strategy Archives - Richard Lannon

Your Password Has Been Quoted in an Extortion Email. What do you do?

On October 15, 2018 / risk management, security, strategy, technology

Your business and personal life could be at risk. You receive a spam email stating that unless you send money now, you will be exposed on the internet. Worst of all, they quoted a password that you use or have used for business and personal transactions. Your knee-jerk reaction is panic.

What Do You Do?

First, settle down. Tear yourself off the ceiling and pull your knuckles from the arms of your chair. Take a few deep breaths and breathe. #Relax just a little. Most of these emails have been determined to be false, and that is a high probability nothing will happen. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have a problem.

Second, you need to fix your #security breach. One that you created because you lacked strategic and tactical thinking and planning on how to deal with this issue. Sorry, I know that hurts. But you have to accept responsibility and accountability for your mistake.

Understand the Strategic Connection

#Strategic #planning is not just about building your #business through revenue enhancement. It is also about understanding your business processes and technology. Often leveraging technology to grow the business. As we dig deeper into the tactical aspects of your strategic plans and #technology it is important you know that your business and you personally are secure. You need to have a security plan as part of your strategic plan and the ability to test your technology, especially your emails and passwords. Once you know if this information has been breached, then you can take action securing access to your business and personal life with a secure password system.

In working with clients on their strategic plans, I hear the stories of security breaches. The stories that never get told to their business world. Whether you are a busy executive, business owner, or professional, you need to know something about your security. It is your responsibility. Here are some handy information and sites that should be part of your overall strategic and tactical business and personal plans that include email and password security checks and tools to help you protect your life. When we talk technology security, we are talking about your life on a multitude of levels.

You might be surprised what you will find out. Once you have checked all your email accounts and passwords you might want to consider using secure password storage and generator software. If you are not sure which security option is right for you, I have added DottoTech from YouTube for you. I have been following his work since the mid-1990’s. He does an awesome job explaining how to use various technology tools.

Educate Yourself on Your Security

Check Your Passwords: https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords

Check Your Email Addresses: https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Best Free Password Manager 2018: https://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/the-best-password-manager-1325845

DottoTech – Tech Made Easy: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9BqPtCcSyHvQsbl2rumM4w

Final Thoughts

I hope this helps you secure your business and personal life. The best way to be #SETforSuccess in anything you do is to take #action. This is important. So take action, now.

Don’t forget to do your best, invest in the success of others and make your journey count. Be #SETforSuccess

Richard.

6 Ways the Business Analyst Is Like a Consultant

On September 12, 2016 / business analysis, consulting, project management, strategy

I make no bones about it. Over 27 years ago, as I prepared to leave university, I wanted a career where I could do the stuff I did in post-secondary school but in the private sector.

Read, research, write, chat with people, create relationships, present and share ideas, improve organizations and occasionally attend beer and pizza events that were an opportunity to network or have fun, if you know what I mean, right.

As I skimmed my career horizon, talked to people, and took the time to work through the book, “What Color is Your Parachute” by Richard N. Bolles (recommend if changing careers), I realized I did not fit the normal get-a-job world. I learned that I needed to feed my entrepreneurial spirit, analytic abilities, training and development and strategic thinking to make business better. Somewhere I learned about, ‘the consultant’ (place dramatic music here, please) and started reading everything I could about the profession.

This week I did a career audit and review – something I recommend everyone should do from time to time. This brought me to 6 Ways in which the Business Analyst is like a Consultant.

It’s a Problem to Solve: Many professionals work their whole lives to become a project manager or an executive. They want to climb the corporate ladder so to speak. Some professionals prefer to skip all that implementation and operational management stuff and get to solving business problems now. As a business analyst or consultant, while helping to expose challenges and opportunities, you get to work with all levels of the organization and develop your executive thinking and strategic abilities. You get to define the problem, ask the important what and why questions to unravel issues and develop solutions.

