solutions Archives - Richard Lannon

9 Lessons Learned from Facilitating Bottom-Up Solution Sessions – Getting it on the Strategic Agenda

On August 22, 2016 / facilitation, solutions

Taking the time to create lessons learned is a powerful way to improve your facilitation skills and abilities. I have learned this lesson from years of facilitating meetings, workshops and planning sessions across diverse industries needing to apply an approach to solving business issues.

For example, some years ago I was engaged to facilitate several Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) work sessions within the oil and gas and utility industries. The challenge was to get ITSM on the strategic agenda of the organizations (bottom up approach), build consensus through identifying what was important, making recommendations and decisions and establishing a direction that would enable the IT organization to improve processes and services offered to their customers.

The lessons learned here can be applied to any department in your organization. It just happens the business case is ITSM. This blog briefly outlines 9 lessons learned from the ITSM facilitation experience that can be applied to almost any situation.

Bottom-Up Approach: In this case it is important to have an approach and methodology to apply. It helps in getting things on the strategic agenda of the organization. Often these sessions provide blueprint to propel a department services forward with emphasis on business value. The key is understanding the business rule and drivers and focus on business value.

Engagement at All Levels: This is a tough one, since what you are seeking to do has not been approved yet. In the example provided there are three levels of engagement required; the strategic (CIO and Directors to establish strategic intent, vision and enterprise objectives), the tactical (Directors and Managers to establish improvement objectives, priorities and program charter) and the Operational (Managers and Key Stakeholders to establish solutions, roadmaps, business case and project charters). Maybe you have something that you are working on that needs all levels of engagement. Having a strong sponsor and influencer helps. Find that person.

Clear Mind and Thought: The fundamental to any bottom-up approach and facilitated session is to develop a clear problem definition that is approved by management or senior steering committee. Many departments, trying to get heard, fall short of achieving clarity. The lack of a clear problem definition negatively impacts the tactical and operational levels of the organization and limits the ability to move forward. Get clear as you will need to sell the issue and eventual solution to all levels for approval.

Understanding the Working Department: When working with your teams, build an understanding of all the work that is taking place in the department right now and how it fits within the support, process and people delivery relationship models. By engaging people in a defined work exercise, your teams can map out and see how their work aligns within the department and the organization. This is effective in getting a present state, getting teams talking and building buy-in.

Points of Pain and Maturity: Establish a clear understanding of your points of pain (PoPs) and the department’s maturity levels. PoPs can be established through focused brainstorming sessions. Once collected, your PoPs should be looked at from an organizational and process maturity perspective. Align your PoPs with the industry maturity model standards (non-existence, chaos, reactive, proactive, service, value). It is important that the content be translated into a service maturity. You can work on obtaining various teams, customers and business representatives’ perspective on your organizational and process maturity levels. This builds some reality into the PoPs and maturity levels thinking by dislodging you from a position of working in isolation.

Plans that Can Be Activated: Build a business case and program plan that can be activated by your people. At this point you are seeking clear recommendations and improvement objectives (what), benefit realization (why), tactical needs (how) and time frame (when) for which to move your organization forward with your initiative or program. This can be done at a high level of details.

Opportunities don't happen. You create them, Chris Grosser Share on X

Create a Business Case for Change: Building a solid business case is foundational for any program to move forward. You will need a member of the executive team or steering committee assigned to provide clear guidance. When forming and using a steering committee, their mandate must be strategic and clear. Tactical task-based reporting can be left to the project management teams and their need for task-based results and status meetings.

Program Initiative Alignment: From a business perspective, most departments in larger organizations need to stop chasing tool solutions, and “flavor-of-the-month quick fixes.” Ultimately, their solution is a business change program that seeks to align the departments with the business objectives and requirements, improve processes and change culture in an effort to control or decrease costs, increase productivity and contribute to the bottom-line. Make sure you are aligned to the bigger cause.

Dealing with the Big Questions: Work with your teams to have them answer “WIIFM” and “WIIFT” questions (what is in it for me and what is in it for them). Ensure you established the fears, uncertainties and doubts (FUDs). Be prepared to have a long FUDs list. These will need to be acknowledged and managed within the context of the solution program and the change management and communications plans.

Final Thoughts

The information in this article is based on feedback obtained during facilitated ITSM work sessions and the work of dedicated IT professionals. However the lessons learned can be applied to other departments or organizations that are seeking to get solutions on their strategic agenda. One thing I have learned, larger issues and solutions require a team who is willing to get in the boat and row in the same direction. This means building consensus at a number of levels. It can be done. Good luck.

