the same happens the other way, but I had looked 564 00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:45,880 through at a couple of solutions which was keep using a paid 565 00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:48,480 solution. So basically a do nothing 566 00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:51,720 solution. The example of ours using quite 567 00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:57,760 a simple solution, which wasn't the best practice architecture, 568 00:32:57,760 --> 00:32:59,960 but it wasn't particularly bad architecture. 569 00:32:59,960 --> 00:33:04,120 It just was a more simplified way of sealing solving a problem 570 00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:06,080 we had. And the third option was 571 00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:09,440 probably the most, you know, the best architected solution which 572 00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:13,440 will be scalable and would you know, be strategic and all those 573 00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:16,000 good things that we should be thinking about and advocating 574 00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:18,200 for. And I was worried that the 575 00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:21,480 architect would disregard the second option which is more 576 00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:26,280 tactical and look at the just the more complex answer. 577 00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:29,120 And that generally sometimes happens when you know you get 578 00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:32,240 people that are you get this with BAS as well as architects. 579 00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:35,400 Whereas an architect sometimes you see it on Grand Designs or 580 00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:37,960 one of these building shows where the architect you know it 581 00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:42,720 has to be at a 35° angle so that you know and the window has to 582 00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:45,240 be perfectly here or otherwise you won't optimize the sunlight. 583 00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:47,960 But then when the building gets in, you know, they, they, they 584 00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:51,680 make changes. And so in the same situation, 585 00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:53,600 BAS can be the same. They can say the requirement 586 00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:56,880 says us and there aren't going to be no changes and we're not 587 00:33:56,880 --> 00:33:58,640 going to negotiate. You know what I mean? 588 00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:01,960 We're not going to negotiate with you architect terrorists 589 00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:04,760 for example. But no, it's the opposite. 590 00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:07,560 We should be negotiating and we should be talking on solutions 591 00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:09,239 here. We should be walking back and 592 00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:12,600 forth and collaborating. And in that example I talked 593 00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:16,639 about that, you know my experience working with lots of 594 00:34:16,639 --> 00:34:18,800 architects got me to that position. 595 00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,280 But this particular architect was like, well it totally makes 596 00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,239 sense why we should go with the second solution which is less 597 00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:26,920 complicated because actually we end up in a similar place 598 00:34:27,199 --> 00:34:31,000 ultimately And we had a value conversation which was a really 599 00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:35,520 nice conversation to have. You do need to with with the 600 00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:40,080 architect to take over is make sure that you are have working 601 00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:41,719 and communicating at the same level. 602 00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:44,440 And for me, architects are very good at looking at them bigger 603 00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:47,440 picture. So you as ABA need to look at 604 00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:50,600 the bigger picture too. You need to think about how your 605 00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:57,440 requirements and how it benefits the kind of whole, OK architects 606 00:34:57,440 --> 00:34:59,480 are really good looking the whole house, and you might be 607 00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:01,520 looking at 1:00 room. So you need to be talking about 608 00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:04,800 and advocating with architects and talking about it at the 609 00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:07,840 level they're discussing, which might be the whole solution or 610 00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:10,880 the whole house. They're just some tips. 611 00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:13,440 It's not an easy one to deal with and I'm going to move on to 612 00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:17,720 #6. Frustration #6 is around limited 613 00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:21,240 customer interaction, so you've got a disconnect from end users. 614 00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,840 This can happen quite a lot. So this is where B AS are 615 00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:30,600 restricted from directly into like interacting really with 616 00:35:30,600 --> 00:35:33,600 customers. Now sometimes it's internal and 617 00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:36,080 you can't talk to the end user. That seems ridiculous. 618 00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:38,600 I think if if you're in a company where you're BA where 619 00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:42,680 you can't talk to end users in the company, you're not allowed 620 00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:44,720 to talk to them. You'd need to ask why. 621 00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:47,320 Now there might be a product owner and it might be around 622 00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:50,480 roles and responsibilities. And if that's the case, I still 623 00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:54,600 think ABA, if you're doing true proper BA, you should be talking 624 00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:59,920 to these end customers. Sometimes though, if you are 625 00:35:59,920 --> 00:36:03,880 talking about actual customers of your business, there can be 626 00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:07,520 some difficulties there with talking to customers because of 627 00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:10,800 maybe cost, maybe just getting them involved, maybe timing. 