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Tag: Business Analysis

Critical Skills Needed for Project Success

Written by Elizabeth Larson on . Posted in Articles.

Part 1 – Elicitation

This article is the first in a series I’ll be writing about critical skills that all project managers (PMs) and business analysts (BAs) need for success. We need these skills regardless of the type of project we’re on, the industry we’re in, the technology we use, or the methodology we follow. Each of these skills requires a combination of what are commonly called hard skills with those needed to work effectively with others.

This first article is about elicitation. It seems easy. After all, what’s so difficult about asking stakeholders questions? Elicitation, of course, is far more than the questions we ask. When all is said and done, it’s about learning. We learn what our stakeholders want, what they need, and hardest of all, what they expect by asking really good questions and listening to what they have to say with great attention. It’s tricky, though. We can’t do what I did early in my career when I tried to develop a list of requirements by introducing myself and asking what the stakeholders’ requirements were, what they really needed, and what they expected by the end of the project. Simply put, we won’t learn enough to create an end product that they’ll be happy with.[i]

What makes the elicitation process so hard? Here are several pitfalls.

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Common Pitfalls

#1 – Missed expectations

Expectations are requirements, but they’ve never been stated. Therefore, we cannot get expectations by asking about them. Our stakeholders don’t think to mention them, and we don’t think to ask about them. I didn’t know about hidden requirements early in my career when I asked the questions like those noted above. Another problem– my focus was specifically on the future state solution. I asked for the features and functions, documented them, and got stakeholder approval. Then the development team built the final product according to the specifications with the inevitable result—a lot of stakeholder complaints.

#2 – People fear the future state.

This major pitfall is hard to overcome for many reasons. Some stakeholders are comfortable with their current state and don’t want to learn or train on the new processes and automation. Others are concerned for their jobs. Still others have a stake in the existing ways – perhaps they were part of its development or a known expert on its use. Whatever the reasons, the fear of the future state can make elicitation difficult.

#3 – The time trap

Many of us are often under so much pressure that we don’t have time to dig deep. We gather some high-level requirements, but we don’t have time to uncover the expectations. And even if we have time, which is rare, many of our stakeholders don’t. Many are available for an initial set of sessions, but interest wanes as the difficult detailed meetings drag on.

So, what can we do? Here are 3 tips for successful elicitation.

Tips for Successful Elicitation

Tip #1 – Use a variety of elicitation techniques

The first tip for uncovering expectations is to use a variety of elicitation techniques. That’s because each technique that we use uncovers a different aspect of the requirements. Here are some examples.

  • Process modeling. This has always been one of my favorite techniques. It documents how people get their jobs done. But as with all elicitation, it’s not easy. For example, one of the most difficult aspects about process requirements is that stakeholders argue over where to begin and where to end and how the processes fit together. Using different process models helps avoid this contention. SIPOCS (suppliers, inputs, process, outputs, customers) help narrow the scope of each model and swim lane diagrams help visualize how the processes fit together.
  • Data modeling. Process modeling is great, but people need information to get their work done. Data modeling helps us figure out what information supports each process step. It also provides business rules and is invaluable on our AI initiatives.
  • Use cases. These models help us understand how our stakeholders want to use the final product. They provide not only the scope, but all the functionality of the solution. And use cases, if completed thoroughly, turn into test cases.
  • Prototypes show what the final solution will look like.
  • Brainstorming yields the power of the group, while one-on-ones often reveal what stakeholders really think.

Tip #2 – Ask context questions

A context question is one that surrounds the solution that we’re building. While we do need to ask questions about the  solution’s features and functions, such questions do not provide the complete picture.

I like to group context questions into four categories of questions:

  1. These questions relate to what’s happening outside the organization and include questions like demographics, language, weather, technology, and compliance/regulatory. These may or may not apply to the project. If they do, we need to understand their effect on our work.
  2. These pertain to how ready the organization is to accept the final product. The bigger the change, the more issues there usually are. We need to know, for example, which stakeholders will be on board, which will resist the change, and what needs to be done to prepare the organization for the change.
  3. We need to ensure that the business problem we’re solving and the proposed solution align with the organization’s goals and objectives.
  4. These context questions are usually those about the current state.

