Manual workarounds: There’s no such thing as a “few seconds”
Let’s face it, we’ve all been there. Whilst working on a project which will deliver some kind of change within an operational area, we face unexpected difficulties late in the delivery lifecycle. Perhaps we find out that something we were hoping to do is much more complex than we’d anticipated, or maybe time and budget are running out. The project manager and sponsor are on the case: We must deliver on time, so yet another round of prioritisation meetings are called. We need to take a metaphorical machete to our project and our requirements with a view to delivering something smaller and cheaper that is still “fit for purpose”. That is quite a challenge, but one that I’m sure will resonate with many readers!
A hypothetical example…
Let’s build on this idea and imagine for a moment that we work in a mid-size organisation that is progressing a project to launch a brand new customer self-service portal. The objectives are to encourage customers to submit changes online, rather than ringing through to the call centre. The project’s business case is built around efficiency savings, reduced number of phone calls and intangible benefits including better customer satisfaction. The original intention was that when a customer submits their information via the web, it’ll automatically feed through to the master customer database, updating the details immediately.
However, we face a sudden and unexpected problem — we’ve suddenly had our project budget cut by 30%, and there are pressures to deliver even quicker than originally planned. So, we convene an urgent prioritisation meeting. We take up our role as facilitator and start to discuss what we could do differently, or which features or functions we are going to de-scope from the project.
The conversation gets heated remarkably quickly – our stakeholders egos start to show themselves. Different stakeholders have different worldviews and are politically exposed in different ways.
The sponsor opens the meeting sternly:
“We absolutely must deliver on time. We’ve announced the delivery date to the press, and we simply can’t be seen to have yet another delayed project.”
Discussion continues. People start to ask how this situation has occurred. A range of potential re-scoping options are discussed, but it isn’t possible to get agreement. One stakeholder suggests that we should seriously consider cancelling the project altogether, but this voice is quickly quashed. The conversation is moving on quickly when one of the other senior stakeholders (who used to be an operational team leader 20 years ago) interjects:
“Right, I think I have a solution. We can deliver everything on time and within budget”.
The room’s attention is immediately drawn to the stakeholders face. She waits a moment and then breaks the silence.
I hazard a guess that many of us have worked in organisations where data is, quite understandably, seen as the crucial “life blood”. Data can be an important asset that not only keeps the operation ticking over but also drives informed decision making. Not only can good quality data help us to benchmark organisational (and individual) performance, it also helps us to spot trends and anticipate future customer needs. Managers and executives need reliable and accurate data to make tactical and strategic decisions—and in some cases this may lead to repeated requests for more and more data. We might find that a mini-industry is created in crafting internal “Management Information” reports, often involving triangulating data from multiple, disparate systems, with an associated risk of error. We may well initiate projects to automate the creation of reports so that we can get them to our stakeholders quicker, faster and in greater quantity.
In my last blog post, I wrote about some of 
I recently read an 
I recently visited a pizza buffet restaurant with some colleagues. It had been a long day, so I had no hesitation in piling my plate high with a whole range of different pizza slices (well, everyone likes pizza, right?).
How often does your organisation 
One of the things I absolutely love about my role as a business analyst is that I get to ask all sorts of naïve questions of my clients. Being a business analyst creates the permission to call out the ‘elephant in the room’ and to ask those deepest, darkest political questions that others might be avoiding. Clearly, this must always be done with respect, rapport and from an angle of curiosity – and when done well, those “naïve” questions can yield some extremely interesting outcomes and can create debates that help solidify and clarify organisational or project direction. It helps avoid problems before they occur.
I recently saw an intriguing LinkedIN thread relating to 
Ask any senior leader whether they make decisions based on data or on intuition, and you’ll get a mixed response. In my experience, experienced leaders will talk about a mixture of data/insight and “gut” – a combination of hard facts and intuition. Often they’ll talk about how hard it is to get timely information from their systems and processes, and they’ll talk about how they can’t always trust the data that they receive. They might mention their frustration that they can’t get access to data quickly enough, that they are constantly looking in the ‘rear view mirror’ and they fear that the data they see is flawed.