November IIBA Scotland Event

On the 29^th November I attended the IIBA Scottish Regional Event which was held at the very pleasant AEGON Lochside Crescent building at Edinburgh Park.

The topic was, ‘Exploring the impacts on analysis when using an offshore delivery model (IT Development, Analysis and/or Operations conducted offshore)’, which might be an emotive subject for some Business Analysts, including me.

It’s understandable to hear the word ‘offshore’ and your own job description in the same sentence and feel a few muscles clench. However as a BA I’d like to think that I can approach any topic analytically and from a healthily disinterested point of view. I have definitely had to do this in the past where offshoring is concerned and fortunately the group attending this session seemed to have equally open minds on the topic.

Presentation

The evening’s presentation was delivered by Colin Quinn and introduced by Vicky Di Ciacca of Be Positive Analysis Solutions, the IIBA Scotland event sponsors.

Colin told us that his initial interest in this topic went back a while. In 2009 he posted a comment on the ‘Modern Analyst’ forum, and was struck by the level of negativity towards the subject by the majority of fellow contributors. It was apparent that contributors had come up with lots of reasons WHY this couldn’t work rather than ideas of HOW to make it work.

Colin’s presentation split offshoring models into two distinct categories: In-house offshoring, and Outsourced offshoring.

In Colin’s experience, companies with In-house offshoring are likely to be large global organisations with multiple sites and therefore they often have an in-built need to be able to work in a more remote way, using teleconferencing, etc. These organisations would usually have a blended model of onshore and offshore resource.

Colin was quite positive about this type of offshoring and gave it a decent chance of being a success.

Outsourced offshoring can often be a source of non-tailored off-the-shelf resource, where a lot of effort has gone into producing smart contracts that protect the 3^rd party, but do not necessarily help to build longer term trusting business relationships.

Colin suggested that this could work a little better if contracts were a bit more flexible and if the relationship was based on a gut feeling of ‘can I work with these guys?’ and ‘can they deliver what we want them to deliver?’

Offshoring started with technical roles and in the past few years organisations have started to get round to BA roles. The question of whether to offshore BA roles seems to have passed and it’s a matter of HOW rather than IF.

Colin suggested that companies who want to make this work would take a longer term view of the benefits to be had from offshoring BA resource and as a result should make sure that they have strong onshore capability first. The onshore BAs could then work alongside offshore resource by bringing offshore BAs onshore, and/or onshore BAs going offshore. This would allow more understanding of the culture of the organisations, knowledge sharing, mentoring, etc. It would also put the onshore BAs in a stronger position to assess capabilities and determine the speed that specific tasks could be passed to offshore partners, etc.

What does this mean for Business Analysts? Colin feels that this makes onshore BAs critical to making offshoring of BA activities work, potentially giving BAs a higher profile and shining a spotlight on BA skills.

As organisations attempt to offshore more and more capabilities, clear and well defined requirements become ever more important.

Colin’s presentation slides are available to view below.

 

Q&A

Following on from Colin’s presentation, the group were invited to ask questions.

A question was raised about how offshore capability can support and cope with the changeability of commercial contracts.

Colin said that offshore capability should be looked at for its long-term benefits not just for short to mid-term cost saving. The flexibility of resources should also be looked at as another benefit; however, this makes trust between the organisations even more important.

The group then discussed the importance communication skills in an environment that includes offshored activities.

Colin advised that he had come into contact with lots of people attempting to use their own, sometimes limited, language to communicate to organisations and not making an attempt to learn the terms that those organisations might understand. Colin suggested that we (BAs) should improve in this area.

Vicky added that we (organisations in general) need to look at alternative forms of communication, such as Skype and IM (Instant Messaging), that we are comfortable with in our everyday lives but have not yet become common place in business. We could also use techniques that provide more visual representations and fewer words.

A member of the group volunteered an example of a break down in communication where he was invited to join a meeting in the Netherlands at half 1. Unfortunately, half 1 in Netherlands means half before 1, not half after 1 and our group member was embarrassingly a hour late for this meeting.

After a short break to network and grab a warm or cold beverage and a biscuit, it was time for a breakout session.

Breakout Session

The room was organised into three smaller groups, each using a different method to explore the impacts on analysis when using an offshore model.

I was in a group using the ‘Pestle’ technique, which identifies any external factors that need to be considered when approaching a subject. P-political, E-economic, S=sociological, T-technological, L-legal and E-environmental.

The other groups used ‘Customer Journey’ and ‘SWOT’ (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) techniques.

I thoroughly enjoyed this session (not sure how this reflects on me) as it allowed us to get the pens, flipcharts and sticky notes out. This technique also allowed us to look at the subject from a different perspective and have a chat about some of the pros and cons of offshoring, outwith the ‘can it be done?’ argument.

As is usually the case, having a few minds looking at this topic also came up with some interesting points that we may not have thought of individually.