Tip #3 – Know when to use open-ended, closed-ended, and leading questions

Open-ended questions allow the respondents to expand their thoughts. We ask open-ended questions any time we want to learn more. For example, we ask these questions when we’re just beginning an effort, during brainstorming, and when we need to get all the issues out on the table, etc.

Closed-ended questions are forced-choice questions. They have the answers embedded in the question itself, sometimes explicitly as in a survey question, or implicitly. I like to ask closed-ended questions when stakeholders are all over the board and we need them to focus. For example, given all these issues we’ve identified, if you had to choose 10, which would they be?

Leading questions are not questions at all. They sound like questions, but they’re really our opinions stated in the form of a question. “This is a pretty cool feature, isn’t it?” My least favorite leading question is one we often hear: “Have you ever thought about…solution.” Again, it’s not a question. It’s us presenting our opinion rather than asking what our stakeholders think. What’s wrong with that? Remember we’re in the middle of elicitation, which is about learning. Presenting our solutions during elicitation cuts off exploration because we’re telling rather than learning. Later, after we’ve completed elicitation and analysis, whether it’s for the whole project or a smaller part, we can make a thoughtful recommendation.

To summarize, effective elicitation is critical to the development of a final product that our stakeholders are happy with. Elicitation is not easy. There are several pitfalls which are difficult to overcome. But if we follow the tips provided in this article, we will deliver a product that our stakeholders actually like and want to use.

[i] I use the terms solution, final product, and end product synonymously. It’s the solution to the business problem we’re solving. It’s also the product or product increment being produced at the end of the project, project phase, or iteration.

Strategic Adaptability in the Face of Change

Written by F.E. Harrison on . Posted in Articles.

In late 2019/early 2020, the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice (DEHSP) developed a comprehensive strategic plan that outlined the key focus areas, objectives, and milestones the division planned to accomplish by 2024. The strategic plan was being disseminated right as the world was grappling with the uncertainty, fear, and panic of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like so many other businesses and organizations, almost overnight we faced a monumental disruption to the ways we had to think about our division’s priorities and resources. While we had an intricately crafted and thoroughly researched strategic plan, we soon learned we would need to be flexible and adapt to the unexpected changes resulting from COVID-19.

Within any project, business, or organization, the imperative of crafting detailed roadmaps is clear: you need them to achieve your goals and to prioritize resources while maximizing efficiency. Without a clear definition of how you will achieve success or get from point A to point B, projects or organizations can face delays, cost overruns, or an end result that isn’t desired.
Following the completion of the division’s strategic plan, the concept of lift points was developed by division leaders to identify the work that would successfully lift the reach and impact of the entire division. The lift point concept provided leaders with a framework for implementing the strategic plan in a way that attempted to remove silos across the division, highlighted the cross-cutting nature of division-wide priorities, and further prioritized strategic plan objectives through 2024. With CDC’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, DEHSP staff availability became limited, resources were stretched to capacity, and the strategic plan implementation efforts were temporarily halted. After six months of dedicating resources almost exclusively to the pandemic response, leadership revisited the lift points with a renewed understanding of the importance of establishing and implementing clear-cut, focused priorities. We recognized the value in strategically directing division resources to strengthen programming and maximize efficiencies. Division leaders chose to re-focus their energy on clarifying and addressing the lift points, despite the challenging resource constraints.

Charting the Path Forward: Establishing Lift Points

To determine the right mix of lift points, division leadership needed to prioritize the most impactful, yet attainable, areas of the division—in project management terms, essentially the initiatives with the best return on investment. With the COVID-19 response in full swing, we saw that our staff, resources, and time were limited even more than usual. We knew we would need to work towards goals that would create the largest impact for the entire division, without burning out our staff.
To do this, we needed the right perspectives at the virtual table—strategic thinkers who could push the group to think bigger, policy and communications leaders who know how to communicate impact, scientists and subject matter experts to drive evidence-based practice, and programmatic leaders who could lead the effort to operationalize the lift points. This group was spearheaded by my colleague, Amy Cordero, M.P.A., Associate Director for Policy, who was instrumental in shaping the entire lift point concept and creating buy-in among senior leadership and division staff members. With this group together, we set some clear boundaries on how to determine the lift points:

