A Masterclass in Business Analysis
How many CEOs take a day out from their main mission to help educate and empower the next generation?
I recently had the opportunity to attend Craig Brown’s one day Business Analysis Masterclass, along with participants from City of Melbourne, Kmart, Target, and Methodist Ladies’ College, as well as a couple of Everest colleagues. Here are some of the key ideas, along with some personal reflections.
“Be prepared to be entertained through a selection of true and tested tools that will help you with improving your success rate in gaining alignment and delivering the right outcome, while also getting you to reflect on your own Business Analysis career journey.”
— #LittleMsConnectingDots
Masterclass: from traditional to modern
When I think about the traditional masterclass format I recall my favourite living violinist, Maxim Vengerov, demonstrating, teaching, and critiquing up-and-coming violinists in this fabulous documentary [50 minutes]. Vengerov lifts the lid on how he goes beyond technique and imbues his playing with expression and emotion.
This traditional approach can be an amazing experience for accomplished practitioners, especially those who are prepared to be vulnerable in front of an audience. At Everest we take a more modern approach — one that is more inclusive and accessible — open to everyone who is eager to learn.
Craig’s masterclass is a distillation of his decades of experience, framed with stories, in which he guides and inspires participants in how to be impactful, insightful, and successful as a Business Analyst. Rather than use one person as “the student”, everyone gets to practice through a rich array of collaborative activities.
What the traditional and modern approaches have in common is a dedication to craft, and a return to elegant simplicity after complexity has been explored and technique has been honed.
How to deliver value as a BA, progress in your career, and have fun along the way
Craig stressed the potential to make an impact as a BA, well beyond “writing user stories”.
In a nutshell:
- Align stakeholders by understanding value from their different perspectives
- Build up your own wide-ranging toolkit of accessible and adaptable visual modelling techniques. Use multiple models to draw out more perspectives — here’s a visual example from #LittleMsConnectingDots).
- Work on these models collaboratively.
- Use simple, direct language to engage and communicate
- Develop your capacity to invite critique and feedback, both in relation to applying your craft, and to boost your personal career trajectory
Craig introduced each element through a motivating anecdote, and participants were able to choose techniques from a menu of options.
A consistent message was “there is no one size fits all”, but rather an invitation to select, try, critically reflect, and refine.
I appreciate how this is both an actionable and empowering approach.
Repetition, repetition
Most of the day was spent in guided practice, an approach to learning in which participants receive structure, support, and feedback as they practice particular skills.
For each group of skills a challenge was set, and we were put to work! Mostly we would have a first go by ourselves, then swap and critique with someone else, and finish by collaborating on a second pass.
This guided practice approach enabled participants to try out new techniques (and review familiar ones) with plenty of peer feedback in a fun and supportive environment.
Conclusion
Business Analysis mastery is less about finding and mastering “the one magic technique or framework”, and more about developing:
- a wide-ranging toolkit of collaborative modelling techniques — through ongoing learning, practice, and experimentation
- appreciating and understanding value from a range of stakeholder perspectives
- using critique and feedback productively to improve and progress
In principle anyone could do this through individual self-study, but given the collaborative nature of the BA role a much better approach is to practice with colleagues regularly — e.g. take 30 minutes or so, grab a colleague and practice or revise a technique over a cuppa.
And attend workshops like this one to get a more immersive and wide-ranging boost.
Insight: The overall approach can be applied to other disciplines, although the techniques and methods will vary with the discipline.
* * *
Personally, I appreciated the passion and care that Craig brought to guiding participants: not only in how to be better at their jobs, but also how to make progress in their careers.
Want to learn more?
Register for our monthly-ish newsletter and learn more about our upcoming workshops and hands-on approach to training at everest.engineering/academy.
