Month: May 2021

They’re not. Despite what the analyst wishes, this isn’t often a sought-after interaction.

They’re anxious.

A little bit fearful.

Yet also quietly relieved.

And keen to get things done already.

But worried about changing.

Stressed about the cost.

Thinking about opportunity lost or gained.

Concerned about what happens next.

Worried about their customers.

The business analyst is a hurdle (sometimes with a water jump) on the way to their goal. And much of what the business analyst does is simply superfluous, a roll of red-tape, because it simply slows progress towards the already known need.

If you think about projects in organisations, most of the people who are allocated a business analyst to attend to their problem get one by being assigned whoever the next available person is.

Given that, here’s what I’d ask a Business Analyst seeking better: How will you choose to show up for the business? Will you listen and relate? Will you investigate and probe? Will you work to deliver better, faster, more value?

Just as no one needs a drill bit, no one needs a business analyst. What stakeholders need and want is what it feels like to reach the place an analyst can take them to.

(And the same thing is true for business managers, for service providers, and probably for you…)

Like business analysts, most of us do our best work when we deal in empathy, not functions.

It doesn’t make sense to say “stakeholders need a digital mobile app,” because:

1. Stakeholders don’t need an app. They might want one, but that’s different.
2. Stakeholders might decide that they want an app, but they don’t want it because it’s digital or because it’s mobile; they want it because of what they’ll get out from it. That’s what they’re after: an outcome, not an app. Identify that outcome before you spend the effort building an app.

Business analysts enable change. We enable stakeholders to shift from their current situation to their desired future. We take stakeholders on a journey; we help them achieve the things they’ve dreamed of achieving, one step at a time.

Every stakeholder you facilitate is unique. Each has a different combination of wants, needs, problems, and desires. Though in many ways, they’re the same. They share a bucket list of hopes and dreams, each with different priorities, depending on who you’re asking, but with plenty of overlap.

Here’s a list, the fundamental list, a shared lexicon we each choose from when sharing our hopes and fears.

You could perhaps consider a dozen more. But it’s unlikely you could identify another fifty. This core bucket list of hopes and dreams means that business analysts, like musicians, don’t need many notes to strike a chord.

And this is where we start: with curiosity. Curiosity about what the people we seek to serve, our stakeholders, want and need. Curiosity about what’s on their to-do list when they get to work, what they talk about around the water cooler, what wakes them up at 2 o’clock in the morning.

And then we’re curious about how our story and our promise can intersect with their wants and desires. When we facilitate someone, will we see what they see? Will they want what we think they need? Will they accompany us on the journey?

Don’t begin with your systems, your processes, your functions. Don’t begin with your one-size-fits-all template or distract them with your mission. Instead, begin with hopes and fears, with perspectives, and with the change your stakeholders seek to make.