December 2019 - SCILS MANAGEMENT CENTRE

Scrum is described as a ‘framework within which you can employ various processes and techniques’, rather than a process, or a technique, for building products. The Scrum framework is primarily team based, and defines associated roles, events, artifacts and rules. The three primary roles within the Scrum framework are:

The product owner who represents the stakeholder,
The scrum master who manages the scrum team and scrum processes,
The team who develops the products

INTERESTED IN THE SCRUM PRODUCT OWNER CERTIFICATION

This article focuses on the product owner and its role in a product development. The key stakeholder of Scrum Projects is the Product Owner. One integral responsibility of the Product Owner is to convey the importance and significance of the Scrum Project to the Scrum Team. This is the key to the success of any Agile Project through the use of Product Backlog. Now let us look at some of the major roles of a Scrum Product Owner.

Creation and Maintenance of the Product Backlog: Scrum Methodology is mostly used in the software environment and new product development field. This is an on-going job and full-time responsibility of the Product Owner. He has to constantly keep grooming it especially before any sprint planning meetings.
Prioritizing of Backlog according to the Business ROI: Product Owner also needs to prioritize and sequence the backlog according to the needs of the business and situations.
He also elaborates the epics, themes, and features into user stories which are feasible enough to be achieved in a single sprint.
The Product Owner does the job of continuously reminding the Team of the Sprint & Release and ensures that the team remains on track in realizing their goals.
The Product Owner does the job of continuously engaging the customer and stakeholders to ensure that the Team is building the right product and delivering the business value expected from it. Also at the end of every Sprint, the Product Owner has the opportunity to steer the team in the direction which will create value for the stakeholders.
The Product Owner also keeps inspecting the work done by the Scrum Team at the end of every Sprint and has the absolute authority to accept or reject their work or to suggest modifications.
Product owner also acts as the voice of the Team to the outside world and should ensure that all the channels of communication remain open and the project get the right kind and type of support needed to succeed.
Has the authority to terminate a Sprint if the Product Owner feels that there is the drastic change in direction needed and the Spent is no longer needed. It may happen in cases where the competitor releases a new product and the client wants a counter response

The responsibilities of a Product Owner is onerous and there are a lot of hats that have to be worn by him hence the choice of a Product Owner must be done wisely as it could lead to success or failure for the entire project which could ultimately mean success or failure of the company

Scrum Product Owner Training

The scrum product owner training with certification from the Scrumstudy is a two weekend (saturdays and sundays) training schedule. You write the exam after the training. Read more about the course here – scrum product owner

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What are the roles of a Scrum Product Owner? Read More »

Business analysis has emerged as a core business practice in the 21st century. As the vital link between a firm’s information technology capabilities and its business objectives, skilled business analysts contribute to the profitability of companies both large and small, in almost all industries.

Therefore, a business analyst is someone who analyzes an organization or business domain (real or hypothetical) and documents its business or processes or systems, assessing the business model or its integration with technology.

The role of a business analyst can also be defined as a bridge between business problems and technology solutions. Here, business problems can be anything about business systems, for example, the model, process, or method. The technology solutions can be the use of technology architecture, tools, or software applications. So business analysts are required to analyze, transform and ultimately resolve the business problems with the help of technology.

There are at least four aspects of business analysis:

Strategic Planning – to identify the organization’s business needs
Business Model Analysis – to define the organization’s policies and market approaches
Process Design – to standardize the organization’s workflows
System Analysis – the interpretation of business rules and requirements for technical systems (generally within IT)

The Business Analyst, sometimes, is part of the business operation and works with Information technology to improve the quality of the services being delivered, sometimes assisting in integration and testing of new solutions.

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The role of a business analyst may also be to support the development of training material, participate in the implementation, and provide post-implementation support. This may involve the development of project plans and often requires project management skills.

Alternate job titles include business systems analyst, process analyst, enterprise analyst, business architect and functional analyst.

Business analysts typically take the lead role in:

Assisting with the business case
Planning and monitoring
Eliciting requirements
Requirement of organization
Translating and simplifying requirements
Requirement management and communication
Requirement analysis

The skilled business analysts also use requirements to drive the design or review of test cases, process change requests and manage a project’s scope, acceptance, installation and deployment

Qualification and Training for a Business analyst

The role of a business analyst typically requires a bachelors degree in any discipline, though employers may prefer a degree in a business-, computing-, economics-, or numeracy-related subject. You can get your degree through a full-time university study or through a business analyst degree apprenticeship.

You may also be able to gain a professional qualification with either the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) or Project Management Institute (PMI), either before you start your career or as part of your career development.

ENROLL FOR A LIVE VIRTUAL BUSINESS ANALYSIS (CBAP) OR A CLASSROOM-BASED BUSINESS ANALYSIS TRAINING

Roles and Responsibilities of a Business Analyst Read More »

In the new economy, winning will spring from organizational capabilities such as speed, responsiveness, agility, learning capacity, and employee competence. Successful organizations will be those that are able to quickly turn strategy into action; to manage processes intelligently and efficiently; to maximize employee contribution and commitment; and to create the conditions for seamless change. The need to develop those capabilities brings us back to the mandate for HR set forth at the beginning of this article. Let’s take a closer look at each HR imperative in turn.

Dave Ulrich proposed the core roles of a human resources professional that are grouped into four broad roles that must be carried out professionally. The Human resources professional must be all of these:

Human Resources Professional as a Strategic Partner

As a strategic partner, the HR professional must be able to partner with the organization in developing plans that will align the human resources of the firm with the long term corporate goals and vision of the firm. He should be able to contribute to business strategy development by aligning HR jobs with strategic goals. He should be able to provide tools and create an enabling environment to actualize these goals. He is the eyes of his firm in the outside world and should be a liaison between his firm and the society, environment and government. He should be able to analyze work processes and recommend improvements where necessary. He should develop policies that will benefit the firm, Management and employees alike.

