Alright, so underlying competencies. So underlying competencies really just describe the behaviors that are really more like personal characteristics that support the business analysis practice. So, according to Babylon, these are the skills that will enable individuals to become accomplish and adaptable business analysts. So there are six underlying competencies. So that includes analytical thinking and problem solving, behavioral characteristics, business knowledge, communication skills, interaction skills, and tools and technology. And so within each of these six underlying competencies, there's core competencies.

So we'll talk a little bit more about each of those as we move forward. So our first underlying competency is annulment. Thinking. So analytical thinking is a pretty significant one, not necessarily for exam purposes, but just in general, it's basically require for us to analyze problems and opportunities effectively, and also to identify changes that will deliver the most value. So, for us, we want to be able to think about situations as quickly as possible by basically compiling and assembling various types of information and determining what is relevant. So this allows us to consider the best ways to present information and also to make sure that we're presenting it in a way that's more easily understood by the people that we are presenting for or our audience.

And so analytical thinking and problem solving core competencies include creative thinking, decision making, learning, problem solving. systems thinking, conceptual thinking and Visual Thinking. Okay, so creative thinking that's basically being able to generate new ideas, approaches and alternative problem solving opportunities. So what it involves is getting, generating new ideas from ourselves, but also finding ways to help others generate new ideas and also to find different types of associations and connections between existing ideas. So this is kind of like the fresh pair of eyes, underlying or core competency where this type of person can look at an existing problem and figure out a new way to solve it. So some of the effective measures of creative thinking includes productively considering new ideas, exploring concepts and ideas that are new exploring different changes to existing concepts and ideas, generating creativity for yourself and in others, but also applying new ideas to resolve existing problems.

This is one of the ones that you would likely run into on the exam. And then we have decision making. So this core competency basically allows us to understand the information that's involved to make a decision, but also to assist others in making better decisions. So for the business analysts, decision making involves gathering information that's relevant to the decision analyzing the information, making different comparisons and trade offs between things that are similar and dissimilar, and then identifying the most desirable option. So for us, that's likely what we're going to be doing when we're looking at solution options and designs and things like that. And so the effectiveness measures of decision making and include making sure that the appropriate stakeholders are represented during the decision making process.

And also making sure that the stakeholders understand the decision making process and the rationale behind it. Also, we want to make clear the pros and cons of the available options. And then we want to reduce any uncertainty and how we are making our decision. You always want to make sure that the does that a actual decision gets made. And then you want to make sure that the way you're coming about the decision has all of the stakeholders best interests in mind. And then you want to make sure that those involved in the decision making are the stakeholders understand all of the conditions and the environments for measuring that decision.

Alright, so our next core competency is Learning. So for business analysts, this involves being able to quickly absorb new information and different types of information in order to basically come up with something. But also you want to be able to modify and adapt existing knowledge that you already have, well, knowledge that you already have. And so for us, this is this involves the initial acquisition of learning. So, us getting raw facts and data, and then, you know, analyzing the data and synthesizing it to come up with some type of comprehensive knowledge or meaning behind it, and then applying that knowledge to the day to day work, and then doing some type of analysis, synthesis and evaluation of that. And the three key types of learning include visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.

So the visual includes learning through presentations of pictures, photographs, diagrams, models and videos. Where the auditory learners learn through verbal and written language and text. kinesthetic This is what a lot of people fall under. Actually, most people are a combination of this but kinesthetic people they like to do things or to do things for themselves. And you know, it's easier to absorb information and understand information when more than one learning technique is used or combined. So for learning the effectiveness measures include learning.

You know, making sure that all stakeholders are involved in that process, the learning process, learning the concepts that are presented, and then demonstrating an understanding of them. The ability to apply those concepts to new areas or relationships, rapidly absorbing new facts, ideas, concepts and opinions, and then presenting new facts, ideas, concepts and opinions to others. So as ba is we're constantly learning New information and then turning around and presenting it to others. Okay, our next core competency is problem solving. So business and as usually define and solve problems, in order to ensure that the actual root cause of a problem is understood by the stakeholders, we don't want to address you know what we're looking at knees, we don't want to address symptoms, we want to address the root cause. So here we want to make sure that any assumptions are identified and validated, and then come up with, you know, the various alternatives to measure against one another in order to determine the best possible solution.