Be the best person you can be,
Invest in the success of others, and
Make your journey count.
Richard

It all Happens from the “Get Go” – 7 planning steps to achieve measurable results

On July 3, 2015 / agenda, analysis, business analysis, business problems, key performance indicator, planning, roadmap, solutions, strategic planning, strategy

It all happens from the get go Business leaders need to ensure that planning and implementation is focused. A well thought-out planning and implementation approach considers linking strategy, tactics and operational needs. It includes considerations for key business impact zones (productivity, tools, people and culture) and the outcomes required for solutions to business problems. Consider the business objectives, the process and the work approach that must be used to successfully achieve results in an organization. Results should be resource-driven beginning with shared thinking and consideration of the challenges that need to be addressed. Call them points of pain. All businesses have them and every business leader knows it. A checklist would be handy at this point. Consider common business challenges such as issues with focus and direction, trust, communications and collaboration, productivity, effectiveness and efficiency, process and work procedures, outdated equipment and tools, people experience, skills, beliefs, values or even blame-storming. No matter the issue, they all add up to one thing – a negative impact, something a business leader seeks to avoid.

Here are 7 steps to consider when planning for measurable results:

Step 1. Understand your business priorities What five things are on the strategic agenda of the organization? Why are they so important to the business? In what way can your team make those items happen? If you can answer these questions you are on the path to good business leadership thinking.

Step 2. Identify the challenges What are the points of pain? What are the key challenges? How are these challenges impacting the business? Can we qualify and quantify the problem? Have we considered the impact to productivity, our tools, people and culture? What are the overall impacts and ripple effects to the organization? Write a clear and concise business problem statement that everyone understands. Share that statement and engage in shared thinking and creative solutions with your people.

Step 3. Determine key solutions Throughout the process, encourage teams to assist you in solving the business problems. Be careful here, as coming up with ideas on how to solve business problems does not mean implementing solutions. Provide support and insight to people whose natural approach is to roll up their sleeves and jump right in. At this point, as a business leader, you should be seeking thinking and solutions. Only after the ideas have been put forth do you seek to prove their viability.

Step 4. Choose a solution that makes sense This is where viability comes in. It really comes down to what, why, who, how, when, where, how much and what’s in it for the organization, the benefit, risk and return factor; all the things we learned in grade school and on the playground only with more risk. The best thing is to review situations and possible impacts. Pick three solutions: the do nothing solution, the do something solution or the do something else solution. Think through the issues and make a decision.

Step 5. Implement the solution It’s not always easy, but it must be done. As the business leader, make sure you have your team together. Establish your approach to deal with people and team dynamics across the organization. Change means push back so be prepared. Be honest about your resource abilities. Invest in their success through investing in your own development. Use a good business coach to avoid future issues. Make it part of the process so your people will embrace it. This is a preemptive approach for solution implementation. Remember, as the leader you do not need to be the sage on stage but be the guide on the side.

Step 6. Measure the results Ensure that you have put the right items in place to measure the results. This could be at many levels. Answer the simple question: does it work? The answer needs to be a yes or no, not maybe or sort of, eh! Did you get what you expected? How long did it take? Is it over or under budget? Will you see the expected return on investment? If so, over how many years? Do we have the right people? Have you considered the impact zones and the impact? Does the solution (process, tools, people, etc) align with what is important to the business? The list of questions here is long and depends on what was set as the measurement needs earlier in the planning process.

Step 7. Capture lessons learned This is an area that business leaders rarely engage in. Yet, it is extremely valuable at all levels in the business. A feedback loop should always exist and the business leader should explore what was learned internally and externally. This is your intellectual property that can be used for future planning and continuous improvement. In the end, it comes down to following a planning and implementation approach that ties strategy and tactical solutions together. As the business leader your success depends on following a proven approach, engaging your people in the process and building key business skills. Planning for measurable results happens from the ‘get go’.

It does all happen from the ‘Get Go’. Taking the steps is important. What are your business priorities and in what way are you considering achieving them? This is a discussion that would be great to have with someone that has been there. Connect with me at 1-866-559-8126 Ext 201 and I will send 30 minutes chatting with you about your concerns. Richard Lannon, all rights reserved 2012, but enjoy.

3 Requirement Categories to use in Strategic Planning and Business Analysis

On November 26, 2014 / business analysis, change management strategies, consulting, contract, purpose, requirements, solutions, stakeholders, strategic planning, technology, transition

Categorizing Requirements

Recently while facilitating the strategic planning program with a company in the technology industry we had to make some decisions on how to categorize the requirements. Since the company had a lot of different types of requirements we had to revisit the definition of a requirement (see article Four Requirements That Make a Difference in Creating Solutions).

Due to rapid growth, expansion and culture of the company (very employee centric) the items on their strategy map ranged from the strategic to the operational. The strategy map needed to be vetted. The senior team thought it prudent to review the options for organizing their plans to ensure they took a good approach prior to moving forward. Every organization I have ever worked with always wants to discuss the best way to organize their strategy map prior to proceeding.

