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This hands-on workshop provides employees with survival skills necessary to manage themselves through an organizational transition. They will learn what is driving the change and why they need to embrace a new way of working. The process of individual change and its relationship to organization culture is explored. Individuals will assess their change competencies and consider their potential for becoming a change agent.

AUDIENCE:
This workshop is intended for employees as well as managers and supervisors.

DURATION: 4 hours

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

Upon completion of the workshop, participants will be able to:
1. Recognize drivers of organizational change
2. Manage through the transition
3. Understand the natural reaction to change
4. Prevent stress by recognizing common reactions to change
5. Transition to a role of change agent

TOPICS:

Stress Prevention
Common Mistakes when Responding to Change
The Individual Change Process
Being a Change Agent
Organizational Culture
Change Management
Coaching
Overcoming Barriers

LCP089 v1.0

This hands-on workshop provides managers with an overview of organizational change management which includes change strategies and a roadmap of phases, deliverables and team roles. Participants will leave with a stakeholder impact map, a communications plan and a coaching plan to manage employee resistance.

AUDIENCE:
This workshop is intended for managers and supervisors.

DURATION: 2.5 hours

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

Upon completion of the workshop, participants will be able to:
• Build a step-by-step roadmap for managing change
• Create a stakeholder impact map
• Assess the impact of changes on the company’s culture
• Develop strategies for generating desire for change
• Craft a resistance management plan

TOPICS:

Benefits of Organizational Change Management
Individual Change Process
Change Management Methodology
The 7-S Framework for Organizational Change
Communications Plan
Stakeholder Impact Map
Sponsor Role
Coaching and Resistance Management

LCP088 V1

Gathering both business and technical requirements using proven methodologies can reduce rework and result in business partner confidence in your IT workforce.  In depth understanding of the business needs enables the business analyst to translate those needs into solution options.  Utilizing a repeatable requirements elicitation and management process and implementing standard templates facilitates and presents not only a professional image of service delivery, but a truly quality product.  Consistently repeating and improving the process increases the likelihood of your business partner reaching out to you earlier in the idea generation phase. If you are looking to lower solution delivery costs by leveraging requirements gathering best practices, consider using standards set by the International Institute of Business Analysis.

Do Not Source the Business Analyst Work

With so many sourcing options in the industry, it takes deliberate workforce visioning to set sourcing guidelines that enable IT goal achievement.   Stuart Morstead and Greg Blount coined a term ‘offsourcing’ in their book “Offshore Ready” in reference to the adoption of offshore sourcing of IT-enabled services,  such as a manually intensive repetitive business process, a call center or large software development or maintenance needs.   Whether you decide to work with an off-shore, near-shore, domestic or in-house workforce structure, it is important to manage the risk of knowledge leakage.  You can do this by retaining business analysis competency in-house.    And, besides, who knows your business as well as your business analysts do?  They know how work really gets done, how decisions really get made and what will really work within the constraints of your business culture.

The IT department needs to anticipate business needs by understanding the complex business challenges and the impact technology advances can have on the company’s ability to deliver products or services.   Producing solution options is the unique value the IT department brings to the corporate round table.    Without the business analysis capability, IT must depend on external service providers to bridge the gap between the technology domain and the business domain.

Business Analyst Competencies

You need to improve your business analyst competencies when:

• There is a lot of work churning– with little results.
• Arguments with vendors as to who is going to pay for all the rework.
• Rework is becoming common place.
• Requirement meetings produce solution ideas instead of requirements.
• Interviewing is the only technique used to obtain requirements.
•  Disagreement on scope during testing.
•  Inability to report on whether a feature or function was implemented.

The trained business analyst will able to:

• Reduce product risks by using methods, tools, techniques, and checklists selected specifically for the initiative that is being undertaken.
• Drive to the right level of requirement detail, determine the right models to use and identify the best questions to ask based on who is providing and receiving the requirements.
• Estimate business analysis activities within the planning process to ensure appropriate time is provided.
• Capture the complete set of requirements to ensure solutions address all stakeholder needs and not just those with specific agendas.
• Know how to drive out requirements when given a solution idea or a preference. 
• Know how to communicate scope and manage expectations around scope early and often.
• Know the status of every requirement.
• Take ownership of each requirement through its life and know the status of every requirement.
• Validate assumptions and turn assumptions into questions or requirements.

Organizational Competencies

The organization’s buy-in and commitment to spend the up-front time on analysis, with the understanding that it will reduce future maintenance and re work, greatly supports the effectiveness of the individual business analyst. The business analyst is also impacted by the organization’s maturity in the implementation of other consistent processes, such as:

• Project Management
• Change Management
• Quality Assurance
• Software Development Life Cycle
• Financial Governance Processes

The higher the level of organizational maturity in these areas, the more effective the business analyst will be in performing their role.

As an organization, what can be done?  Here are a few suggestions:

• Involve the business analyst in upfront estimating and business case creation.
• Allow time in planning for business analysis activities.
• Train resources that fill multiple roles (project manager, business analyst, solution architect) to have awareness of their roles and to learn to be successful in each role.
• Track rework – know what it is costing you.
• Allow time for learning and absorption of ideas, concepts and needs.
• Invest time to communicate and clarify methods and roles across the organization.

More Information

 If seeking more information about the role of the business analyst, the scope of work or competencies, please visit the International Institute of Business Analysis at www.theiiba.org.

Michelle Pallas MSM, CIRM, PMP® and Eugenia Schwalm, PMP®, CBAP®

Michelle and Eugenia are managing partners and co-founders of Lighthouse Consulting Partners, a consulting and training firm offering services and training to the information technology industry in the areas of project management, business analysis, vendor management and working with offshore resources.

Setting goals with your sponsor, building an energized project team, and communicating in a way that shows you care are the basic elements of this presentation on leadership in project management.   Ms. Pallas will lay out seven, easy to remember, behaviors that lead to project success.