What am I doing?

When I accepted a position as a "Consultant", it became clear that no one really knew what a consultant really does. On projects, I served as the "Technical Lead", which came to be known as the pinch hitter for all things project oriented. When the Project Manager took vacation, I covered for her. Same goes for the Business Analyst and Test Analyst. Strategically, my manager avoided labeling me as a BA or TA, since our company had a tendency of pooling those resources, thereby losing my special competencies for that particular department. As time passed, projects were brought in with fewer and fewer PMs, BAs, or TAs, and I found myself covering all of those roles. My experience in the print field lended well to the work for this department and if I were to be sucked into the vortex of "pooled" talent, that department might not ever see me again. I became a mashup of talents and tagging me with a job family challenged my manager. But, I loved it. When I was laid off, I had plenty of options. As I spent days in deep self reflection, I realized I enjoyed the BA role much more, and in fact, in my final years there, that was primarily the scope of my work.With one problem... I was in denial at the time. I didn't name documents using the BA terminology. Instead, I performed gap analysis, problem statements, system assessments, etc. The Project Management Methodology at that company didn't really comply with industry standards for Business Analysis.  Thankfully, I'm wholeheartedly embracing the role now, learning all the time, observing, and taking notes. There is no question now, I'm a Business Analyst, and happy to be one.

To Certify or Not to Certify

Lately, I've been researching a couple of Business Analysis certifications. It's very interesting to see the differences in them. Clearly, the IIBA certification process is comprehensive, but in hard economic times, it's tough for a contractor to fund all the classes involved. I did find "Inquestra", which has a certificate requiring only 16 PDUs, while IIBA requires 21 PDUs. So, I could go for the BSAC, and also apply those hours to the CCBA with IIBA. Sounds like a good plan, but I think I'll keep researching. I'm open to ideas, if you've got 'em.

And The Fog Recedes

I've finally emerged from the fog of a new contract job where everything is new and undiscovered, and am finding my place again in a different corporate culture. I came from a place that was fraught with the threat of layoffs and political undertones. The job was no longer about talent and expertise, but about how to make your boss happy, even if he was illogical. (I don't play that game very well, I admit.) But my being laid off was a blessing of the best kind. Even though its a contract job, I've landed right where I belong. I like fringe stuff, in fact, I thrive on it. So disaster recovery has become my life and I LOVE IT! No one likes to think about all the ways things could go wrong in a serious way, so I've made it a puzzle and doesn't everyone in the technology field like a good puzzle? And yes, disaster recovery is quite possibly the lowest priority item on most people's long list of things to do, but making a puzzle out of it, at least makes it interesting.

So, I apologize for the lapse in my blog, but I believe I've emerged from the storm and welcome your thoughts on the topic of disaster recovery and business continuity planning.What are some of your interesting techniques to encourage your team to consider recovery strategies in a disaster?

Pleasure. Passion. Purpose.

Saw a tweet today by @ChrisBrogan, "Pleasure. Passion. Purpose. - three types of happiness, reported by @zappos in Delivering Happiness." This was a new perspective for me. As a Business Analyst, its important to help foster happiness for both business and technical team members alike. A challenge at times, because everyone has different pleasures, passions and purposes. A few years ago, I joined a team after most of group had already formed. Additionally, two of the team members had applied for my job, creating some hostility toward me, even before they knew me. So how did I overcome it?

Playing dumb served me well in this case. The technical teams knew their jobs and had definite ideas how things should work. The business was tired of not having a voice with the team. First, I worked daily with one of the two competitors for my job. I let him know that I was new, and needed him to teach me. Constant stroking of his ego became a task I eagerly accepted. Eventually, I let him know that he was MUCH too valuable as a technical expert to be a "lowly" Business Analyst. As far as the second competitor, he took his queues from the first and eventually quieted down, too. For the whole technical team, we held weekly meetings where they brought me their "wish lists" of how they wanted things to work. Most of them were simple and easy to implement. The biggest challenge, they wanted the Project Manager gone stating too many meetings and little time to actually produce the work. When the Test Analyst and the key stakeholders also expressed the same concern, I did my best to reduce their meeting load, but eventually asked to have the Project Manager reassigned and I served as PM until a replacement was identified. It worked! I had gained the respect of the team. And the new PM was GREAT! Everybody (business and stakeholders) loved her! From then on, the tasks rolled out quickly.

So when we, as Business Analysts, look at root causes for issues with any team, don't forget to consider the dynamics of the personalities. I find it important to understand how the team members prefer to work. Some like to have daily scrum sessions, others are very independent and disciplined workers. I like to tailor the project approach to the team members and avoid forcing them into some methodology. A happy team, is a productive team.

It doesn't hurt to offer movies and popcorn once in a while, too. Even if it is in the company auditorium (during office hours, of course). Cheap and effective teambuilding time.

Earth Trails

Blazing new trails is risky business with all the new technologies on the market. Its hard to believe that it was more than 10 years ago that I participated in the most amazing project to date. As a Web Developer for Iowa Public Television, the Earth Trails campaign was dedicated to educating youth about the Mississippi River culture, geography, music, food and history. I came later to the project than the majority of the team, but when they asked the question "what more can we do, to stretch technology for learning?" my brain went into overdrive. As a leader in digital television and a major consumer of the Iowa Communications Network (ICN), they had already planned to connect 10 classrooms around the state by video, with the studio. The general plan was to produce 4 live 2-hour broadcasts with 5 experts at satellite locations up and down the Mississippi River. These experts came from each of the subject areas from food and music, to geography and culture. How did we extend it? We built a web site where students nationwide send questions by filling out an online form, or send us a fax, or call into our phone bank and a panel of experts in the war room categorized them and then selected some of them to be sent to the studio where the MC read them to the experts out in the field. But that wasn't enough for me.

