The Business Analyst and Strategic Thinking

All projects are tactical. And as a result, project managers are trained as tacticians, tactical thinkers. However, all projects start as part of an overall strategy for the organization; each project is a step toward achieving one of the organization’s strategic goals. Successful projects never lose the strategic vision of which the project is a part. Recommendations, decisions, actions taken all have to have some sense in light of the strategic impact of those decisions or actions.

And who is going to provide that strategic oversight to the tactical project?

The business analyst is in the best role to apply that strategic thinking to a project to make sure the results of the project contribute to the strategic goals of the organization and those results do not have a negative organizational impact in the future.

This webinar discusses the things a business analyst can do to become more aligned to thinking strategically and applying that strategic thinking to the projects the business analyst is involved with, as well as to everything else the business analyst does in life.

The Business Analyst and Systems Thinking

Have you ever heard of a project, perhaps one of your own, that was successful in what it delivered, but caused unexpected consequences in other parts of the organization or collateral damage on other projects?

Everyone involved in a project has the goal of completing the project on time and within budget and having the results solve the intended problem. If the project is being executed in an agile or scrum-like manner, the focus will be on completing the backlog items within the given timebox or sprint. Everyone is too busy focusing on the immediate results and meeting the immediate deadlines to consider the overall impacts of the work that is being done or the organizational impacts of the results of that work. And that is good, because that is the essence of tactical thinking: focus on achieving the immediate goal. However, projects, and their results, do not exist in a vacuum and are always part of some larger system, not necessarily a computer system.

While the business analyst typically engages in some impact analysis during the problem or requirements definition stages or when assessing potential solutions, once the solution has been adopted and the project set in motion, no further thought is given to the complex system interactions of the organization and its people. Successful projects and initiatives have someone who keeps the Big Picture in mind to ensure the results achieve their intended goals without any negative impact elsewhere in the organization. The business analyst is the primary role that must apply system thinking to the overall solution. The business analyst can also look at the entire problem and solution domain and may suggest solution alternatives that require only a change in the way people think.

This webinar will acquaint you with the fundamental concepts and principles of system thinking which you can apply at your current and future projects as well as other aspects of your work and social life.

The Business Analyst: Managing Up and Over

As a business analyst, do you manage your manager? Do you know what information to provide to your manager, when to provide it and how to provide it in the best and most influential manner? Are you ever in a position where you need to “manage” other people on the project or even those outside the project, even though you have no authority to do so?

In a survey of CIOs conducted a few years back, the majority mentioned some form of upward management as a contributor to their success in achieving their executive level positions. The role of the business analyst is one in which the exercise of upward management contributes to their future success, but it is also necessary to their basic survival and success in their role. Upward management and what we might term “sideways management”, or the management of others outside the project who are in a supervisory role, is a form of applying influence to get things done without exerting authority.

This webinar discusses the different aspects of upward and sideways management, providing tips and techniques to employ as well as pitfalls to avoid.

Guaranteed Requirement Reusability

A primary purpose of an information system is to make the same business information available to multiple business activities. This webinar discusses organizing information-specific requirements separately from individual functional capabilities. This allows those requirement details to be referenced as needed, by the functional capabilities that involve that information.

This webinar will cover topics such as:
• Why data is more reusable than functions
• When and how to document system-managed data details
• Seven business data types
• Four business data grouping types
• How to convert data hierarchy diagrams into single-direction relationship detail



** Eligible for PDUs, CDUs. **


FEATURED SPEAKER: Dan Tasker, Author, Consultant, Business Analyst

Minimum Detail Requirements – Maximum Requirement Detail

This webinar answers the question, “How detailed should detailed requirements be?” The good news is that there should not be a lot of detailed requirement statements. The better news is that there are generic structures that can be utilized for recording requirement details – those structures supported by spreadsheets or extended requirements management tools.

This webinar will cover topics such as:
• Capturing capability-specific NFR operational detail
• The importance of detailed mock-ups for a UI or Report capability
• Business-friendly Data Hierarchy Diagrams
• Capturing requirement detail in structures rather than text
• How to organize element-level detail within a meaningful business group

The Trick to Keeping High-Level Requirements High-Level

The trick to keeping high-level requirements high-level is recognizing that an information system has five fundamental capabilities. This webinar discusses what those capability types are, and how they can be used to document HLRs that set the scene for either detailed requirements, or evaluating COTS solutions.

This webinar will cover topics such as:
• Similarities and differences between an HLR and an unrefined user story
• How HLRs refine a project’s initial scope
• The five fundamental capabilities of an information system
• How to avoid detail-level requirements during HLR elicitation
• The critical difference between stakeholders and subject matter experts

** Eligible for PDUs, CDUs. **


FEATURED SPEAKER: Dan Tasker, Author, Consultant, Business Analyst

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A new and exciting fresh approach to SAP training – 1 hours

𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐀𝐏
- What we have learned! What works, what does not!
- Addressing the challenges of training infrequent users.
- How to make SAP Training fun.
- Empowering your Trainer with the best tools.
- Flexibility is the key to cost reduction.