  • Focused: We limited the final number of lift points to six—any more than this would spread our resources too thin.
  • Cross-cutting: We prioritized identifying cross-cutting initiatives that could break down silos across the division and create more collaborative, innovative solutions.
  • High leverage: We focused our attention on the areas of the division that had the means to significantly move the entire division forward.
  • Attainable: We considered division resources (e.g., time, funding, and personnel) as we prioritized lift points.
  • Policy impact: We reviewed the policy landscape and considered the political will and interest for division priorities.\

Through a series of prioritization working sessions, the group finalized the six lift points and their corresponding goals:

  • Develop a division-wide data modernization strategic action plan by December 2021
  • Finalize a DEHSP science agenda by March 2022
  • Develop a division-wide prioritized partnership plan by December 2021
  • Publish an Environmental Health Best Practices Playbook by June 2023
  • Demonstrate Controlling Childhood Asthma and Reducing Emergencies (CCARE) impact and clinical integration by August 2024
  • Implement the DEHSP brand by September 2021

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Mission Coordination Team Implementation

Now that we had the lift points identified, the next step was to map out how we would achieve them, especially given the additional constraints brought on by COVID. We developed Mission Coordination Teams (MCTs), which we clearly distinguished from the idea of a traditional workgroup. At CDC, workgroups are groups of people who are responsible for conducting all key activities related to a specific project or goal. MCTs, on the other hand, have a different scope than workgroups because members serve as the project managers/coordinators of the lift points. These teams would help determine the strategy and process of the work, establish timelines and action plans, coordinate staff members across the division to conduct key activities, and monitor progress toward the lift point goals. We decided the MCTs would be cross-cutting, collaborative groups with representatives from all four DEHSP branches (Emergency Management, Radiation, and Chemical Branch; Asthma and Community Health Branch; Lead Poisoning Prevention and Environmental Health Tracking Branch; Water, Food, and Environmental Health Services Branch) and the Office of the Director (OD).

To facilitate the work of the MCTs, we focused on several different, soon-to-be ‘old school’ Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) process groups and knowledge areas. The PMBOK sets standard terminology and guidelines for project management. In particular, we leaned on concepts around:

  • Integration Management: Allocating resources to support the MCTs; outsourcing contractor support to provide project management, strategy, and facilitation support to all MCTs
  • Scope Management: Defining the purpose, audience, and scope of the MCTs; identifying the requirements and process for generating final MCT deliverables
  • Resource Management: Defining roles within MCTs and leveraging a diverse portfolio of skills; ensuring each team consists of members with different strengths, capabilities, and backgrounds (e.g., scientific SMEs, strategists, project managers, etc.)

Maintaining Momentum

After mapping out the approach for the lift points and MCTs, we quickly realized the lift point process would be cyclical in nature; once outcomes for an individual lift point have been achieved, the lift point can be ‘retired’ as it becomes institutionalized as standard operations. Then, additional lift points can be identified. Division leaders will identify future potential lift point areas by several different factors, including political, social, and cultural forces; changes in funding; interest from partners; and internal momentum. During the ‘lift point staging’ process, division leaders will identify the vision, strategy, and goals related to a particular program or effort. Once a program or topic area has gone through lift point staging, and depending on the outcome of the staging process, an MCT may be established to make progress toward the lift point goals.

The only way to determine if individual lift point goals have been successfully completed is to build a robust evaluation framework. For an organization like CDC, the importance of demonstrating impact to external audiences cannot be emphasized enough. In fact, the division is actively working with the Program Performance and Evaluation Office to develop a strategic performance management framework (e.g., processes, measures, tools, reporting cadence, etc.) for all MCTs. This performance management framework will help ensure all stakeholders are working toward well-defined, achievable goals and that successful practices are institutionalized to achieve the greatest impact.

