Date: 17 Jul 2019
Where: Coventry

Adrian Reed: Whose Perspective Is It Anyway? Practical Analysis Techniques for Understanding Tricky Stakeholders 

 

Business analysis is undoubtedly a ‘people profession’.  It is difficult to imagine any large-scale change that could be progressed without the co-operation and co-ordination of a wide variety of stakeholders.  Yet, it is rare to see unanimous stakeholder agreement—and in ‘messy’ situations we might find that stakeholders don’t even agree on the nature of the project or problem that we are trying to solve.

With complex and transformational projects we play a key role in balancing complementary and sometimes competing perspectives, and there are a number of tools in our BA toolkit that we can utilise.

In this practical session you will hear:

  • A range of practical techniques for stakeholder categorisation and engagement that build upon traditional stakeholder modelling.
  • Techniques for appreciating, discussing and balancing different stakeholder perspectives
  • The importance of representing marginalised and ‘unheard’ groups when designing services

About Adrian Reed

Adrian is a true advocate of the analysis profession. In his day job, he acts as Principal Consultant and Director at Blackmetric Business Solutions where he provides business analysis consultancy and training solutions to a range of clients in varying industries. He is a Past President of the UK chapter of the IIBA® and he speaks internationally on topics relating to business analysis and business change.  Adrian wrote the 2016 book ‘Be a Great Problem Solver… Now’ and the 2018 book ‘Business Analyst’.

You can read Adrian's blog at http://www.adrianreed.co.uk and follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/UKAdrianReed.

 

Helen Winter: Making workshops more engaging and interesting using design thinking techniques

Running workshops and getting what you want out of them can difficult.  Design thinking techniques can be used to ensure engagement and that all attendees have a voice.  It puts customer viewpoints and experience at the heart of the analysis when looking to resolve problems and to design innovative ideas.  The focus is on getting information from workshop attendees in a way that generates discussion and produces output which relates to the customers greatest needs.   This will provide understandings of customer pain points and form a basis for generating ideas for resolutions.  We will look at how we can test hypothesis quickly without spending time on ideas that aren't going to work and to help get buy in.  We will also look at how design thinking techniques can be replayed to resolve common business analysis problems such as prioritisation and ensure the most important customer needs and problems are understood.  

Delegates will learn how to:

  • Increase interactivity and collaboration in workshops
  • Ensure correct prioritization of requirements and prevent all being must have
  • Get a better understanding of your customer and they pain points
  • Use to gain an understanding of the real problems and avoid your stakeholders solutionising
  • Techniques to generate innovative solutions and ability to test them quickly

About Helen Winter

Helen Winter is the author of the upcoming Business Analysis Handbook – Techniques and questions for better business outcomes and founder of the popular blog businessbullet.co.uk.  She chairs the Midlands branch for the IIBA UK chapter and has presented at some of the IIBA and BCS events in her local area.  Helen has over 20 years Business Analysis experience. Helen has worked as a consultant on all stages of the project life cycle on large scale Transformation Programs within Financial Services, Regulation, Insurance and Utilities. She has the BCS International Diploma in Business Analysis, is recognised by the British Computing Society (BCS) as a Certified Chartered IT professional and was shortlisted as a potential BCS nominee for the 2017 Karen Burt Memorial Award.



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