Do Many Things: This is something I love about the overall consulting and training field, being able to do many things, see many things, and be many things. I was once asked, by a CEO, what would a perfect week look like for me. I laughed and said, on Monday I write, connect with people and prepare, Tuesday, I attend a few meetings, do a breakout session and coach/mentor clients, by Wednesday I am keynoting at an event, updating key stakeholder status and designing a new system, Thursday and Friday are spent training and/or facilitating a session and then back to the office to debrief and prepare for the next week. Best part, many interactions, many cultures, helping many people and doing many things. You can specialize in an industry or a niche, focus on a very specific group or industry or even ride the wave of the next best thing. The business analyst and consultant do this. The choice is yours.

Many Hats to Wear: Recently I experienced the perfect fortuitous juxtaposition of interests. I was invited to a 1920’s themed volunteer appreciation dinner being sponsored and hosted by a client. I ended up sitting next to a University Associate Dean, senior board member, and business person. He asked the magical question, what do you do? Sitting there, in my 1920’s time period attire, wearing my fedora, with my strategic business analyst/consultant’s smile, I delivered my elevator speech. He looked at me and said, you are a man of many hats. I think he is correct, if you get to wear many hats and like it, you may be a professional turning consultant. You get to be many things, play many roles and with many responsibilities.

An Instant Business Network: You may not like to network, I get that. But as a business analyst/consultant just by the nature of the work you do you get to build a vast and valuable network. Just think about it. You get to work with internal and external clients due to the different projects you are engaged in. Your stakeholder list includes all levels in your organization. Externally you make connections with vendors of all sorts.

Recently a business associate of mine lost his job as a strategic business analyst at a major corporation. He was right sized. A week later, a vendor called him and asked if he would join their team. He would be working for a company with an office in Pal-Alto, California. He went from commuting to work every day to working virtually and going to California for meetings during Canada’s winters. The key point, you get to build relationships. That’s important.

You are Seen as an Expert: I learned this when I was with one of the big consulting firms. Consulting firms and the profession is about rapid learning. Even independently, you can focus on a key expertise and grow your abilities. The best part, you get to learn on the job. I have often said the business analyst is paid to learn and develop their expertise. This often happens due to the fast pace of projects and the teams you are working with. If you are with a firm, they will send you to training and develop your expertise for the various engagement/projects you work on. You learn to leverage and build your expertise. That is exciting!

The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus. Bruce Lee Share on X

Flexibility is a Survival Tactic: Years ago I worked for a very operational company (for a short bit). It was a good experience as it helped me understand the day-to-day needs of clients. I could plan my day and for the most part, I could do the things that were required.

For the business analysts as a consultant this might be a bit of a challenge. Sometimes your day ‘changes on a dime’. For example, a client calls and says “I have two people flying in today can you meet with them to get the new systems requirements from them? They are available this afternoon.” Your day just changed, and you need to adjust everything fast. The reality is as a professional you may be working on several initiatives (an IT assessment, a policy review, maturity audit, risk assessment or a process model) and you need to manage everything and adjust.

Final Thoughts: As I write this piece I find that I am becoming even more excited about the work a strategic business analyst as the consultant does. I feel as if I want to share all the projects I worked on over 3 decades and the many lessons learned. But I can’t do it all at once.

Recently, during a podcast interview, I hosted (BA Times Podcast airs September 2016), my business colleague and guest, Bob Prentiss (Bob the BA), reminded me that not all business analysts become project managers. There are now many career avenues to pursue.

I am excited for you, the professional business analyst, about the future projects and initiatives you will work on. The ones you can’t even see coming yet. But they are there. Interestingly being a business analyst and consultant (internal or external) provides you a platform on which to develop many skills, to try new things and to boldly go with no-one has gone before. Good luck.

And remember,
Do your best,
Invest in the success of others,
Make your journey count.
Richard

Catapult The Organization Forward: Discover A CEO’s Thinking

On July 17, 2016 / analysis, strategy

I was interviewing a CEO of a successful technology product and service company. We were discussing what made the company successful and also their challenges. He openly spoke of the way they approach business growth and their culture with an emphasis on people – both internal and external stakeholder relationships.