And so our effectiveness measures for problem solving include having confidence, having the participants Be confident in the problem solving process. So that involves their confidence. us as the business analysts, and then also selecting solutions that meet the defined objectives. Having new solution options that can be effectively evaluated. So usually involves having some type of, you know, measurable criteria, or acceptance or evaluation criteria. And then we want to make sure that the process of decision making avoids decisions that are based on unvalidated assumptions, preconceived notions or other What about considers traps.

And just to note systems thinking is our next core competency, but I think this is the one that you're probably want to know the most about for the sake of the exam. At least, you know, from my perspective, when I took the exam, it seemed like systems thinking was the underlying competency that came up the most that and I think, conflict in negotiation So the purpose of system thinking is to understand how people, processes and technology within an organization all interact with each other. And that basically allows the BA to understand the enterprise from my more holistic point of view. And so systems another word for systems thinking is systems theory. And this basically suggests that a system as a whole has properties, behaviors, characteristics that emerge from the interaction of each of those components that are within that system. And so the effectiveness measures for systems thinking includes communicating how a change to one specific component affects the entire system.

And also being able to communicate how the change to a system affects the environment around the organization and then community Getting how systems adapt to internal and external pressures or influences. All right now we have conceptual thinking. So conceptual thinking is the ability to take broad concepts and then you know, figure out a way to break them down. So, essentially, you are finding ways to understand how different pieces of information fit into the larger picture, and then figuring out what details are important and how you can connect these seemingly abstract pieces of information. So here you're trying to see the big picture and then connect the dots. And then we will be trying to understand the links between these pieces of information or the linkage between context solutions needs changes, state colors and value so These are the elements of the core concept model right.

So, this all creates business analysis and then how to understand the linkage between all of these elements in the big picture. Then understanding where the details fit together in the bigger picture and then using your past experience knowledge, creativity, intuition and abstract thinking to generate you know different alternatives and options for whatever problem we come up with. Okay, so the effectiveness measures of conceptual thinking include connecting separate or desperate pieces of information and acting to better understand the relationships between all of this desperate information and then confirming the competence and understanding of the of the concepts. steak cutter. So making sure that the information that has been communicated, communicate it to the stakeholders that they understand these broader concepts. And then formulating abstract concepts using a combination of information and uncertainly, so basically, we need to be able to turn major broad concepts into some type of abstract or high level concept, right.

So the more abstract something is, the more broad and high level it is. And then again, drawing on past experience. Okay, Visual Thinking. So Visual Thinking is one of those words that kind of speaks for itself, but it's basically being able to communicate complex information and concepts into a visual presentation. A lot of the times Visual Thinking is a little more universal than text. So if two people speak a different language, right or a different dialect, a sentence that I'm right might be different to a sentence someone else writes.

But if I point an arrow going down, that's kind of universal for down, right? So, using visuals to communicate, and this allows stakeholders to more easily understand concepts being presented in order to provide input. Usually, it's a little more simple, right graphical models, diagrams, and other constructs to convey and integrate non visual information. So we have to understand how we can turn something that's non visual into a visual piece of information. And it usually allows the audience to engage and connect concepts a little more quickly and freely in a particular context. All right.

And so the effectiveness measures of Visual Thinking include being able to communicate complex information in a visual model, allowing for comparisons and pattern finding. I think pattern finding is very critical when it comes to Visual Thinking. And also idea mapping. It usually allows for increased productivity due to increase learning memory and follow through. And we want to make sure that stakeholders are engaged at a deeper level than we would with text alone. And then understanding critical information which could have been missed if presented through text alone.

So this implies that it's usually a good idea to have some type of visual component to your requirements than just having written text requirements. Oh, right. So behavioral characteristics is our next underlying competency. And these have been considered to be our personal, you know, effectiveness characteristics. So, they usually have been found to increase the effectiveness in the practice of business analysis. Now, Babcock says that they're, you know, exist at the core of every business analyst skill set.

So that's just what Babcock says. So to me behavioral characteristics means something a little bit different. I consider them to be you know, the things that we were naturally born with. But Babb looks at things a little bit more from a, I guess they kind of go through the the business analysts funnel. So the core competencies of behavioral characteristics include ethics, personal accountability, trustworthiness, organization and time management, which is important, and then adaptability, which is another one that's really important in business analysis. So, ethics is just really just you know, acting in an ethical manner and understanding when a solution potentially causes some type of ethical conflict or at the code difficulty.