A New Way of Organizational Thinking

While our implementation of these practices remains a work in progress, as all good management processes necessarily are, and as we continue to respond to a changing landscape, there are a few noteworthy observations we can already identify. As I look back on the past year and a half, I realize how much progress we’ve made, and appreciate how much important work remains. I’m reminded of a quote by John F. Kennedy: “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” As we were developing our comprehensive strategic plan, the sun was shining, and we were looking towards the next four years for the division. When COVID-19 completely upended our initial deployment of the strategic plan, leadership chose to adapt our initial implementation of the lift points and reprioritize our efforts, despite our resource challenges. That experience has fundamentally shaped the way we think here at DEHSP. Given this shift in division leaders’ mindsets, and the lessons we learned from remaining agile and adapting our strategic planning framework, this will undoubtedly become the norm moving forward. The DEHSP lift point staging process and implementation of MCTs has helped the division shape its strategic priorities and better articulate how all the different offices and branches fit into the overarching goals of the division. It will be extremely interesting to see how the division continues to adapt as our experiences advance and more lessons are learned. Isn’t that the whole point of agility—to continue to practice it in an increasingly dynamic world?

Why do businesses need digital dexterity now more than ever?

Written by Mahendra Gupta on . Posted in Articles.

User adaptation is one of the major hurdles faced by the digital workplace today. As the work and the workplace continue to adopt and adapt new technologies available, employee usability lags. Sure, some organizations adapt faster than others, but for the long haul, digital dexterity helps organizations to acclimatize faster amid disruption and digital transformation.

According to Gartner, employees with a high level of digital dexterity are 3.3 times more likely to use digital initiatives to improve how they work. Coined by Gartner, digital dexterity is a terminology that goes beyond specific hard skills and technical abilities. To succeed and keep up with the world that’s going digital, inculcating digital dexterity should be a priority for every organization.

What is Digital Dexterity?

According to Gartner, “Digital dexterity is the ability and desire to exploit existing and emerging technologies for better business outcomes.” It is all about fostering a culture conducive to drive a successful digital transformation. Simply put, it is the willingness to engage, adapt, and learn to use new technology and include it in the way of work so that it fits the mission of the organization.

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CIO’s role in digital dexterity:

The onus is on the Chief Information Officer to create a digitally dexterous company. The CIO is responsible for supporting and encouraging desired behavior prerequisites to change management. However, transforming an entire organization from one that resists, or at the very least accepts new technology, can be very challenging. CIOs have an arduous road ahead, but not one that is impossible to conquer. Following these steps, CIO’s can mold digital dexterity into the workforce.

1) Begin with figuring out what failed to work in the past and how it can be corrected. Use surveys and focus groups to identify factors that trigger an aversion to change in employees.

2) Create a benchmark that evaluates employees’ outlook toward new technology at the workplace. This data will help you identify the areas that need a higher focus, like a particular department or a process.

3) Envision the future of your workplace and share it with your employees. Doing so will enhance the willingness of your workforce to accept new technology as a stepping stone to a digitally transformed future

4) Train users on the new technology extensively, and explain the benefits of increased collaboration, efficient data collection, and improve business efficiency. So that they are less resistant to adopt the change.

Prerequisites to digital dexterity:

1) Digital-First Mindset: The first and foremost step to create a digitally dexterous culture is seeking, exploring, and prioritizing digital solutions. In short, a digital mindset should be in place.

A digital mindset is an outlook that tends to reach out to technology to have a competitive advantage, and systematically approach enterprise data. When managers and employees instinctively resort to digital tools and data to improvise processes or create new products, they reap the benefits of agility and enhanced collaboration more often. To create a digital mindset, CIO’s must ensure these 3 steps:

i) To engage key stakeholders, communicating the benefits and importance of digital transformation is crucial.

ii) Practice what you preach. When executive management is engaged, employees are automatically engaged.

iii) Align rewards to digital transformation be it tangible or intangible will drive employee motivation and transformation goals.

2) Digitized Practices: The key practices that boost digital dexterity are digitizing operations, data-driven decisions, and encouraging collaborative ways of working and learning. Digital organizations display more advanced data capability levels than their peers. In a study, it came to light that less than 18% of organizations displayed digital dexterity. This also explains why 70% of digital transformations fall through the cracks. The following steps can ensure digitized practices at your workplace:

i) Start by hitting refresh on your current operational practices and restart practices by implementing digital solutions at the vanguard. This encourages collating and analyzing data systematically to drive better decision-making.

ii) Focusing on adoption instead of deployment of digitized practices leads to increased collaboration among actively engaged users, intelligent decision-making, and, over time, incessant behavioral change. Role model, rewards, gamification, etc, can have a significant impact on employee behaviors.

iii)  Ensuring new work practices are set to default and accordingly, adapting the management, people, and processes to institutionalize the updated process. Doing this CIOs advocate transparency, core process standardization, and operations efficiency that digital technologies provide.