Here are the things that were on the CEO’s mind and the commitments they made. I suspect some of these are on your leaders’ minds and you should know them if you want to participate in your company’s success.

Business Growth

When we started talking about business growth I asked the CEO to define what this meant to his company. It was clearly stated that they measured business growth two ways; by top line sales and bottom line results. From an strategic business analyst (SBA) and management consultant’s (MC) perspective this helps tell you where you can have an impact. For example, if your focus is on cost reduction then you get to impact the bottom line through process improvements or other cost reduction measures.

Acquisition

One part of the approach to business growth for this CEO was through acquisition. The acquisition strategy was about finding complementary products and services that were within the business’s ability to acquire that fit with the culture of the organization. There was a huge emphasis placed on people and culture because acquiring another business that did not fit made no sense to this CEO. The reason was simple; wrong culture and wrong fit mean conflict and negative business impact.

So for this company, if the SBA/MC is part of a team evaluating acquisition. they would need to know the parameters of analysis using a combination for financial, human resource and risk management approaches to help determine if a move forward is a good idea. This could apply internally as well as when looking at department adjustments. Not to mention if the company succeeded in acquiring another organization, the SBA/MC would need to document all the cultural changes, process shifts and adjustments that need to be made. The BA should be part of the success of this approach.

Organic Growth

The organic growth is a portion of growth that applies to increased output, customer base expansion, new product development, innovation, or the geographic placement of your company to serve a clientele. This CEO explained that this is something they can do at a relative consistent annual rate given the nature of their business. For example, a 5 percent annual growth rate per year would be consistent.

But with a little creative development, they could create a revenue pop in their business. The example provided was when a group of business analysts had the idea of recycling metal from old equipment and selling to recycling companies. It turned out to be a small but doable branch of their business done by a couple of people who cared about the environment, took the time to identify the requirements, recommend solutions and help make it happen.

Three-Legged Stool Analogy

This analogy has been around for a long time and is sometimes referred to as the Three-Legged Strategy. When this CEO and I started to discuss this business approach we had a good laugh as we both understood that the Three-Legged Strategy applies to a lot of things. But our focus is the CEO’s perspective. In this case, we talked about customer service, product sales, and maintenance agreements.

They placed a lot of emphasis on training their people to do three things. First, making sure they are solving the customer’s problem no matter what. Second, asking their customers who else should they be speaking to in their company that could also use their services? Third, the simple question, how can we help? All three of these things helped build the business through relationship building and can be part of the external and internal culture of the business.

Their product line was twofold, soft consumables and hard products. Their business growth starts first with customer consumable products. This particular technology company sold customer products that customers would consume on a regular basis, creating a regular cash flow. The consumable products helped the company create a wedge in their customer’s business, opening the door to other opportunities. Think an inch wide and a mile deep. Once they opened the door, they could sell other products.

All progress takes place outside the comfort zone. Michael John Bobak Share on X

Their hard products, he felt, were things they could sell once due to the cost. Generally, it would be a capital purchase by a client. They are always looking to sell their hard products, but the real cash flow is in the maintenance agreements to service the equipment. So the emphasis was placed on ways to maintain these contracts and to find additional offerings related to this service. This way they were focused on value services. Their SBA helped define the service and maintenance programs through analysis of the business intelligence data.

There are many lessons learned here relating to the Three-Legged Stool approach. You can see that their culture is a customer focused environment where making sure that the needs of the customer are completely understood and solutions were forthcoming. The culture also reflected that they thought out where their revenue streams were and they emphasized actions towards supporting that area. From an internal perspective, I could see services of an IT department (or any department) following a similar approach for their internal clients. It just needs to be defined.

People And Culture

This was the final piece of the puzzle for this CEO. Not necessarily the last. It just happened we agreed at the start of our discussion to follow a certain flow.

