Any strategic initiative must be planned and monitored for success. As part of planning, the organization develops an activity list, identifies time lines, identifies likely risks for the assignment, monitors progress and stakeholder engagement.

The main tasks in the plan and monitoring phase are:

Task 1: Assess impact of change

Any change will impact multiple aspects of the unit. Among them, possibly the most crucial source of resistance can come from stakeholders impacted by the change. Some changes can result in reduced manpower requirements (especially IT projects) or manpower reunit.

Understand how change will affect stakeholder groups and analyze the impact on stakeholders to develop suitable plans for re-deployment.

Consider the following during impact analysis:

Task 2: Assess the unit’s readiness

Assess the unit’s limitations

The unit’s limitations may include factors such as culture, operations, technical components, stakeholder interests, or reporting structures. Strategic business analysts assess the unit’s limitations to identify root causes and describe how the organization factors limit value realization.

Assess the unit’s constraints

The units have constraints in terms of budget, timeline or regulations. It is essential to identify both hard and soft constraints so that the correct solution can be envisioned.

Assess the unit’s culture

The unit’s culture may be defined as deeply rooted values, beliefs, attitudes and norms shared by its members culture affects actions. The unit’s culture assessment helps in determining what kind of cultural change is required to realize value from a solution, whether stakeholders understand and are supportive of the project etc.

Assess unit’s structure 

Assess current unit’s structure to check if it supports the solution. Ability to adopt a change is affected by formal and informal relationships among stakeholders.

Assess unit’s readiness

Determine whether the organization can take advantage of the capabilities provided by the project.

Consider the following:

Task 3: Plan the project

Purpose of this task is to define an appropriate plan to conduct Strategic business analysis activities (Tasks, Schedule, Responsibilities and Techniques).

Strategic business analysis plan may be defined by Strategic business analyst standards or by a methodology (Six Sigma etc.). Strategic business analysis units usually have formal standards regarding how to conduct Strategic business analysis projects. If no standards exist, work with appropriate stakeholders to determine the Strategic business analysis plan. Work with the sponsor and key stakeholders, to ensure that the Strategic business analysis plan is suitable.

Strategic business analysis plan should:

Factors affecting Strategic business analysis plan are:

Plans should be revised based on changing business conditions.

Task 4: Organize resources

Identify the skills needed

These skills are additional to the particular expertise the consultancy has to bring to bear to deal with the issue the faces, and any additional requirements that are specific to the consultancy’s plan or that project the image the consultancy wishes to demonstrate.

Key SBA skills are:

The list of skills will be extended in particular circumstances. For example, business understanding needs to be reinforced by understanding of government administration for public-sector assignments. If the organization is in a different country or requires work to be done in other countries, intercultural differences become important. The purpose of the list above is not to illustrate every possible skill that may be brought to bear, but to make the point that a complicated bundle of skills is needed, which should be considered in relation to the potential .

Task 5: Identify information needed

Although actual information collection and analysis will happen later, it is important to plan for information early in the project. Information sources can be:

Secondary sources of information are cost effective. However, for certain projects, the organization may need to conduct primary research through surveys and questionnaire.

Plan for how information will be stored and accessed. Project information should be organized in a useful manner, easily accessible and available for required time.

Unit of information

Information MUST be structured for easy access. Consider type and amount of information to be collected, stakeholder’s access and usage needs and size and complexity of the project.

Storage and Access

Storage of Strategic business analysis information depends on factors such as who must access the information, how often they need to access it, unit’s standards and tools, conditions that must be fulfilled for access etc.

Task 6: Plan Stakeholder Engagement

Purpose of this task is to plan for establishing and maintaining effective working relationships with stakeholders. Initiate stakeholder engagement as soon as possible. Continue the same as long as Strategic business analysis continues. Identify stakeholders affected by the business need or a new solution and analyze their characteristics. Categorize stakeholders based on their involvement or interest in the initiative. Document stakeholder or stakeholder group roles, responsibilities and authorities over requirements.

Perform stakeholder analysis

Identify stakeholders and their characteristics. Determine impact of proposed changes on them to determine needs, wants and expectations to be satisfied by the solution.

Stakeholders found late, or not at all, may require a change to the project objectives. This can change, or nullify completed tasks, or tasks in progress. This increases cost and decreases stakeholder satisfaction. Depending on the project, methodologies and units, stakeholder analysis can vary. organization charts, business processes, inputs from sponsor etc. are good sources to identify stakeholders. Consider vendors, regulatory bodies, shareholders, customers and suppliers as well.

Roles

Determine stakeholder roles with regards to where and how stakeholders will contribute to the initiative.

Attitudes

Understanding stakeholder attitudes to assess behavior of stakeholders, how they perceive the initiative and plan their collaboration and engagement.

Determine level of power or influence

Understand and analyze influence needed to make the initiative successful. Assess available key stakeholders’ influences. For a large and complex project, sponsor must have effective relationships with funding groups. Develop risk plans and responses needed if there is a mismatch between influence required and influence available.

Define stakeholder collaboration plan

Stakeholder collaboration plans can vary based on timing and frequency of collaboration, location, tools available etc. Document this using stakeholder collaboration plan.

Document stakeholder communication needs

Prepare stakeholder communication plan to describe what needs to be communicated, how it should be communicated, to whom it should be communicated. Consider stakeholder geographic locations, level of formality, level of detail, frequency of communication when developing stakeholder communication plan.

Monitor stakeholder engagement

Purpose of the task, plan and monitor stakeholder engagement, is to encourage stakeholders to work towards a common goal.

Some of the techniques that Strategic business analysts can use during this task are Risk analysis and management, Stakeholder list, map, or personas.

Task 7: Manage risks

Purpose of this task is to understand undesirable consequences of internal and external forces on the organization during a transition to, or once in, the future state. An understanding of the potential impact of those forces can be used to make a recommendation about a course of action.

Assessing risks includes analyzing and managing them.

Risks are analyzed to:

Initial risk assessment focuses mainly on solution feasibility risks. Consider technical risks, financial risks, business change and organization risks as well.

Unknowns

It is impossible to fully predict the outcome of a particular change strategy. However, it is possible to estimate the impact of unknown or uncertain events or conditions occurring. Lessons learnt and historical contexts can prove useful in this scenario.

Constraints, assumptions and dependencies

Analyze and manage risks after identifying events, conditions or consequences that could occur because of risks.

Negative impact to value

Risks can increase the likelihood or severity of a negative impact to value. Overall risk level can be computed in financial terms, amount of time, effort etc.

Risk tolerance

Risk tolerance levels vary for individuals or units. For instance, most units will accept greater risks to avoid a perceived loss than the corresponding payoff from a success, even when the financial outcomes are identical. Size and potential impact of the risk may also affect the risk tolerance.

3 general categories of risk tolerances are:

Recommendation

Recommend a course of action on how to pursue the change by working with stakeholders to understand their risk tolerance levels.

This blog has been authored by LN Mishra, who works with Adaptive US Inc. Adaptive US is world’s #1 leading IIBA EEP. It is the only training organization that provides IIBA certification training with Success Guarantee. Adaptive is a World Leader in IIBA CBAP training, IIBA ECBA training, IIBA CCBA training, IIBA CBDA training, IIBA CCA training and IIBA AAC training.