3) Empowered Talent: To create a culture conducive to digital dexterity, leveraging the digital IQ of the organization, developing key skills, and increasing engagement is important. In a McKinsey Global Institute survey, it was predicted that by 2030, nearly one-fourth workforce shall be retrained or replaced by AI and automation.  Intel provided a Digital IQ training program for all employees to increase collaboration, communication, and innovation. In just a matter of two years, more than 20,000 employees completed the training. When this level of commitment to learning exists, it helps organizations retain their key talent and build an appreciation for digital initiatives.

4) Data Access & Collaboration Tools: Once talent, competence, and engagement are established, data access and collaboration tools can complement performance-related outcomes to drive innovation and share intelligence across the enterprise.

Data access is pivotal to digital transformation. Precise and timely data not only aids in improving business operations but also helps in proactively catering to customer demands. When employees realize the importance of data-driven outcomes, they continue to deploy data-driven approaches consistently.

Also, access to effective collaboration and coordination tools facilitates the key practices of employee engagement.

Advantages of digital dexterity: 

1) More flexibility: Digitally dexterous employees are more willing to try new roles and don new hats to support the company’s adaptation to a digital workplace.

2) Higher autonomy: Employees are more willing to work on projects with initiatives and requirements that are susceptible to change or are unclear. They are also able to harness AI and other disruptive technologies at the right time.

3) Enhanced efficiency: As digital opportunities surface, employees can take advantage of and adapt themselves to improve their team or department’s efficiency.

4) Remote workability: The remote workforce is adept to work from anywhere as long as the right technologies are deployed. Collaborating with diverse perspectives and experience in remote work encourages digital dexterity.

5) Willing to take risks: Employees with high digital dexterity understand the positive impact of digitalization on the enterprise-wide level and are thus willing to take risks to pursue this result.

Takeaway: Creating a culture that fosters digital dexterity is a daunting task, especially for firms where employees are averse to trying new technologies. But with the right mindset, practices, talent, and tools, organizations can successfully establish digital dexterity. This is possible with a human-centric approach that will navigate the digital transformation. To facilitate this, businesses must ensure that their digital initiatives include training to existing and new employees on board. Also, CIO’s and senior management need to communicate long-term strategies and take accountability to ensure digital initiatives from start to finish.

5 Ways You Could Be Improving Project Management

Written by Regina Thomas on . Posted in Articles.

Even if you’re the most skillful and experienced project manager, it’s important to understand that there is always room for improvement. This is because every project presents a new set of challenges that you might not be very familiar with. Here are some ways you could be improving project management:

Build a great team

As a project manager, you need to have a great team with you to help you execute the project in the best way possible. For a successful project, you’ll need to assemble qualified and competent individuals who are ready to work together seamlessly for a common goal.
After assembling the team you’ll need for the project, the next step is assigning representatives. It is these team representatives that will help you run the project in a more organized manner. The team representatives are responsible for communicating any messages from the team members and attending meetings.
There are professionals that have more information on creating high-performance teams.

Outlining the project

As a project manager, before proceeding with any project, it’s very important that you outline it to the rest of the team. You might know everything about the project, but this doesn’t basically mean that the rest of your team is aware of everything that is expected of them.
For this reason, you need to educate all the team members about every important detail of the project. For example, you want to ensure that everyone working on the project understands the project goals, the estimated time of completion, and their job descriptions, among other aspects.
This means that before the project officially begins, you need to present the project outline to everyone involved in it. As a project manager, it’s very important to understand that communicating the project goals from the start plays a critical role in achieving them.