Their culture, he felt, was one of the most important parts of the business success. They were always having discussions on how to improve that part of the business. He was proud to tell me of the $250 annually that each employee gets to give to charity and the company match on top of that and the weekly call out sessions where employees complimented their peers on the work they did. Basically creating a culture where people are engaged and work together to solve problems. But the big word was FIT. People they hired needed to fit with the organization and live the business values. As we reviewed the values, I had the CEO provide examples of what living the values looked liked. Given the nature of the project we were about to embark on this was important to know. Overall this company wanted a culture of trust. Something a Strategic Business Analyst and Management Consultant can learn to do when working with people using the formula; like you, know you, and trust you and I will work with you. But maybe that is another blog on how to build a culture of trust.

Related Article: What CEOs Want: 8 Essential
Management Team Attributes?

Final Thought

As I share this blog and the interview that I did with this CEO I can’t but help think about what I found out. This was a reconnaissance mission to understand the business, the issues, the driving forces and risks. I did get what I needed. This important conversation provided me insight into what was on the CEO’s mind, the leadership commitments of the organization and the lessons learned. I got to ask all sorts of questions related to the business to gain perspective and thinking. This provided valuable information to help define the future, analyze commitments and implement solutions.

As a strategic business analyst, I believe that information and business intelligence data can be used to help business’ achieve its goals and objectives, to analyze aspects of the business to solve problems and provide solutions that fundamentally will help catapult the organization forward. It is important to discover what is on the minds of the CEO. Hopefully, you do too.

Remember to:
Do your best,
Invest in the success of others,
Make your journey count,

Richard

5 Steps You Should Take to Say No and Be Better in Your Business

On February 29, 2016 / strategic, strategic planning, strategy

A big NO on the Wall by Steve Boneham

Saying no is not a bad thing. Yet saying no doesn’t come easy for most people. No is actually something you should learn how say and use in business. No forces you to focus on what is important. If you don’t say no you end up with way too much on your to-do plate. You, your team and business become diluted as your attention fragments. Eventually you become ineffective, stressed and frustrated. If you say no you end up creating a list of things that you, your business and the people you work with should not be doing. You created not-to-do list that will become larger than your yes list. Nothing wrong with that as telling people no or have a not-to-do list helps you say yes to the things you want or need to do. That is a major win for everybody.

So let’s start with the 5 steps you should take to say no. In later blogs I will explore the creation of the not-to-do list and how to use if effectively in your business. I guess you can say that this blog stream will have several parts.

5 Steps You Should Take to Say No and Be Better in Your Business (for that matter life)

Use Needs Assessment: This is a skill you need to master, period. It is an important part of all decision making. In this case understand the request on your time, money and resources from the requesting person or organization. Make sure you understand their needs but also you need to have a set of criteria to determine if the request makes sense or not for you. Know your boundaries and priories. Use a set of criteria in the needs assessment and make your decision accordingly.
Straight Up is Always Better: My kids learned a long time ago that if I say “I’ll think about it that usually meant yes”. They just needed to be patient. If they won’t then it would be a no. I was teaching them a lesson, I guess. That tactic is not always the best approach. Business people need to know where you stand. Don’t be afraid to respectively decline. Be a Canadian and say, I’m sorry but I can’t do that or no your request doesn’t fit with our present mandate. Whatever the request insure you provide your reasoning.
Be Polite About It: It is important in your straight forwardness to be respectful of the requestor. No need to
be nasty. Politeness always wins and is a form of a life line that keeps you connected with the people or organization you are saying no to. It is about maintaining engagement, relationship and self preservation for all parties involved. Maybe there is something else you can do for them, a suggestion maybe.
Prepare for the Response: Saying no may not be easy but might be the only way. People will respond to your no and it may not always be a positive response. My favorite response I received from a professional organization was, what do you mean no! Surprised me at first considering they wanted a 300 hour commitment. In this case I focused on working with the person’s reaction to my no. They were frustrated. So I inquired about their frustration and presented my decision making and business requirements. They were surprised to learn why I had to say no. I too learned something about their needs. When you say no don’t take the other persons reaction personally. There may be another issue.
Practice Makes Perfect: I always loved this saying. Because we all have learned it from the time we were kids. The thing is you need to be practicing the right skill. Practicing the wrong saying no skills won’t help you. Saying no starts with setting your boundaries, knowing what you don’t want any longer and practicing it out loud. Tell your friends that you need to learn to say no. Have them hold you accountable for this learning and practice with them. In business consider hosting a saying no session. The objective would be to achieve clarity on the importance of saying no, how to say no and the ways to ensure you gain the outcomes required. Eventually saying no will become easier.