628 00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:13,480 None of them are really good reasons for this. 629 00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:17,240 I think you should be talking to the actual person who gets value 630 00:36:17,240 --> 00:36:19,240 out of this, like the end customer. 631 00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:27,480 But what you might find is you have customer advocacy teams who 632 00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:29,800 have got stats on it, so you might have to use it as a 633 00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:33,960 conduit. What the problem is when you 634 00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:37,520 can't talk to your end customer, not talk about the end customer, 635 00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:39,640 not end user. If you can't talk to end user, I 636 00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:41,760 think you should really consider if you're in the right 637 00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:44,280 organization because you can't really do BA properly. 638 00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:47,720 But I do see cases, and I've been in situations where I 639 00:36:47,720 --> 00:36:50,080 haven't been able to spend a large amount of time with the 640 00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:54,400 actual, you know, end recipient of maybe a public service. 641 00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:57,200 OK, they just haven't got the money, time and resources to 642 00:36:57,200 --> 00:36:58,960 talk to those people. That sucks. 643 00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:02,640 But they might have marketing companies or customer 644 00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:04,920 interaction companies and they've they've interviewed them 645 00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:08,720 and we will have to work on those kind of as a different way 646 00:37:08,720 --> 00:37:11,440 of elicitating requirements from them. 647 00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:14,280 So I mean obviously there's a difficulty there. 648 00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:17,480 The impact means that there's difficulty in gathering genuine 649 00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:21,360 customer insights and specific needs around specific questions. 650 00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:26,240 It means you could miss the mark and fail to address like really 651 00:37:26,240 --> 00:37:29,880 core pain points in the job to be done or the user journey. 652 00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:35,720 What I would suggest is you know can you can you conduct surveys 653 00:37:35,720 --> 00:37:39,400 or user interviews? Are you able to use kind of 654 00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:42,720 usability testing maybe to if you had an existing product? 655 00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:46,640 Are you able to give the research company that's talking 656 00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:49,000 to these customers a set of questions or at least review 657 00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:52,600 them? Ask if you can partner with user 658 00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:55,440 experience professionals. So like UX designers and 659 00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,200 researchers who specialize in user behavior and experience. 660 00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:03,280 So even if you're not been able to attack and attack in a good 661 00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:08,240 way the you know full range of your personas that are in scope 662 00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:11,800 then or representations of real people that represent those 663 00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:16,440 personas, then maybe you can get some advice from UX designers 664 00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:19,120 who have dealt with different segments that are similar. 665 00:38:20,240 --> 00:38:23,640 Make sure that you can like maybe look at support tickets, 666 00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:27,600 chat history, social media feedback, looking for areas of 667 00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:29,600 improvement, especially if you're working on a product. 668 00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:33,200 So it's not an easy one. I like I said if you're not 669 00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:37,480 talking to end users that that is a political problem and 670 00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:39,880 that's something that I I would have struggled to work with. 671 00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:44,600 But you may need to use cus customer research if you can't 672 00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:46,960 directly talk to your customers all the time. 673 00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:50,960 And of course talking to friends and families is is always 674 00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:53,040 biased. So you really need to talk to 675 00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:54,760 end customers if you've got to do this properly. 676 00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:59,120 And then you know no, there's a margin of error by looking at 677 00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:03,880 this information or it's not going to be specific enough, #7 678 00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,240 is just requirements not taken seriously, OK? 679 00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:13,760 So this can happen where you've worked really hard to gather 680 00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:16,640 requirements, work across stakeholders, and then they're 681 00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:19,880 downplayed or disregarded by stakeholders. 682 00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:25,720 OK, So that can give you a sense of discouragement, you don't 683 00:39:25,720 --> 00:39:30,160 feel valued, decrease, you know, in motivation or just feeling 684 00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:32,040 like there's some games being played. 