Ultimately, you want to be able to identify these ethical difficulties by reducing exposure to risk. So, as a business analyst, we should be understanding and focusing on fairness, consideration and moral behavior through our business analyst activities or our business analysis activities. So your effectiveness measures for ethical behavior includes you know, promptly identifying when a solution is an ethical dilemma, it's getting feedback from stakeholders confirming that they feel that decisions and actions are fair and transparent. Making sure that you know the interests of all stakeholders are considered making sure that the reasons of a decision is clearly articulated and understood. Providing full and proper disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. That's a big one.

And then being honest and regarding to your abilities and your mistakes as well when performing you know, Business Analysis work and also accepting responsibilities for failures and errors. And a lot of these kind of get a lot of the behavioral core competencies they all kind of mesh together like you'll see a lot of them kind of sound the like. I'm so I would Dig into each of these and just identify a key component that distinguishes these like for ethical, it's really about making sure that we are having, you know, presenting or disclosing potential conflicts of interest. And also that we are, you know, stepping up to our responsibilities and failures. personal accountability deals with making sure that tasks are completed on time and to the expectation of our colleagues and stakeholders. This helps us establish credibility.

It also includes effectively planning business analysis work, and achieving targets and goals to make sure that value that's delivered is aligned with the actual business needs. And also we take responsibility for identifying and escalating risks. So the effectiveness measures for personal accountability includes making sure that our work efforts are planned and easily articulated, making sure that works completed as planned or replan with sufficient lead time. I'm making the status of planned and unplanned work available, making sure that our work is organized for others, making sure that risk and issues are identified and appropriately acted on. Right. So we want to soon as we realize that there's a risk, we want to make sure that we're identifying this and presenting it so that we can come up with some type of way to address that.

And then making sure that our requirements are traceable and delivered on time. Okay, trustworthiness so Again trustworthiness and ethical and, you know, accountable kind of sounds the same. But, um, trustworthiness basically helps us elicit sensitive information. So this is more about building that relationship with someone to get them to open up to you, right? Because a lot of the times, you know, if people don't feel comfortable with us, they withhold information. So building trustworthiness allows us to elicit sensitive information to allow stakeholders to have confidence in us and confidence in our recommendations.

So basically, trustworthiness is the perception that one is worthy of trust. And so, there are several things that can be involved or that can contribute to trustworthiness and for That includes intentionally and consistently completing tasks and deliverables on time, presenting a consistent attitude of confidence, right? I think I wrote a post recently about confidence how, you know, if you don't have confidence in yourself, other people won't have confidence in you either. So you need to present confidence in yourself whenever you are, you know, presenting to stakeholders and suggesting ideas and making recommendations, and then acting in an honest and straightforward manner. And also maintaining a consistent schedule over a period of time. So, a lot of times this can be tricky because you're dealing with different schedules and you know, calendars and things like that.

But, you know, usually if you can, you know, get the group to agree to a specific time of the day or day of the week or something like that. So keep like long drawn out projects, you know, just give them a little bit of consistency. That can go a long way. So some, some adaptiveness measures for trustworthiness includes making sure that stakeholders are actually involving you as the business analysts in important discussions and decisions. Not that you will be a decision maker, but just so that you're there to help facilitate that. And make sure that they're looking at all of the relevant pieces of information.

When stakeholders bring issues and concerns to you as the VA, that's a good sign, and also that the stakeholders are willing to discuss difficult or controversial topics with you. So this is the one that I was saying about sensitive issues. You don't want to be the blame whenever problems occur. So hopefully stakeholders aren't doing that. We do want the stakeholders to respect our ideas and referrals. And also that you know, that any referrals are responded to with positive feedback.

Alright, so our next core competency for behavioral characteristics includes organization and time management. So this basically helps us perform tasks effectively and use our time efficiently. So this involves the ability to prioritize tasks, perform them efficiently and manage our time effectively. So we want to make sure that even when we are working on these tasks in the most efficient, efficient manner, we're storing and organizing the information in the most efficient manner, so that it can be reused easily by others at a later date. And again, this includes the ability to prioritize tasks and meet deadlines. So some of the effectiveness measures for organization and time management include producing deliverables on a timely manner, making sure that we're focusing on the correct task at the right time.

So this is a big one for organization and time management, making sure that we are working on the correct task at the right time. Also scheduling work effort and deadlines, that it's managed and communicated to stakeholders, meetings. And information is well spent. We're not just having meetings for the sake of it, we actually want to have relevant outcomes. And also we want to make sure that we are preparing for meetings and interviews and requirements workshops. Also, that relevant business analysis information is captured, organized and documented, making sure that we're hearing to the project schedule, providing accurate thorough and concise information and also that we're maintaining Adding up to date information on the status of all the work items.