How would we make sure each and every question got an answer and the students across the country were ensured a response? Every question was recorded in a database and educators answered them, while the web automatically pushed the answers back out to the students. But what about the questions from the 10 video classrooms and from the field? All I had to do was search the storage closets in the building. A small black box provided the answer. I don't remember what it was called, but its function was to grab the closed captioning from the live broadcast and write it to a text file on the server. Technicians pulled the text questions and answers from the closed captioning, corrected any spelling errors, and pasted them into the same database. That way, if the student missed the answer on the broadcast, it was posted on the web site.

The experience was complete with high stress, high excitement and involved a highly creative group of professionals, including amazing educators. The requirements were simple and the solution was a huge collaborative effort with a wide variety of skilled people. From TV Producers, Directors, Educators, Technicians, and Creatives, no other project provided greater challenge or reward, demonstrated in the comments from teachers, students and parents.

Remember, this was 10 years ago. It was the first nationwide TV broadcast with 2 types of leading edge technologies (Internet and Video Conferencing over ICN) providing a high level of interactivity. I am so proud of the team to this day. And it was my first exposure to the role of Business Analyst. The web site played a small role, it was the symphony and coordination of the people that made it great.

For more information about Earth Trails, see this Iowa Public Television web site.

Yes, the program still lives!!! Perhaps the greatest honor of all... It has survived the test of time.

Brutal Reminders

Like any of a thousand storms, they can pack a punch to electrical systems. While we live only 2 blocks from the power substation, and all of our wiring from there to the house is underground, we lost power for 6 hours today during a fierce storm that packed lots of rain (on saturated ground) along with pounding lightning. This meant that, in order to save the thousands of dollars we spent finishing our basement, the four of us had to bail water for about 3 hours. A brutal reminder how dependent we are on electricity, backup systems and recovery planning.

Was it worth not having a generator? Talk to me tomorrow, when the pain really sets in. But the bigger story is, if we had lost power at work, what would be the impact? Would the backup systems really work? This morning, there were two failed attempts to fire up backup power systems, so we knew we were in it for the long haul. But could the business systems withstand not having their electronic documents? What are the costs associated with NOT having these critical systems running? I often wonder if anyone really knows.

If we had not been home, and the basement filled with water, I can't imagine the damage it would have caused. I don't WANT to think about it. I wonder if some businesses are the same way? Are they going unprotected due to their fear?

Green Paper

Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day, therefore I'm dedicating this entry to those who support our systems with a story about my favorite Sys Admin, Ryan.

Within just 5 weeks of being hired into the print department of a large insurance company, I found myself responsible for conducting a "Proof of Concept" or "POC" with a vendor's system, including dozens of users who were unfamiliar, as was I, with the product. The POC focused on a new web application viewer for documents in a legacy system. Enter Ryan, the Sys Admin. I was overwhelmed with responsibilities, since our Project Manager decided to take a vacation during the POC and she left me in charge on top of my normal tasks. This system was entirely new to me, but Ryan stepped in and ensured that the servers were ready and configured, working with the vendor to set things specifically for our types of documents. He was a godsend. So, while I managed users/testers, and conducted the training sessions, Ryan expertly covered my role as technical lead. These are the kinds of teams I enjoy working on. Teams that know when someone is unable to do their job, that someone automatically jumps in and runs with the ball.

Thanks to Ryan, our POC sessions were successful and we save the company millions of dollars annually, by reducing the print and paper consumption, and delivering documents electronically to all sorts of customers. At last count, we delivered over 44,000 documents daily. Someday, I'll have to figure out how many trees that saves.

Do you have a story about a great System Administrator? Please share your story with us.

Download, Save, Copy, and Upload... Rinse and Repeat

While this blog is dedicated to reducing paper consumption, that frequently requires that we first master our file management processes for digital files.

I once had a "Help Desk" call where the user was having difficulty moving files from one place to another. I arranged to meet her at her desk and watch the process she used. She downloaded the document from our Mobius system, saved it to her hard drive, copied it to a network share, then uploaded it to the Filenet system. That is effectively making four copies of the document when I could see immediately, that we could "link" the original file into the Filenet system quite easily.

What experiences have you seen where a document exists in multiple locations? I'm as guilty as anyone else... one look at my computer's desktop screen and you'll see that I'm historically keeping multiple copies of documents.

The Void

I once had a dream where there were stacks and stacks of paper on racks upon racks in this huge warehouse. It was full of paper, yet it was an expanse of void. Where was all that paper destined to go? Would that paper become important contracts representing a security policy, designed to provide financial assistance to some family if their house burned down, or maybe replace their car in an accident? Would that paper end up on the floor of the legislature to land on the desk of the Governor who would sign it and then become the "letter of the law?" Or would it fill the front of the refrigerator as children's art?

The blankness of the paper saddened me. Then I realized, I was at work.