This month’s article returns to a theme relevant to all business analysts – visual communication. I don’t mean putting text on PowerPoint slides, instead it’s about using diagrams and sketches to understand as-is systems and to explore to-be solutions. Here are just a few examples of how diagrams can kick-start a conversation:

• Can you draw me a diagram of how you’re process currently works
• Where are the bottlenecks?
• What if we tried re-arranging the sequence of steps?
• Could a solution look something like this?

Diagrams and pictures are not an intuitive tool for many business analysts. Yet the most important thing you can do for your client is to come up with (i.e. design) a solution to their business problem. Designing a solution puts you in the same camp as many other professionals from a variety of disciplines – including graphic design.

This fascinating article by Ray Edgar in the Sydney Morning Herald on the use of visual communication has many ideas and tips that business analysts can use. The article explains that drawing for visual communication is something every industry can benefit from. There is a large opportunity for business analysts to bring this skill to the workplace, which is expressed not least of which in the closing line ‘Drawing is thinking’.

Click here to read the article.

For some further reading on drawing in the context of business analysis, see these IRM papers.

Use Case Fragments
Mind Mapping Requirements
Stakeholder Communications – Pictures not Words
There’s More to Modelling than Runways and Catwalks