All right, adaptability. So adaptability is huge for business analysts. Regardless if you're working in waterfall or agile or predictive or adaptive environment, the business analyst role is an adaptive one. So, here, adaptability involves adjusting our behavior style and method of approach in order to increase the effectiveness when we're interacting with different stakeholders, organizations and situations, right. A lot of us tend to do that as a part of our natural business acumen anyway. Um, it also involves the ability to change techniques, styles and methods and approaches and having a willingness to interact and complete tasks, you know, in a specific manner that's profitable to stakeholders.

So each stakeholder might have a different way that they prefer to communicate or do business. So being able to adapt to things like that will be lead to better outcomes a lot of the times so this can actually manage maximize the quality of service right delivered to the stakeholders to more effectively or efficiently help the organization achieve its goals. Alright, being adaptable also means being able to determine which techniques will work best, and which ones won't, and then adapting accordingly. So that means you really shouldn't have like, you know, you know, two or three go to techniques. You really want to have a good range of techniques that you under Stand, so that you can use the best technique for that situation and then when it comes to meeting a need itself or if the need changes, right so, if your business case is adjusted, then the business analyst needs to also adjust the plans or approach in order to ensure that the value is provided, right.

So, if your high level project information changes or the need changes, you need to go back and readjust your approach. And so some effectiveness measures of adaptability includes the courage to act differently from others. I think that was another one that might that showed up on my exam, just having the courage to be different from the status quo. And and you know, working according to what's actually needed, then adapting to changing conditions and environments, having a positive attitude in the face of ambiguity and change, having a willingness to learn new methods procedures or techniques, and also altering interpersonal styles to highly diverse individuals and groups in a range of situations. Right. So that means again, catering to different types of personalities or communication styles, and then evaluating what worked, what didn't work and what could have been done differently the next time, right?

That actually sounds a lot like a lessons learned or retrospective. So I hear a lot of questions about whether or not business analyst needs industry or business knowledge in order to perform effectively. Now, business knowledge and industry knowledge are a little bit different. But industry knowledge, just kind of within business knowledge. So we'll just talk a little bit about how those are different as we go along. But I believe you need to know quite a bit of business knowledge in order to fully be effectively you might get away with not knowing As much industry knowledge, but organizational knowledge for sure you need to know alright.

So, business knowledge is basically required for us to perform effectively within a particular business industry organization, solution or methodology. So, it allows us to better understand the overarching concepts that govern the structure, benefits and value of a particular situation. Now, the five core competencies within business knowledge include business acumen, industry knowledge, organizational knowledge, solution knowledge and methodology knowledge. So, business acumen so the purpose of business accurate is to understand the fundamental business principles and best practices in order to ensure that they are considered when we're reviewing a solution. So, this is basically just drawing on previous experience on it We're understanding the needs using experience and knowledge obtained from other situations and then understanding and applying knowledge based on the similarities amongst different situations sorry, some of the backgrounds got a loud muffler. So, some of the factors that might cause differences in practice might be you know, the industry, that the organization in the location, the size of the organization, the culture and the maturity of the organization.

So, these are things that we have to kind of analyze as contributors, when we are trying to draw on previous experience to come up with, you know, to make determinations. Okay, so some effectiveness measures of business acumen include the ability to recognize Potential limitations and opportunities in a solution or situation. The ability to recognize when changes to a situation might require a change in direction, right, when it's time for us to course correct. or understanding the risk that's involved and the ability to make a decision on managing those risks, the ability to recognize the opportunity to decrease expenses or increase profit and also the ability to understand options that are available to address emerging changes. Alright, so industry knowledge. So industry knowledge is our knowledge as it relates to a specific industry.

So these include the current practices and activities within an industry or any similar processes across industries. So typically, industry knowledge includes knowing current trends, market factors or influencers, market drivers, key processes, services, products, definitions, customer segments, the suppliers within the industry, different practices within industry regulations, and any other factors that might impact the organization or the industry as a whole. It's also good to have an understanding where the company is positioned and within the industry, we typically call that competitive position. So when we're looking at developing knowledge in regards to an industry, we want to know who the top leaders are in the industry, which organizations promote or regulate the industry who are the governing bodies, right? Also what benefits are being involved with these organizations? Right, what's the value proposition What are the comparisons of products and services?