685 00:39:32,720 --> 00:39:35,760 So sometimes you need the requirements won't just come 686 00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:38,080 from your stakeholders, they might come from the data and 687 00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:41,200 metrics. So you need to be really clear 688 00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:44,960 about where the requirements came from and maybe advocate for 689 00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:47,600 them. So like I said, BAS work in 690 00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:51,160 logic and stakeholder might not realize that there needs to be a 691 00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:54,600 requirement in order for this whole flow to work and so 692 00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:58,560 provide data for it. Actively involve those 693 00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:01,720 stakeholders in the process and maybe talk about those. 694 00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:05,920 Ultimately, you're not generally generating requirements, but 695 00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:10,080 your job is to make sure that the end to end process or or 696 00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:13,800 problem is solved. And sometimes requirements just 697 00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:17,480 naturally pop out and all you're doing is facilitating that and 698 00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:20,640 doc and talking about that to the product owner for example, 699 00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,360 because it needs to happen. So you need to make them aware 700 00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:26,880 of it and you need to highlight the bigger picture. 701 00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:32,000 So requirements like not being taken seriously or disregarded 702 00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:33,520 down. The fact does happen, and it's a 703 00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:38,040 bit like the architect example I gave above or the development 704 00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:40,600 team, just, you know, not reading the requirements and 705 00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:42,680 going ahead on doing doing your own thing. 706 00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:46,160 You need to call that early. And in a situation you know 707 00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:49,200 effectively, if your requirements are not taken 708 00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:52,840 seriously or as a collective as a whole and you've just been 709 00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:55,480 asked to do this work, you need to say this was a waste of my 710 00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:57,160 time and my energy. If you're just going to 711 00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:00,440 disregard them, why am I? Why am I working on this and 712 00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:05,200 escalate it to management? #8 is just limited visibility. 713 00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:10,160 OK, so a lot of the work that BAS do often remains unseen by 714 00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:12,280 upper management or key decision makers. 715 00:41:12,720 --> 00:41:15,960 OK, there's organizations I've worked at as ABA working on 716 00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:20,280 really critical stuff. Never talk to the CIO, never met 717 00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,160 the CEO. Now that's usually a problem of 718 00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:26,200 company culture. So it's not just you who's 719 00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:29,120 experiencing that problem, but if you're working on something 720 00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:31,760 that's really important, then you can feel that your work 721 00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:35,360 isn't being recognized. But also if you're working on 722 00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:38,680 something you might think from a career point of view, you know 723 00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:42,160 senior leaders don't don't know what you're doing and and maybe 724 00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:47,760 it's being credit's being taken in other areas or it's it could 725 00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:52,080 hinder your career advancement. If upper management or key 726 00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:55,080 decision makers, you can never speak to them or or present to 727 00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:57,120 them, especially if they're ultimately the ones that are 728 00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:00,320 getting value in what you do. So again, you know, it's around 729 00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:03,360 proactive communication, it's about showcasing your work and 730 00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:05,600 it's about building our relationships. 731 00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:08,440 So don't make sure that you have limited, if you have limited 732 00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:12,080 visibility, you need a way to put your story out, start 733 00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:17,920 blogging may maybe internally talk about the fact that BA's 734 00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:23,440 work should be advocated for. And also you know, like I said, 735 00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:27,800 it's around making sure that the value the collective project 736 00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:31,800 team is acknowledged somehow and include names in that. 737 00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:35,160 So you know if you're up for contract renewal or you're 738 00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:37,760 you've worked on a particularly successful project, you know, 739 00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:41,080 list out the team members names maybe on the Internet or ask the 740 00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:42,400 project manager to put that through. 