Each group then summarised its findings to the rest of the larger group.

All the findings can be seen below.

As this was the final session for 2012, everyone was invited to come up with ideas for topics to be covered in events next year and was encouraged to feedback any ideas in terms of venues and length of sessions, etc to Vicky Di Ciacca at Vicky@Be-Positive.co.uk.

The next event will be held in January or February 2013. Hopefully I’ll see you there.

Andy Chinery, LBA, Be Positive.

Work-happiness, I'm a Dolphin & Scandinavian Design...

or 2 days at The Nordic Project Zone Summit 2012...

Back in May, I was contacted by Mihaly from a company called Stamford Global to invite me to present at a Project Management conference in Denmark in November – ‘Of Course, I’d be delighted’ I said. Roll forward 6 months and I found myself on a flight to Copenhagen one Sunday afternoon. Someone had told me that Copenhagen airport has a great reputation for efficiency (more about that later)  – they were right and I zoomed through and onto the hotel!

Some dinner (biggest Caesar Salad with delicious bacon – well, I was in Denmark!) then back to my room to practice my Masterclass for the next day. Monday started with a great workout in the Gym, a healthy, hearty breakfast and conference registration. Met Mihaly and took my seat for the morning’s sessions.

First session by www.nigelrisner.com - his theme was communication and zoo keeping.  His session was very entertaining,  he’s a great speaker. Key take-away from his talk was that it doesn’t matter how you classify yourself (lion, monkey, dolphin –me, or elephant) – you need to be able to manage all the animals in the room – which really makes sense when you think about it! Then came Kevin from Airbus – another fascinating session – did you know that Airbus make 1 ½ aeroplanes a day?

When we broke for the breakout streams. I joined the BA stream – naturally. First up was Manoj who gave us a lively, interactive Masterclass on requirements on projects – lots of great examples of where requirements worked well (and lack of requirements ended in disaster!). Then time for lunch – great food at the hotel (and brilliant cakes). I quizzed the folk at my table about what makes a good session (as I was up next) and they said some hints and tips on ‘how’ to make things work really appealed to them.  So off to get ready for my session.

5 minutes to go and only 10 people in the room (phew, I thought – should be straightforward) then another 30 appeared  - crumbs, great but wow, quite a crowd. I was nervous to start but soon hit my stride. Time went really quickly and mindful of the advice from my lunch mates, I made sure that I used lots of examples in my session on ‘Building a BA Centre of Excellence’. Sharing lots of things that worked (and some things that didn’t!) I looked at clock and realised I’d been talking for 45 minutes – time really flew by.

My plan for the second half of the session was to get the guys to design their own CoE and the groups did a great job. Some fascinating discussions from ‘I’d never heard of business analysis before today’ to ‘that’s my job title and I love it!’. The time went all to quickly but I caught up with some of the delegates at the end and they had some great questions, here’s my favourite 3 (and my answers):

-          Where should a BA CoE sit in the organisation – IT, the Business or somewhere between the two? My answer – it depends!

-          Where in the lifecycle does Business Analysis sit – at the strategic level defining operating models or at the project level writing requirements? My answer – it depends J

-          What are the top 3 skills for a business analyst? Ahh – this one I did answer. For me the top 3 skills (or characteristics) are curiosity (noisiness), courage and analytical thinking.

Phew – glad my presentation was over and  I really enjoyed it. Time for tea and cake. Last session of the day was Antonio Nieto Rodriguez  - a Spanish ex-footballer programme manager who lives in Brussels. His main focus was focus! A very simple message with a very entertaining session to deliver it.

Day 2 was another great day. Started with the Gym (again) and a great breakfast (again) ready for the first session on coaching. A great re-enforcement of some of the NLP techniques that I try to master. The next session was on Agile – which was a real theme of the conference. The presenter came up with a theory about why Agile(and associated lean type techniques)   seemed to be so well received in Scandinavia. If you think about Scandinavian design – what do you think about? Sleek minimalist lines?  Functional but cool?  Does the job without shouting about it? All of which is a great foundation for agile and lean and might be why the airport is so efficient.

Some really great case studies on Agile – from Maersk Shipping (hey Wynne – thought this would be home territory for you!) and Emirates Airline (with a really cool video) before the closing speaker. Now this guy’s job title is ‘Chief Happiness Officer’ for Woo Hoo inc – which should be a clue to what he was going to talk about. He talked about ‘arbejdsglaede’ (ah-bites-gleh-the) - a Danish word for happiness at work - in the entire world; only the Scandinavian languages have a word for happiness at work.  Another high energy session and Alex had us high fiving each other, shouting awesome and talking about cool things we had done at work. A great way to close the conference.

All in all, a great couple of days with some interesting people. I learnt lots, hopefully shared lots and make some great contacts for the future. Worked out I was a dolphin, but that didn’t matter, that focus is vital for prioritisation and that happiness at work is a great recipe for success.