What are the satisfaction indicators, right? What are the benchmark projects and then you want to know about different suppliers, practices, equipments and tool within that industry who the target audience is or who the target customers are, and also different cycles within production, marketing and sales. Those are all things that you need to consider when you're looking at a specific solution or initiative. And our effectiveness measures for industry knowledge include being aware of different activities both within both the enterprise and the broader industry, having some type of knowledge of major competitors and partners, being able to identify key trends within that industry. being familiar with the largest customer segments and knowing who they are identifying common products and product types. being knowledgeable of the different sources of information, right?

So if there's a specific governing body or a website or a, you know, guidelines that need to be followed within that industry, knowing that information, also understanding specific terms, right, I always recommend creating an industry glossary or an organizational glossary if you're not familiar with those things, right. So understanding specific terms, standards, processes and methodologies, and then understanding the industry regulate regulatory environment. All right, so now we're looking at organizational knowledge. Now organizational knowledge is a little bit a little bit more important to me than industry knowledge and it's also a little easier To get. So organizational knowledge is really just understanding the management structure of the business architecture. Well, it's a lot more than that, but this is how Babcock describes it here.

And it includes an understanding of how the enterprise organ or or the organization generates profits accomplishes goals, its organizational structure and the relationships between different business units and people who occupy key stakeholder positions and also understanding formal and informal communication channels. So your effectiveness measures for organizational knowledge includes the ability to act according to formal and informal channels channels. So that might be you know, a formal channel right might be your reporting structure, whereas an informal channel might be just following up what Someone who has no real authority in the organization, but they might have a lot of influence. Then again, understanding the terminology and jargon, understanding different products and services that are offered by the organization. Having the ability to identify subject matter experts within the organization that's huge for business analysts, usually a org chart or a business model. Canvas can help with that.

And then the ability to navigate organizational relationships and politics. A lot of people don't like to get mixed up in politics, or organizational politics, but it's good to understand, understand them in order to get what you need to get and be resourceful. So new solution knowledge really just deals with being familiar with a particular application or solution. And this is where we can leverage our understanding have existing departments environments or technology in order to efficiently identify the most effective means of implementing a change. So, a lot of the times this might involve improving an existing system or solution. And so if we have previous experience with that, we can leverage the knowledge gained from prior experience in order to expedite the discovery of changes through elicitation or in depth knowledge.

So, a lot of the times this will result in reduced costs in order to implement, right, a shortened time period on requirements analysis, because, you know, we've got experience we know what questions to ask what's going to be impacted. And then understanding when a larger change is, is or is not justified based on the business benefit. The understanding how additional capabilities can basically be deployed to provide value To that existing solution okay methodology knowledge. So methodology knowledge involves having information regarding context dependencies, opportunities and constraints when developing a business analysis approach. So, a business analysis approach is often impacted by the overall methodology of the organization. So, or methodologies are often confused with frameworks, like waterfall and agile are not methodologies, those are frameworks, methodologies are things that go in a specific order, right.

So, they determine the timing, the approach the role of those involves the accepted risk level and other aspects of how it changes approach So, things like six sigma, you know that's a methodology Scrum agile, you know all those things, those are actually frameworks because they don't prescribe things they just kind of give you more guidance. And then methodology knowledge also involves knowledge regarding a variety of methodologies use that allows the business analyst to quickly adapt to perform in new environments. So effectiveness measures for methodology knowledge includes the ability to adapt to changes, methodologies, willingness to use or learn a new methodology, integrate the integration of business analysis tasks and techniques to support a methodology and then playing multiple roles within activities prescribed by a methodology. A lot of the times an organization will create its own methodology that's under the scope of a larger framework like agile or waterfall, but they might have specific documents or processes that they require as a part of the project management office or the business analysis, Center of Excellence or something like that.

So communication skills. So communication is really just the act of a sender conveying information to a receiver in a method that delivers a specific meaning to the sender as intended. So communication may be accomplished by a variety of methods including verbal, nonverbal, physical and written. But effective communication really includes adapting communication styles and techniques to the knowledge level, and communication styles of those recipients that we have or our stakeholders. And so differences in senders and receivers might include things like you know, a native language or culture, different motivations. You know, or they're thinking styles, right?

That can all cause for us adjusting our communication style. And so when we're planning our communication activities, we want to make sure we're considering the the information that the receivers or the audience knows or doesn't know. Also the structure, want to make sure that the structure of the information is logical and comprehensible and comprehensive, or comprehensible. Sorry. And also, we want to make sure that we're presenting the information in the best way possible to determine the intended meaning. And we also want to have a good understanding of the expectations of the recipients or the stakeholders, what are they expecting to get from this, and then we went to level set on that to make sure we're aligned.