741 00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:44,560 These people worked on the project that worked really well, 742 00:42:44,720 --> 00:42:47,400 not just that the project was a success, but this collective 743 00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:50,240 team could work well together. That's happened quite a few 744 00:42:50,240 --> 00:42:54,120 times I guess by default on projects I've worked on. 745 00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:56,160 We've worked in really successful teams that have 746 00:42:56,160 --> 00:43:01,000 delivered some stuff and upper management, if they've seen that 747 00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:04,720 through our great communication from product managers or change 748 00:43:04,720 --> 00:43:08,640 managers, not even from myself, your name gets recognized again 749 00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:11,320 and again and then they go, well that guy, he's pretty good. 750 00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:14,920 So when it comes up to contract renewal for example, they might 751 00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:17,720 say well we really want to go and above and beyond what we 752 00:43:17,720 --> 00:43:19,840 usually would to keep these people around. 753 00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:23,960 OK, I've got two more for you. So hopefully not falling asleep 754 00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:27,520 here, but there are two more that I'm just going to throw in 755 00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:30,080 here. One is work life balance. 756 00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:34,760 OK, so this is the kind of juggle that BAS need to worry 757 00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:37,280 about. The demanding nature of BA work 758 00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:41,400 can lead to long hours and difficulty maintaining a work 759 00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:46,920 life balance in BAS experience, burnout, stress, decreased job 760 00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:51,280 satisfaction, and all of those factors that you can experience 761 00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:54,760 can have a real impact on your work too, because you need to be 762 00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:56,440 empathetic. And the first thing that goes 763 00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:59,520 when you're stressed or you're burnt out, you know if you don't 764 00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:01,760 want to is the empathy level goes down. 765 00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:06,000 So your average empathy goes down and your tolerance for for 766 00:44:06,240 --> 00:44:08,640 dealing with some of these difficult stakeholders or 767 00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:11,720 politicians in the organization you know gets less and less. 768 00:44:11,720 --> 00:44:15,280 And sometimes, you know, you can be in a position where you're 769 00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:17,240 just not doing your best or you're just not handling it. 770 00:44:17,240 --> 00:44:20,520 Well-being there, you know, being there, done that, the old 771 00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:25,520 saying goes, you need to be. Really, the tip here is to be 772 00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:28,960 really clear about your time, what you're going to spend your 773 00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:32,080 time on prioritizing tasks, delegating where possible, 774 00:44:32,240 --> 00:44:35,840 sitting boundaries. You know if you work from 9:00 775 00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:39,520 till five, then block your calendar out after 5:00. 776 00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:43,560 If you need to work longer hours, sometimes ask for time 777 00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:49,200 and loads a time to take off later, you have to. 778 00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:52,320 If you're working on project work, there are going to be 779 00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:56,920 times where you may need to work late or weekends or you know and 780 00:44:56,920 --> 00:44:58,960 you know not for for a couple of weeks. 781 00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:03,440 Now I think it's OK if it's a couple of weeks and it's not all 782 00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:05,840 the all the time, but if it starts becoming all the time, 783 00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:08,480 you need to call that out because it's unsafe and no one 784 00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:10,640 wants that. You shouldn't be. 785 00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:14,000 I know a lot of my podcast listeners work in the States, 786 00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:17,120 and I think there's a culture in the States of just being at work 787 00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:20,280 as well. I've noticed when I've worked on 788 00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:22,360 that's not me making a generalization. 789 00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:26,800 I've experienced it myself when I had worked at Sony Ericsson 790 00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:29,760 and I had different teams from across the world doing the same 791 00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:31,560 job, just in different time zones. 792 00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:36,480 And what I found in the States was that the team would work 793 00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:39,560 longer hours. It wasn't the fact that they 794 00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:43,520 were mucking around or anything. It's just there was more of a 795 00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:47,960 culture of being at work longer in the States, which is a, which 796 00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:51,600 is just in this particular organization, it was like being 797 00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:54,800 on the floor mattered. So you've got to appreciate that 798 00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:57,680 no one wants you to burn out, OK? 799 00:45:57,680 --> 00:45:59,840 No one wants you to be in a bad place. 800 00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:03,800 So be really clear on your workloads with your project 801 00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:07,080 managers and your team leads. Seek adjustments. 802 00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:12,400 Do some self-care, like relax, go for a walk. 803 00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:15,600 Best thing to do ever. If you're in the middle of a 804 00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:19,040 hard project, get away from the computer. 805 00:46:19,080 --> 00:46:23,560 If you're at the computer and go for a walk, go for a walk 806 00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:25,440 outside. Don't think about work. 807 00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:28,840 Don't get off the laptop. Don't doom scroll, Don't read 808 00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:31,200 the news. Don't read what Trump's up to 809 00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:35,000 this week or what's happening in the, you know, in the Ukraine. 