REGISTER AND PREPARE FOR YOUR HR CERTIFICATIONS (APHRi, PHRi and SPHRi)

Human Resources Professional as an Administrative Partner

As an Administrative expert, the HR professional is expected to carry out administrative duties like providing the necessary tools needed for the organization to operate successfully. He should be able to manage the overall labor costs in his organization and plan for administrative budgets. As an administrative expert, the HR person should be an information manager. He should have at all times all data relating to employees and make same available …at all times. The HR person should be able to discover new and evolving trends that will be beneficial to the company and advise Management accordingly. He should always conduct research to find out what is obtainable in other firms that makes them tick and advise management. The HR person should be able to manage HR budgets (recruitment, selection, training and development, etc. He should be a good negotiator in times of salary decisions.

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Human Resources Professional as a Change Agent

As a Change agent, he should be able to find out new ways of doing things that can move the company forward. He should be able to convince Management on the need for the change and address employees about changes. He should coordinate and facilitate the change process. He is to provide the tools and structures needed during change period. As an expert, he should be able to create a new organizational change without disrupting the firms business.

Human Resources Professional as an Employee Champion

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As an Employee Champion, the HR professional should be able to manage the selection, recruitment, training, development, career planning, performance management, succession planning, and Staff retention exercises. He is to determine the long term human resources needs, assess current resources and determine area of changes. He is to determine whether human resources needs can be sourced internally or externally. He is to conduct training needs assessment, to determine the type of training that will benefit the staff and organization. Conduct and arrange for training and determine the training results on the productivity of the firm. The HR professional manages and carries out career management in a way to align the employees’ dreams with the organizational requirements. Also as an employee champion, the HR expert is to carry out performance appraisal exercises to determine staff performances in their present responsibilities a well as determining those that will be rewarded, promoted, demoted and recognized. As an employee champion he should be involved in grievance handling and disciplinary issues in the firm. He is to handle all employee related matters like leave issues, medicals, pension matters, housing and general welfare issues.

REGISTER AND PREPARE FOR YOUR HR CERTIFICATIONS (APHRi, PHRi and SPHRi)

In summary an HR professional should be able to perform the following functions; Manpower planning, recruitment, compensation and salary issues, employee development and administration, Training and career development, labor relations and discipline management, personnel transfer and movement, performance management Human resources information system, payroll, organizational development etc.

The 4 Main Roles of a Human Resources Professional Read More »

Root Cause Analysis provides a methodology for identifying and correcting the sources of problems. It differs from troubleshooting and problem-solving in that these disciplines typically seek solutions to specific difficulties, whereas Root Cause Analysis is directed at understanding wider underlying issues.
This should not simply be seen as a problem-solving method, but rather as a vital component of the executive decision making process and constant monitoring of the efficiency, quality and cost-effectiveness of business operations.
Why not use your customer complaints and feedback to drive business improvement? This is exactly what regulators want organizations to do.

The “Five Whys” principle credited to Sakichi Toyoda is a very simple process applicable in root cause analysis that results in very positive outcomes. In the event of a failing, the employee responsible for establishing the cause asks five questions. When using the Five Whys technique it is important that you go back to assess all branches of investigation, in particular if you choose a path of investigation that leads you to things that cannot be changed.
As a simple example, we’ll take an initial complaint of customers not receiving their bank statements.

Before root causes can be investigated and the five whys can be asked – there needs to be a system in place to capture initial information. Root Cause Analysis is not only a regulatory requirement: having a system or function in place to handle complaints is also necessary. If the details of a complaint are not correctly or efficiently recorded at first point of contact, then any investigations into the root causes will be unsuccessful.

Equipping front line staff with the necessary technology to quickly and easily capture important information when speaking directly with a customer will make the process of Root Cause Analysis easier further down the line, and ensuring consistency across the board when categorizing complaints will make it easier to spot trends across products and services.

A process driven workflow should ensure additional information is consistently being captured at the appropriate stage of the case investigation. The end product is a complete picture from which the organization can make fact based decisions. With this, the organization can then follow a structured approach to analyze the information captured, identify and implement a corrective action and then track the progress of new initiatives.

Root Cause Analysis doesn’t just end when a root cause has been identified. The cause must be acted upon. In the example above, the root cause is that the links on the change of address form had not been properly checked before going live. Corrective procedures must now be put in place: the links need to be fixed immediately to make sure this error does not affect more customers, and analysis needs to be carried out find those it already has affected and if the same fix corrects all issues. But these corrective procedures are still not enough. In order to make ensure this issue does not occur again, a process needs to be put in place so that each part of the form will be checked before going live. This could include creating warning screens before the form is published.
Once the corrective action has taken place, the process needs to be documented which is essential in providing compliance statements and creating management information to drive improvements across all areas of the organization.

There are clear and tangible benefits for organizations that embrace Root Cause Analysis as a process of continual improvement. The key to successful Root Cause Analysis is not solely the responsibility of the analyst, but starts at the point where feedback is captured within the organization making sure that the data captured is comprehensive, accurate and consistent. All areas of the business share the responsibility of ensuring that a quality-driven process collects the data that will drive future strategic decisions within the organization.
Companies that implement such a strategy, supported by the right technology, will gain valuable insight to drive organizational improvements. The results will be in service improvements, customer loyalty gains and increased revenues

The Process of Root Cause Analysis Read More »