And so the four skill communications that Babcock discusses includes verbal communication, nonverbal communication, written communication and listening verbal communication is basically just us verbalizing things, concepts, ideas, facts and opinions with our mouth. Using spoken words to convey information to senders. verbal communication is usually used to express ideas, concepts, facts and opinions. And it specifically deals with the sender's choice of words and tone of voice. Allow the times your tone of voice different inflections can convey certain unspoken things. So the effectiveness measures of verbal communication includes restating concepts to ensure that all stakeholders clearly understand the same information or understand the information the same way.

Also assisting conversations to reach conclusions, delivering effective presentations and awesome Communicating issues that um, let me rephrase that communicating and issues important points in a calm and rational manner. And so you don't want to say things you know, in a way that makes people nervous. Nonverbal communication, right, we all know that that's our body language posture, facial expressions, gestures and eye contacts. The information we're sending without using our words, and it's used, it's believed to convey more meaning than words alone. So, our gestures often implies our moves attitudes and feelings about a particular situation. Um, and the correct or effective use of nonverbal communication can present a trustworthy, competent and capable demeanor.

So your effectiveness measures for nonverbal communication means being aware of your own Body language and the body language of others, and being intentionally aware of your personal nonverbal communication, being able to improve trust and communication with nonverbal communication, and also effectively addressing and resolving situations where someone's verbal communication is not aligned with their nonverbal communication, bringing out the root cause of that. Written Communication is where we're usually conveying ideas, concepts, facts and opinions, with stakeholders using text symbols, models, and sketches to convey a shared understanding or shared information. We're going to be writing so we need to use the correct words so that the audience will understand the intended meaning right, using words or terminology that the audience is is familiar with. But the thing about written communication is that it has the added challenge of being remote. From the time that the audience, the audience reads it, right, so if I write something today, but you guys don't read it tomorrow, certain pieces of information can change by the time you read it.

So you need to keep that in mind. So effectiveness measures of written communication includes adjusting the styles of writing for the needs of the audience, right? So you're not going to write for a collegiate level group of people than you would a group of fifth graders. Also the proper use of grammar and style, choosing words that the audience will understand, and the ability for the reader to paraphrase and describe the content that's written. Listen, listen, listen, listen, Linda. This is one that is very important as business analysts, we cannot properly elicit information without listening.

So listening allows us to accurately understand information that communicated verbally. It's not just hearing words. So a lot of people hear words but you have to actually understand those words and the meaning in that specific context. Also, it provides a greater opportunity to accurately understand what is being communicated, but also being able to demonstrate what they think the speaker is saying is important. So things like nodding or certain eye gestures or body language, leaning in to show interest is a good listening trait. So some effectiveness measures of listening includes giving the speaker your undivided attention, acknowledging the speaker with verbal or nonverbal encouragement, providing feedback to the person or the group, and also using active listening skills by deferring judgment.

A lot of the times people are so busy thinking about what they're going to say next. or thinking about what With their what the speaker is going to say that they're not absorbing the information. So you want to defer your judgment and then respond appropriately. All right, any questions on communication skills? All right. Now we're going to talk about interaction skills.

We know that the business analysts role is a very collaborative role. And you have to communicate and work with a lot of different people. So interaction skills is basically the ability to relate to collaborate with and communicate with different kinds of people. So because we're in the center of a lot of different things, we're positioned to facilitate stakeholder communication, provide leadership, encourage comprehensive comprehension of solution value, and permanence. stakeholder support of proposed changed. So the core competencies involved in interaction skills includes facilitation, which is key leadership and influencing teamwork, negotiation and conflict resolution and teaching.

So we need facilitation skills in order to facilitate our requirements workshop, right. So, um, we facilitate interactions between stakeholders in order to help them make decisions, solve problems, exchange ideas and information or reach an agreement regarding the priority and nature of requirements. A lot of the times we might need to facilitate in order to manage negotiation and conflict resolution. facilitation skills involves the skill of moderating discussion within a group in order to enable all participants to effectively articulate their views on a topic. And so our effectiveness measures include making sure that it's known that the facilitator is a third party person and a decision maker, encouraging participation from all stakeholders that's key for the exam, remaining neutral, and not taking sides, establishing ground rules, whatever those may be, using meeting management skills, right, having an agenda and setting things out prior, preventing discussion from being sidetracked, and also considering all parties interests, motivations and objectives, leadership and influencing.