810 00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:38,120 Get away from that because it's just going to add to your stress 811 00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:42,840 area, things you can't control. And go and take a walk, OK, grab 812 00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:46,920 a coffee, go for a walk. You know, integrate maybe a gym 813 00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:51,640 routine into your BA career. One thing I always do is I work 814 00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:54,000 workshops. If I do a workshop, I want to do 815 00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:57,040 them really well. I'm exhausted after a workshop, 816 00:46:57,280 --> 00:46:59,960 so I might do the workshop, which means, you know, no lunch 817 00:46:59,960 --> 00:47:02,320 break, getting to work a little bit earlier, working the night 818 00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:04,440 before, and then I'll just go home in the afternoon. 819 00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:06,680 I'm like, it's a waste of time, me being there for the 820 00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:09,400 afternoon. I'll write the notes up later, 821 00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:11,360 or use some AI tools to help me with that. 822 00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:14,160 Or a junior BA. OK. 823 00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:19,360 And last one, frustration #10, is that some BA, especially if 824 00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:23,680 they're internal BA, can feel a lack of career growth and they 825 00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:26,200 can feel like they're stagnant in their careers. 826 00:47:27,240 --> 00:47:31,200 Now if you feel like your career growth has stagnated, so maybe 827 00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:34,200 you're ABA and there aren't any senior opportunities or a senior 828 00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:39,080 BA and that's it for you. And you might feel like there's 829 00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:41,400 limited opportunities for upskilling or advancement in 830 00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,960 your role. And then that can give you a 831 00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:46,480 lack of motivation too. And you can go same mode, same 832 00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:49,520 old, same mode. And again, this is probably the 833 00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:53,000 reason I do the podcast and I'm involved in the institute is 834 00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:55,240 that you can can. There's so much stuff to learn. 835 00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:57,200 We're really lucky in our domain. 836 00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:00,640 We work across industries, we work with tech, we work with 837 00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:04,320 people. I actually think that our job 838 00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:10,480 points you in so many different areas that you can. 839 00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:12,480 There's always something to learn, is what I'm trying to 840 00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:15,000 say. Professional development and 841 00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:17,040 learning. You know, online course, getting 842 00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:19,200 a certification, learning about the new thing. 843 00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:21,600 There is constant learning opportunities there. 844 00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:25,120 OK You can look at specialization in different 845 00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:26,680 areas. If you really want to get become 846 00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:29,760 a specialist in one area. You can just generalize and 847 00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:33,040 learn about the world. You can network with other 848 00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:36,400 BASBAS, love to network with other BAS and talk about stuff 849 00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:40,480 and moan about bits and pieces. So if you feel like there isn't 850 00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:43,720 a, if you've got in a good job, you're getting paid well or the 851 00:48:43,720 --> 00:48:47,400 market's bad, so you're not looking, you know, to move to 852 00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:51,320 another company or change and your management's not for you 853 00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:54,040 and you're just your BA or a senior BA, say, just that's 854 00:48:54,040 --> 00:48:57,280 terrible, that might be it. And that's fine, that's great. 855 00:48:57,560 --> 00:48:59,360 You know, that's if you're getting paid well and you're 856 00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:01,840 comfortable with it and you're enjoying your job and the work's 857 00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:06,440 got a great culture then, but you just feel stagnant as you're 858 00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:08,800 not growing, then you can look externally for that. 859 00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:10,120 OK, You can talk to your manager. 860 00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:12,040 If they've got a great culture, just say I'm going to do some 861 00:49:12,040 --> 00:49:16,200 learning around Power BI. I'm going to work out how AI 862 00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:19,000 might affect the organization. So there's always opportunities 863 00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:21,640 for you from a continuous learning and improvement point 864 00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:25,080 of view. OK, so they were 10 frustrations 865 00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:27,880 that you can experience as ABA now. 866 00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,880 I hope you got value about navigating those trenches and 867 00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:34,800 next time you are frustrated, you might try some of these 868 00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:37,880 techniques so you can get out of that frustration and continue to 869 00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:41,960 be the best BA that you can be. I'll see you next time.