Collaboration Skills in Business Analysis

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In a traditional business environment, relationships are clearly defined by a hierarchical structure. But in business analysis, relationships are less sequential and more reciprocal and synchronous.

As projects and initiatives become more complex and varied, the relationships necessary to produce them also increase in complexity. It is with these interactions that business analysts rely upon collaboration skills. Collaboration skills deal with how a business analyst interacts. Business analysts form relationships with individuals and groups such as stakeholders, team members, customers, end-users, producers and suppliers, business partners, regulatory bodies, and governmental organizations. As these relationships evolve, clarity about goals and challenges faced by each stakeholder enhances a business analyst's ability to address issues in a proactive way.

Collaboration skills are used to elicit requirements from stakeholders, validate plans, and foster ownership and obtain buy-in. Although time consuming, building agreement and trust is vitally important to establishing common goals and objectives. The collaboration skills of business analysis fall into three skill sets.

• interpersonal skills
• diplomacy skills
• organizational development skills

Interpersonal skills

Interpersonal skills deal with a business analyst's emotional intelligence – the ability to pick up on social and cultural cues, and to share tacit understanding of situations with other people. Interpersonal skills have always been a significant part of personal, day-to-day communication, but the importance of these skills is now of even greater value to the modern business analyst. The Internet, audio conferencing and videoconferencing, e-mail, and other technologies have exponentially increased the amount and the speed of professional communication. This expanded use of technology has made interpersonal skills even more important for business analysts to be able to communicate effectively and articulately.

The skills involved in positive, effective personal interaction belong to the interpersonal collaboration skill set. The interpersonal collaboration skill set includes five skills.

• Business analysts plan, facilitate, and conduct meetings in support of the project or initiative. Meeting management involves engaging a group to interact in a structured way and leading them to a consensus that achieves the meeting goal. A business analyst must focus on results, but employ the collaborative style characteristic of teamwork.

• A presentation is a communication between a speaker and an audience. Presentation skills are used in formal, informal, or team presentations. They are especially useful to explain complicated technical ideas and concepts to a variety of people. Business analysts use these tools for influencing colleagues, teaching staff, energizing a team, or selling an idea.

• Communication skills involve both the verbal and written ways that business analysts communicate. The right method is as important as the right words when delivering a message. It is imperative that business analysts have the skill to assess their message and choose the best method of communication in any given circumstance. This may be based on a number of factors including speed, diplomatic constraints, technological savvy, and cost.

• Relationship skills are an important driver of success for a business analyst. In the course of a project or initiative, a business analyst must establish and maintain a series of empathetic, courteous, and effective relationships with stakeholders, team members, suppliers, business partners, and other influential people or organizations. The business analyst must respect established business hierarchy at the same time as realizing that, in a team-based environment, openness, flexibility, and persuasiveness are as important as traditional management skills.

• Business analysts need a high degree of cultural awareness to assist individuals, teams, and organizations to work together effectively. Cultures are defined by implicit assumptions and behaviors that a business analyst must uncover, understand, respect, and reconcile, in order to sustain management effectiveness. Cultures exist within organizations, professional disciplines, and special-interest groups, as well as in other countries. Without mutual understanding, internal and external differences can significantly hinder progress.

No matter how technically astute business analysts may be, those without good interpersonal skills will be at a disadvantage. Business analysts must be able to both receive and impart information accurately and effectively. Interpersonal skills are vital for communication, clarification, and validation of both direct and implicit information.

Diplomacy skills

Diplomacy skills are subtle but pivotal approaches that business analysts utilize to both overcome objections and obstacles, and to achieve goals and objectives. Business analysts who are unable to detect unstated requirements and determine interpersonal opposition risk becoming embroiled in unresolved conflicts and convoluted business problems.

The skills involved in listening, empathizing, facilitating consensus, and solving problems through negotiation belong to the diplomacy collaboration skill set. The diplomacy collaboration skill set includes three skills.

• The art of facilitation involves nurturing collaboration. It is an essential skill for requirements gathering and other nondelegatory activities. As a facilitator, the business analyst acts as an unbiased, nonparticipatory guide who works within the context of the project or initiative to influence behaviors that accelerate consensus building, and to help the group become conscious of its own process of development.

• Each stakeholder will have different ideas and agendas regarding requirements, goals, and solutions. Conflict resolution is a structured process where stakeholders with competing interests forge solutions to these conflicts. The role of the business analyst is to understand the positions and interests of each side, to propose a range of options for solutions, and to guide disputing parties to reach mutually acceptable positions.

• Negotiation skills involve interest-based bargaining. Stakeholders may have differing interests, but they all share a need to act. Negotiation means finding a way each party can win through compromise, mutual agreement, and innovation. The business analyst must understand the value of what each stakeholder brings to the table, and structure an environment conducive to agreement.

Diplomacy is often referred to as an art. This is because unlike most technical competencies, it has no fixed method or procedure. Diplomacy skills involve nurturing the web of both the formal and informal connections and relationships that exist within a project or initiative. Diplomacy involves empathy, experience, and an ability to balance improvisational and structured progress.

Organizational development skills

Organizational development means creating empowerment - planning and acting with the purpose of getting the maximum value out of resources, especially the people involved. These skills allow the business analyst to strengthen the capacity of the team, to support team members and stakeholders, and to realize an initiative's goals and objectives. The skills involved in contextualizing knowledge and building competence belong to the organizational development collaboration skill set. The organizational-development collaboration skill set includes five skills.

• Business endeavors are systems that are bound by interrelated actions. Systems thinking focuses on how things interact with other things within those systems. It looks at social systems, such as business strategy, in the same way as one looks at mechanical systems. Systems thinking constructs, rather than deconstructs. Instead of looking at an initiative as a whole, it looks at each step and then expands the view to see how each of those components relates to the strategy as a whole.

• Questioning skills involve gathering information by stimulating insight through the use of probing methods such as interviews, surveys, and questionnaires. These skills are essential for eliciting requirements from stakeholders. Asking questions of stakeholders enables them to question their own assumptions and determine their needs. Questioning is a skill of refinement. Initial questioning is done with the intent of determining areas of interest and concern, which subsequent questioning will narrow down to specific requirements.

• Critical thinking skills involve reducing processes and problems into logical components, and then conceiving of feasible improvements and solutions. It is a fluid skill that involves constantly engaging in processes and questioning assumptions. Critical thinking forms the basis for planning, problem solving, and decision-making.

• The nature of interacting processes is that each influences the other. Decision-making involves choosing between alternative courses of action. Business analysts use their decision-making skills to mitigate direct risk and to minimize repercussive impact by choosing a path to follow. Business analysts usually employ a consultative style, rather than a dictatorial style, of decision-making. This is where they seek input and advice from the group before making a decision, and then make the final decision themselves. The business analyst needs to be able to seek true commitment to solutions, and to recognize and avoid false consensus among stakeholders.

• Projects and initiatives that do not progress result in stagnation and organizational paralysis. Business analysts utilize escalation skills to get stalled processes moving. Escalation is the process of moving a problem or process to a different level if sufficient attention is not given or it cannot be solved by the person or organization responsible.

Organizational development skills involve getting the best out of organizational development and performance by enabling business analysts, team members, and stakeholders to exercise power, make decisions, resolve problems, and achieve objectives.

The collaboration skill sets involve how a business analyst interacts. Interpersonal, diplomacy, and organizational development skills are required to ensure that all participants in the project or initiative are active partners in the co-creation of value, and are encouraged to adopt these roles rather than remain passive receivers.