Training learning

Been a long time since I rambled about here, having been caught up with a variety of things at work and otherwise coupled with a strange writer's block. So here's a bit about somethings that happened over the past few months.

I got an opportunity to conduct training for a group of customers on our product. Working on this consumer lending product-Summit since 2 and half years with this consumer lending product i've learnt that,like anything that wants to survive does, it keeps changing. Having said that and considering it has been a maintenance project since approximately 30 years now, there have been a great deal of changes customized for a number of customers and then the core release too!
As if that is not enough, there is a vast range of functional areas in Summit. You only just begin to understand what these are and go on to understand how any individual process works in business and in the system, when boom! the entire network of all the interlinked areas blasts in your face.. It is enough to gives nightmares to many-a experienced people.
So there was a lot of preparation involved since this was my first shot at customer training on customer premises, given i would not have any help available in case of a stuck-up. Right from preparing the presentations to mock sessions and the works.
At the end of it I was still a bit nervous and not entirely confident, which mostly happens because of the stage fear, even when there is all that knowledge. So i went on to the first day of training all prepared in the most corporate way possible and yet from inside i felt quite school-girlish (when i would stand before the class for a recitation perhaps?)
There were things that went well and that would've gone much better.. Here are some experiences and learning:

1) Preparation is the key: Areas where i had prepared thoroughly i felt much more confident even when i was asked questions that i didn't have answers to immediately.
Anticipating questions and planning for answering these also goes a long way specially if you are cause in a spot!

2) Planning perfection: There were times when i thought i was going to run out of training material or just finish much earlier than planned, which would be a bummer cause customers were paying for my time.
Thankfully relying on some common sense and thinking on my feet helped here to create some exercises on the spot and keeping them engaged.

3) Effective execution: Presentation skills, clear concise communication are very important. The confidence you exude, your poise, eye contact, everything about your appearance and the way you conduct yourself matters. This does not mean you've to be a beauty contest winner (thought it might help if the audience is full of trolls;)), however being presentable is utmost necessary. Being able to communicating exactly what you want will be clear if you have a feedback mechanism in place. Asking question, keeping a look out for specific reactions from the audience can get you the feedback. Also being able to tweak the method of communication also works wonders!

4) People skills: Do we need to play by the principle that customers are god? Well not quite, but also not by the thought that they are total idiots! Mostly the will tend to have done their homework. Even if in the instance where there are some questions asked which have seemingly obvious logical answers, you can't make them feel they have asked something stupid. Even in the case a question is being repeated, it can be answered in different ways. Patience is the key and making them feel comfortable with the idea of asking questions. But that does not mean you let them sit on your head! You have a presentation to complete after all! :)
Understanding every person in the target audience, and how you will handle them so that they are not let down and neither are you, is important for a successful well communicated presentation.

I think these are the most repeated set of instructions given to any person about to make a presentation/public speaking whatever you want to call it. But till the time we actually experience it in front of customers, where the entire image of your company is at stake, we don't quite understand its importance.. :)

Hoping there will be some more learning in the future! :)

Asking and doing

Typically in a product company, we tend to have a suite of products for any particular business line, which usually are termed as individual projects. At times these products are interdependent. (Now here, adding a personal flavor) We could assume a person working on a product is proud of or loves the product that he/she works on. However, at certain stages this person requires to take inputs from the other products. What could a person possibly do at such a juncture? Depending on this understanding of his own product as well as the other product there are a few options for him to choose from:
1) Sort the issue at hand himself
2) Ask for help from a person working on the other product
3) Ask for help from a person working on the same product
4) Find out information and sort the issue himself

What do we find majority of the people doing? Mostly the 2nd and 3rd options.

Agreed that doing this satisfies 2 of the most important aspects essential for the progress of the organisation i.e. saving time and increasing communication. However, if the person opts for the 4th option and gradually progresses towards the 1st then not only will he profit from it, but so will the organisation in terms of having more productive and multi-talented people working for it!

However, for a variety of reasons (unfathomable for me, yet) people shy away from profiting themselves and in turn the organisation.
Could it perhaps be because our definition of profit is linked only to the salary credited in the immediate month? Though business exists for this very reason, if we can move towards personal/intellectual growth money is going to pour in anyway!

And thinking about the no one is going to stop an employee from profiting as the sole goal of business itself is profit!
Perhaps its time to think if we really understand the roots of what we do and where we intend to go!
A bit of philosophy here, but what the heck! ;) we business analysts get some time on our hands to "think" some times ;)

Marketing in business analysis

Being a marketing major (ahem, implies an MBA from some random college) i cannot quite shake it off from the essence of my thinking.
Though business analysis might not seem even remotely connected to marketing in the beginning, I find it very well is (even if this is still a beginning for me).
Marketing, being a horizontal sort of trade is applicable everywhere. So how does it feature in the life of a business analyst?

To begin with lets try and list a few "Jargons" so to say:
1) Communication
2) Research
3) Horizontal
4) Networking
5) Market
6) Domain
7) Product
8) Service
9) Training
10) Estimation
11) Pricing
12) People

So far so good- That's all I could think of for the time being ;) well, in terms of broad themes.

Lets mull over them till the next post, and see which ones stand out as purely marketing ideologies and which are purely business analysis ones :)

The hang out..

A beginner's blog to business analysis. Here you will find efficient tried and tested (and passed) techniques of business analysis. Blah blah and some more blah! Well duh, that's what all the blogs do right!

Here, however, as the name suggests the way of doing it might be a wee bit different.. We might even NOT be doing the usual self-help, ready made solutions (which hardly are applicable practically), or anything of that sort.

Here we will just discuss, or hope to discuss experiences. Hanging out with buddies having similar or not quite similar thoughts/perspectives, and sharing random experiences- not too random or maybe very random ;)

The analyst's hangout is an attempt to learn, explore and share all of it and then learn some more.... So here's to an "analytic" journey which will hopefully lead to some learning and fun, fun learning, funny learning.. However you like it ;)