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Focus on communication

If you’re looking to improve your project management skills for the best results possible, you need to improve your communication skills. You could be a very great planner, but without good communication between you and your team members, your project is bound to fail.
For this reason, if you’re going to improve your project management, you need to be ready to communicate your expectations, project goals, deadlines and always provide updates to the team and the stakeholders in the project.
With good communication, you can undoubtedly transform any team and get the best out of it. It’s important to note that good communication doesn’t only improve the performance of the team, but also enhances the overall quality of the project.

Establish and prioritize goals

For better project management, you need to establish firm goals for the project. This is very important because it lets your team members know what exactly they’re aiming for and what they have to accomplish for the project to be labeled done.
After you’ve established clear project goals for the entire team, the next step is to ensure that you prioritize these goals. You need to ensure that every task that is carried out by the team is only focused on achieving the set goals within the time limit set.
By doing so, your team will gain a better understanding of the expectations you have for the project and the deadlines to meet them. In simple terms, prioritizing the project goals will optimize the project progress and put you in a better place to succeed.

Set realistic expectations

Everything from good project planning, communication, and getting the best out of the team is fueled by realistic expectations. You can never build a successful project if the goals you’re setting for the team are not realistic.
You need to consider your team’s strengths, weaknesses, and all the challenges they might encounter throughout the project before setting any goals for them. When you set realistic goals, it will motivate the team, and you’re likely to achieve great success by the end of the project.
Setting goals that way above your team’s capabilities will only demoralize them and derail the whole project.

Conclusion

The above tips will guide you better to improve your project management. However, you should always be open to new ideas and particularly new learning opportunities to perfect your skills.

User experiences, Customer Journeys, Change Management and everything in between: The Common Element of Human Factors

Written by Priyanka Agrawal on . Posted in Articles.

There is a lot of conversation happening these days about Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine learning, and Robotics. Artificial intelligence or AI is the ability of a system to understand what it is being asked of and then infer the best possible answer from all the available evidences. These trendy buzzwords, AI, robotics, machine learning, etc. may sound fascinating. However, they pose a serious and real threat – the threat to potentially alienate users and their experiences leading to trust issues and therefore abandoning adoption.

In one of my co-authored papers 14 years ago, at the Rigi Research group at the University of Victoria, we had proposed that humans should be treated as modeled, managed elements in an autonomic control loop to deter user alienation, improve user experiences and build user trust. We suggested synergistic design ideas to make communication with users more effective, and to allow the system to learn from the users’ actions. A system that exhibits initiative and interaction, creates a dialogue with humans and engages the people side of things is hence likely to be better adopted.

Fast forward to today, I am elated to see that our research aligned exactly with what is being asked of in today’s world. No wonder then our paper received 5,939 citations. Be it an enterprise-wide transformation or localized self-service web application, the human factor is of utmost importance. Today everything lies, not only around but also, within human experiences. As Digital-Media puts it, there can be no transformation without the human touch. Circumscribing digital transformation to the technological area is a grave error because change must be driven by the will, capacity, and commitment of people, in an organization where different generations coalesce.

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Social media frameworks today have spread contagiously and seen unprecedented success. These social media platforms such as Instagram®, Facebook®, and Snapchat® were built with a focus on people and their experiences. No, I am not suggesting to build or buy social networking tools but the point I am trying to make is that these applications were instantly intuitive and appealed to their users. Nobody needs formal training for Instagram. The same expectation of instinctive usability has to be part of any transformation initiative. In other words, User Experiences, Customer Journey and Change Management is not just about graphical user interfaces—it’s about interactions, collaborations, value mapping, and adoption. Therefore, while human factors determine the success of digital transformations, those same human factors must guide transformative actions in a smooth, efficient process for making the shift to the new digital environment. For example, analyzing available raw data made through a “Human” prism provides the ability for decision making. Without a human dimension, data is just a massive occupier of storage space that adds more problems than it solves.

As digital continues to penetrate our lives and transform our world at an accelerated pace, it will also expand the ways in which it permeates every aspect of our everyday lives. Giving heed to Human Factors, today and in the future, is therefore, fundamentally required to transform digital from a distinct, disconnected field into something that’s embedded in the fabric of everyday businesses. By ensuring people are at the center of any change, organizations can ensure they are on a path to success so that it can adjust naturally to the rapid tempo of future transformations that are yet to come.