So here, this is where we're actually guiding the stakeholders during the investigation of business analysis information, right? And different solution options. So this involves motivating people to act in a way That enables them to basically achieve whatever goals and objectives that we've set for. And so your effectiveness measure for that is to reduce resistance to changes, the articulation of clear and inspiring visions, inspiring others to turn vision into action, having influence on stakeholders to understand mutual interests, or influencing stakeholders to be able to understand mutual interest, and then using a lot of different collaborative techniques. Having influence on stakeholders in order to consider the broader objective versus their personal motives, right, that's the big one, right, getting them to look outside of their own personal funnel, or silo and then to look at the bigger picture. And then being able to reframe issues so that different perspectives can be understood, and also to influence stakeholders to work towards a common or shared goal.

Okay. Our next interaction skill is team work. This allows us to work productively within teams with stakeholders and various other partners. So I'm relationships and people in various project roles are critical to the success of any project or enterprise. Knowing and adapting to how and when a team is progressing. The project's lifecycle can lower the negative influence influences that impact them.

So, adapting to the team's progress, right, any roadblocks, things like that. Being able to resolve conflicts requires that the team focuses on examining the different positions, assumptions, observations, and expectations of all team members and that requires teamwork. So the effectiveness measures of teamwork involves fostering a collaborative working environment, effectively resolving conflict, developing trust among those stakeholders, promoting a shared sense of ownership and supporting the team have shared high standards of achievement. This one's not as important but you know, they listed it so. Alright, so negotiation and conflict resolution. This is another one that's important for the exam.

And sometimes the business analysts will need to mediate negotiation between stakeholders in order to reach a common understanding or some type of agreement. During this process, we're trying to help resolve conflicts and differences of opinion, what the intent of strengthening working relationships so negotiation conflict arises. solution has an intent of strengthening working relationships. Now steps to This might include identifying an underlying interest of each party, then distinguishing those interests from their stated position. So, what that means is uncovering with the person stated is their interest and then going based off of the information that we've uncovered, and then helping the parties identify solutions that satisfy both of their underlying interests. And babylock is all about when and when situations.

So some effectiveness measures include a plan approach to ensure that negotiation takes into account the tone of voice, the conveyed attitude, the methods used, and has a concern for each other's feelings and needs. And it's often possible to satisfy both parties without either side losing right So that's what we call a win win situation. Again, that's one of the themes. So that's something you're going to want to keep in mind. And also making sure that our conflict resolution approach is objective and making sure that the problem is separate from the person right? We don't want to let our personal feelings impact our working relationships.

And also know that sometimes a conflict or or resolution involves multiple meanings. It can always get done with one meeting, so might involve several meetings. All right, so our last interaction skill is teaching. Teaching allows us to effectively communicate business analysis information, concepts and ideas and issues to ensure that that information is understood and retained by stakeholders. We know that teaching is the process Have leading others to gain knowledge. So teaching also involves selecting the most appropriate version, I'm sorry, the most appropriate visual, verbal, written and kinesthetic teaching approaches According to information.

Often even when I teach I tell students that they need to understand their learning style before you start studying to know you know, if you're a kinesthetic learner, you know how you like to learn, do you like reading text or hearing presentations, right? All that matters. And in the term of teaching and learning, and also frequently elicit and learn how new information, learn new information, and then teach this information to stakeholders in a way that's meaningful. So, for business analysts, we always are having to you know, compile all this information, learn this information, analyze it, synthesize it, organize it, and then present it and package it so that we can present it and teach it to someone else in a way that is going to allow them to make a decision or learn something. So teaching effectiveness measures include having different methods of communicating communicating information, or what has been learned, discovering new information through high levels of stakeholder engagement, validating that the audience has a clear understanding of key messages, and then verifying that the stakeholders can demonstrate the new knowledge right?

So for me, right when I teach a course, how we'll have you know, quizzes or an exam to validate that knowledge. All righty, so our next video Underlying competency is tools and technology. So, as the as we typically use a lot of different software's and applications in order to support communication and collaboration. So, um, basically, we kind of need to be adept in different tools and technologies. In most cases, requirements documentation is developed using some type of word processing tools like Word or Excel. But there are cases where you have to have more advanced applications, right.

