Pre-course assessment and interview. Read more…
Each participant will have a one-to-one video call so Declan can familiarise himself with their expectations, motivations and aspirations. During the call, Declan will introduce the course content and expected outcomes.
Before each of the three main modules (concept modelling, process modelling, decision modelling), Declan will assign a modelling challenge to all participants as a way of evaluating their current level and also so that they can appreciate their current level themselves. As each module progresses and the participants learn more, they can revisit their evaluation model to judge how they could improve it. Thus they will appreciate how much they have improved as they go along.
At the end of each of those three modules, Declan will assign a new modelling challenge to the participants. This challenge is not a test. It is an evaluation to identify those future experts who can start acting as mentors to their colleagues and those who will need a bit more attention during the coaching phase.
Introductory group session: The Need for Business Design. Read more…
Some participants might not be fully convinced that they need this learning. Others might want it but may struggle to articulate why they need it. This short session will set the scene so that the participants understand the value of learning how to produce clear, tested models of their business.
Module 1: Concept Modelling. They say information is king. But meaning is what turns mere data into information. So, before anything else, your business subject matter experts will learn to articulate meaning, by identifying, describing and interconnecting the concepts that your organisation cares about and producing a testable model that can form a foundation to support all your business architecture and software solutions. Read more…
A clear articulation of what things are in your business and how they relate to each other is key to ensuring the data architecture underpinning your software actually reflects the business reality.
Too often, data designs are scraped from screen requirements, rather than being based on a tested and holistic model of the business, with the result that the nature of things and the relationships between them are incorrectly inferred, instead of precisely described.
Fixing data architecture during testing or, worse, in production is expensive, perhaps even resulting in withdrawing the software and starting over and that can cost you millions.
But those costs can be avoided by teaching key business people fundamental modelling techniques.
What’s more, they will learning to build and maintain a business glossary (e.g., in Wiki format), which can then be referenced in any artefact by any part of the organisation for consistency in naming and clarity of understanding.
After that, they can follow either path A or B as outlined below, or both.
Note that the course material for path B is currently undergoing an overhaul and is not currently available.
A – Module 2: Business Process Modelling. BPMN is a rich language that makes powerful use of specific grammar and vocabulary to bring clarity to business processes. Read More…
However, organisations often make the mistake of simply handing a BPMN tool to business people, thinking that they will automatically produce meaningful models.
That’s like handing a French dictionary to someone who has never even heard of the French language and expecting them to immediately be fluent.
This module will build up your SME’s ability, starting with basic examples using the essential shapes.
Your business experts will learn to build “sentences” and “paragraphs” in this incredibly versatile language, eventually learning to write the “novel” that encompasses the richness of your business processes.
A – Module 3: Decision Modelling. Your organisation needs to make hundreds, if not thousands of decisions but the internal logic of those decisions is probably fragmented into orphaned business rules, spread across the acceptance criteria of hundreds of user stories or buried inside the software itself. Read more…
Imagine your organisation had a repository of decision logic that was technology-agnostic, owned by and accessible by the business, rather than held hostage inside the code of your software.
This module will teach your business experts how to distinguish between a decision and the individual business rules that make it up, how to build a testable model.
If your organisation needs to make complex decisions, or avoid penalties by conforming to regulations and legislation, your business experts need to be able to model the logic of those decisions, rather than leave it to software developers to figure out the logic from fragmented and poorly articulated requirements.
A – Module 4: Draft Operations- and User-guides: Projects often leave drafting guides until after software has been released, with the result that they are rushed or even omitted altogether. Read more…
By drafting guides before drafting stories, your business experts may identify gaps in the models, which can be fixed by working iteratively. What’s more, guides can be part of a story, effectively telling a software development team: “Build me something that will allow me to teach this to the users.”
B – Module 2: Value Stream Mapping. Mapping value streams is a way of getting a snapshot of your business through the lens of delivering value to stakeholders. Read More...
“Value streams provide a framework for more effective business requirements analysis, case management, and solution design By focusing on how business value is achieved and for whom, a fully articulated value stream map can lead to more effective business and operating models that would not otherwise be identified using an inside-out or bottom-up design approach.” (from the TOGAF Standard)
B – Module 3: Capability Mapping. Mapping capabilities will give your organisation a view of all the abilities it needs to possess to be able to deliver value to stakeholders . Read More...
Learning to map capabilities will give your business SMEs the language through which they can both understand and articulate what the business does, what it should be doing (and what it may need to stop doing) to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in a fluid business environment.
B – Module 4: Customer Journey Mapping. Mapping a customer’s journey as they interact with your business will help you understand not only what barriers exist to customer satisfaction but also what drives it. Read More...
By learning to build CJMs, your business SMEs will armed with a technique to understand and articulate what you need to stop doing, what you need to do better, what you need to continue doing and what you need to start doing, so as to deliver maximum value to your customer.
Having completed path A, or B (or both), we finish up the course with…
Module 5: Identify and Draft Features, Epics and Stories. Rather than pulling features, epics and stories out of thin air, your business experts will learn to use their tested models to identify the value that needs to be realised by future software. Read more…
Business experts often put too much detail into acceptance criteria, detail that is better represented in one of the models.
When business people and product owners lack modelling skills, their only way of describing complexity is as acceptance criteria, thus producing what are effectively lengthy functional specifications, rather than the placeholders they are supposed to be. In this module, your people will learn how to leverage their models so that epics, features and stories don’t describe complexity as criteria.
All training and coaching is done remotely, which offers you several advantages:
- Sessions can be delivered to distributed teams, regardless of the physical location of each participant.
- Sessions can be scheduled at a time that suits your core working hours.
- Eliminates overheads, such as travel and accommodation.
Contact Declan to discuss how to supercharge your business experts!