This comprehensive workshop helps business analysts complement their practical systems thinking with a thorough understanding of effective people skills. A few of the many important topics covered in Survival Skills for Analysts include understanding team dynamics and resolving interpersonal conflicts; improving communication skills; planning and managing meetings more effectively and achieving greater consensus and commitment. To help ensure students continue to cultivate these critical skills after completion of the workshop, an action plan is developed for ongoing personal development in the workplace environment. PDUs = 16.
Audience:
Those who need to learn practical interpersonal techniques for analysis: business systems analysts, manager, IT professionals, or other business professionals.
Prerequisites
Previous experience in business systems analysis.
Course duration:
2 days
Course outline:
1. Introduction – Setting Expectations
- What Do You Need to Survive?
- Surviving Requirements Discovery
- Characteristics of Effective Requirements
2. Interpersonal Style
- The Importance of Relationships
- The Social Style Model
- Assertiveness
- Responsiveness
- The Social Styles
- Social Style and Backup Behavior
- Versatility
- Working With Others
- Analytical Social Style
- Driving Social Style
- Expressive Social Style
- Amiable Social Style
- Building on Your Strengths
- Classification Ethics
- Organizational Overview
- Why Perform an Overview?
- Types of Information to Review
- Sources of Information to Review
- Benefits of Organizational Overviews
- Memorandum
3. Team Dynamics
- What Makes a Group a Team?
- Why BSAs Need to Think about Teams
- A Model of Team Development
- Team Member Roles
- Task Roles
- Relationship Roles
- Individual Roles
- Team Norms
- Gaining Consensus
- Memorandum
- Achieving Commitment
4. Listening Skills
- The Communication Process
- Nonverbal Communication
- Communication Filters
- What Are Your Filters?
- Memorandum
- Three Ways to Listen
- Listening Traps
- Memorandum
5. Questioning and Interviewing
- Asking Effective Questions
- The B-PER Questioning Model
- Background Questions
- Problem Questions
- Effects Questions
- Results Questions
- Additional Uses for B-PER Questioning
- Memorandum
- CPR Project B-PER Questions
- Preparing for Interview
- Create an Appropriate Setting
- Ensure the Interview Will Be Focused
- Conducting Interviews
- Memorandum
- Guidelines for Interviewing Practice
6. Needs Assessment and Problem Solving
- The Needs Assessment Process
- Determining the Current State
- Defining the Future State
- Analyzing the Gap
- Developing Solutions
- SWOT Analysis
- Memorandum
- CPR Pilot Project SWOT Analysis
- The Problem Solving Process
- Determining Root Cause
- Generating Ideas
- A Guide to Better Brainstorming
- Brainstorm This!
7. Meeting Management
- Preparing for Meetings
- Meeting Roles
- Managing Disruptive Behavior
- What Would You Do?
- Managing Conflicts in Meetings
- The Nature of Conflict
- An Approach for Managing Conflict
8. Facilitation
- Facilitation and its Application
- Applications for Facilitation
- Characteristics of Effective Facilitation
- Facilitator Responsibilities
- Best Practices for Effective Facilitation
- Facilitation Pitfalls
- Gaining Consensus and Commitment
- Low-Intervention Facilitation
9.Summary and Individual Action Planning