There are many reasons to say no. Some people find saying no a real challenge. Acknowledging you have this difficulty is a good thing. You now have a place to start from to develop a set of rules and boundaries that could work for you in your business. To get clear on what is important to you consider creating things-to-say-no-to-list. Start by practicing saying no to those things first. If an employee or business partner makes a request of you or your organization that does not fit the business mandate ensure that you have your readymade reasoning available. But don’t say anything until you evaluate the other persons request, don’t be harsh and be respectful. Learning to say no to the right things will improve your business and personal life. It’s just the way it is.

——–

Richard Lannon: Raised in an entrepreneurial family, Richard learned to find opportunities, solve problems and implement solutions quickly. During his career he became a strategist, helping organizations find the road to their success. His cross-industry experience has made him a proven expert, one who has worked with a big four consulting firm, top tier corporations, mid-level enterprises, and small business leaders from around the world.

Business author,professional speaker, and coach, Richard guides you to actionable roadmap as the means to your business success.www.setforsuccess.ca

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.

Do you Know your Business’ Guiding Principles?

On June 26, 2015 / business, business decisions, business leadership, business planning, decisions, guiding principles, human resources, key performance indicator, strategic planning, strategy, values

Stay Focused with Guiding Principles

Companies that get focused and provide a vital service for people’s lives deserve to be around a long time. RANA Respiratory Care Group (http://bit.ly/1zq46Do) is one such company. Recently I had the opportunity to interview Cory McArthur, President, about the strategic planning of RANA and their organization as a whole. As we discussed RANA’s thinking on Strategic Planning and the importance of business growth and development, it became apparent that having Guiding Principles was a key to their business’s success.

Guiding Principles provide a litheness test for making better business decisions. They are usually based on your organization’s core values and, to be of most use, should be simple and easy to understand for all

involved. . Most successful companies have between 3-5 Guiding Principles. They use these both as a foundation for making short-term business decisions, as well as a platform from which to create their strategic planning.

As Corey explained, RANA has five unique guiding principles, but one stands out the most: good for the client, good for the system and good for RANA. Simple and profound at the same time, it’s something that both the executives and employees can embrace. It reflects their core values, provides balance, and keeps the company pointed in the right direction. The executive team felt that with this guiding principle none of them could lose when making business decisions. That is a powerful perspective. It not only provides RANA focus, but also has allows them to come out neutral or ahead in their business.

Cory went on to break down this Principle in more depth:

Good for the clientkeeps the company and its people focused on their primary responsibility: the health and well being of their clients.
Good for the systemis about embracing and enhancing the healthcare system over the long term. As a private provider in a public system they need to benefit and compliment the overall healthcare system.
Good for RANA has to do with the business side of the organization and sustainability. That means helping patients and maintaining a healthy company over the long term.

RANA has definitely embraced the key elements of strategic planning. In this case, as a company of 25 years, they have grown and developed a set of Guiding Principles for their business decision-making process that can be used over the long term. A great lesson learned from a company that is a Canadian business champion.

What are your company’s guiding principles?

Listen to our CJOB podcast here The SPAR with Richard Lannon and Cory McArthur.