And we'll talk about those. But generally, Babak talks about three specific types of tools or technologies. And that's office productivity tools and technology, business analysis tools like technology, and then communication tools like technology. So office productivity tools or technology, these are really just the things that we use on our everyday business not specific to business analysis, but these help us to document and track information and artifacts. So as business analysis or as business analysts, it provides us with the ability to organize, dissect, manipulate, understand and communicate information clearly. So, word processing and presentation programs usually provide us the ability to present information in the form of a letter newsletter, poster, resource paper, those types of things.

And again, your word processor are commonly used to develop and maintain requirements documentation, but are presentation software that serves for training material and also information to stimulate discussions amongst stakeholders? Right, so that's our PowerPoint. spreadsheets Excel allows mathematical and logistical manipulation and often is use to generate lists. communication tools such as email and instant messenger allows us to communicate with stakeholders who are remotely located. Right. So if you're in like I'm communicating with you guys, remotely now, I'm through a communication tool of Facebook Live, um, who cannot respond to these queries immediately?

Well, okay, so let's backtrack. who may need longer term record up discussion. Okay, so this is like, sorry, that was a listing of it. So, if you're remote, like how we are on if you can't respond immediately, like an email, and then if you need long term record of something, so if you want to create a paper trail, communication tools are good. And so, collaborative and knowledge management tools. This is where we're capturing Knowledge distributed distributed throughout an organization.

So a lot of the times like repositories or applications that multiple people can interact with, will, are considered to be collaborative and knowledge management tools. So anything that's accessible by the entire team to where the entire group can make edits to it or something like that, it's considered a collaborative tool. And then we know our hardware is allows us to replicate and distribute information such as a printer, projector, or some type of anything that's used to translate digital information like copiers and scanners. And so your victim this measures there is the ability to increase efficiencies and streamline processes by exploring the features of these tools, being aware of available tools, how they're used, and there are abilities, and then the ability to determine tools that will best meet stakeholder needs and clearly communicate the major features of available tools. Now, business analysis tools or technologies, these are things that are more specific to help us do a number of business analysis activities.

So this includes modeling, documenting and managing the outputs of business analysis activities. So this might be modeling, diagramming, documenting, analyzing and mapping requirements, identifying relationships between requirements, right, like tracing, I'm tracking and storing requirements in like a repository, and then communicating with stakeholders. So like I mentioned earlier, things that are specifically designed for business analysis might include modeling requirements management and issues Gain, some type of prototyping tool or some type of computer aided software engineering or case and survey engines. We know that modeling tools helps us create models and visuals and they can also trace visuals to business rules, text requirements, scope, statements, scope, visuals and data requirements or other types of requirements. Okay, so requirements management technologies. So these are things that will help us with requirements workflows, like to monitor baselining approvals and sign off different change control processes, and implementation status.

Also, some type of management tool to help with traceability right including backwards and forwards. traceability is also an also That relationships between those requirements. And then verifying the quality of requirements through checking for defined characteristics and relationships, or through issues tracking tools like JIRA, right, where we're tracking requirements, risks, requirements, conflicts and issues and defects. And again, like I mentioned, if there's a specific prototyping and simulation tool, that that we can use to provide, you know, information to allow us to prototype something, or create a model of something. So the effectiveness measures of business analysis tools include applying and understanding from one tool and other tools, being able to identify major tools that are currently available and describe their strengths and weaknesses. The ability to select a tool or tools that support organizational processes, and the ability to use tool to complete requirements related activities more rapidly.

Than otherwise possible, and then tracking changes to requirements and their impact. All right, so our last core competency is communication tools and technology. So the purpose of this is to perform activities that perform activities, manage teams and collaborate with stakeholders, right? So all of those things require, you know, communication tools. And so these are used to plan and complete tasks related to conversational interactions and collaborative interactions. While communication tools allows business analysts to work in a virtual and co located team.

Okay, so now we've got conversational interaction tools. So these are things like instant messenger online. chat, email blogging and micro blogging, collaboration tools, which is a little different, right that includes video conferencing, electronic whiteboarding, wikis, electronic calendars online brainstorming tools, decision making tools, electronic voting, which I love, document sharing, and then idea sharing. And then effectiveness measures of communication tools and technologies include the selection of the appropriate and effective tools for the audience in the purpose of that activity, effectively choosing when to communicate, when to use communication technology and when not to sometimes it's best to do things in person. And then the ability to identify tools to meet communication needs, and understand having an understanding of the tool and the other ability to use the features of a specific communication tool.