The options discussed included categorizing requirements by either stakeholder, sequence or purpose.

Stakeholder: Organizing by stakeholder means grouping all the requirements by one stakeholder group or individual together. In this case it could be by department, business unit or by the business leader. The challenge is this approach is that often requirements are required by multiple stakeholders. Often stakeholder groupings are seen at the road map level (execution plan) and not the strategy map level in planning.

Sequence: Organizing by sequence groups requirements from the highest level with least details to the most detailed. This would mean that you would follow the standard requirements format.

Business Requirements – strategic, tactical, operational
Stakeholders – logical groupings that have influence and impact on the business
Solutions – functional and non-functional (quality)
Transformational – Implementation and Change

Purpose: Organizing requirements by purpose has to do with creating links in the process of the business. It has a lot to do with a logical grouping of activities or actions that must be taken. At the strategy map level this does not make a lot of sense. However, it can be argued that when you categorize strategic elements by business impact zones (Process, Technology, Business Development, People and Culture) you are categorizing by purpose. The challenge is something called traceability.

The technology client found it useful to review the different requirement categorizing options. In this case the leadership team was familiar with business analysis best practice and wanted to review the options.

Since we were dealing with a company that grew rapidly and had a vast amount of information in a strategy map that needed to be vetted it was logical to choose to categorize by Sequence Business Requirements. This allowed the leadership team to break down the strategy map into strategic, tactical and operational business elements. They ended up with three maps for each level.

They realized that as a leadership team they could focus on the things that would make a difference in their business (strategic) and their teams could handle the other components (tactical and operational). This provided the senior team focus. Great lesson learned.

This Weeks Red Question: In what way has your team(s) clearly categorized your business requirements so that your people focus with purpose?

Four Requirements Types That Make a Difference in Creating Solutions

On September 26, 2014 / business analysis, business challenge, business decisions, business goals, business leadership, business objectives, business problems, opportunities, requirements, solutions, stakeholders, strategic planning

Recently I was working with a group of 25 professionals in developing their business analysis capabilities. Business Analysis as a profession has gained a lot of popularity over the last 10 years. All sorts of professionals and consultants are focusing on creating a tool kit so they can help businesses make better decisions.

One challenge I often see is the lack of understanding of the various types of requirements that a business has, and the ability to link those requirements. It concerns me, as there are a lot of professionals and business leaders doing things that are in no way connected to the business needs and the key strategic agenda items of the company at hand.

The first thing to consider is the definition of a requirement, and the second is to know the four key requirements and how to apply them.

A requirement is a condition or capability needed by a stakeholder to solve a business problem or enhance an opportunity. It must satisfy a business constraint like a contract, standard, specification or formally imposed business rule.

There are four key requirements to consider when working on solving business problems or enhancing opportunities.

Business Requirements: These are generally high level statements as to what the business wants to achieve. They are inclusive of the business goals, objectives and needs. When creating business requirements that team must understand what is on the strategic agenda of the organization and why it is important. The values, guiding principles, strategic agenda items, strategic initiatives, stakeholders and outcomes of the company must be considered.

Stakeholders Requirements: These are bridge requirements. They are representative of stakeholder needs and the way they will interact with a business solution. This is often missed. Stakeholder requirements require the business to capture key needs that link and align with the business requirements.

Solution Requirements: These requirements describe the characteristics of a solution and need to align with both the business and stakeholder requirements. Solution requirements are functional and qualitative and are indicative of the behaviour and environmental conditions that a business solution needs to remain effective. Unfortunately it’s way to easy to offer solutions without taking into consideration the whole picture. This is a mistake. Jumping to solutions without first aligning them with the business and stakeholder needs can negatively impact the business, and leads to ineffective use of time, money and resources.

Transition Requirements: These requirements are about implementation and change. They are the requirements needed to efficiently and effectively transition a solution that meets the business and stakeholder needs into the environment. They need to be well thought out,and require a plan of action that creates business success.

The thinking that goes into understanding business problems and opportunities crosses all professional and business leadership boundaries. It does not matter if you are in Human Resources, Information Technology, Finance, Corporate Services or any other department. The reality is that understanding what a requirement is, gathering and capturing the right requirements, and linking requirements together is key to creating successful business solutions.

9 Lessons Learned from Facilitating Bottom-Up Solution Sessions – Getting it on the Strategic Agenda

It all Happens from the “Get Go” – 7 planning steps to achieve measurable results

3 Requirement Categories to use in Strategic Planning and Business Analysis

Four Requirements Types That Make a Difference in Creating Solutions

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