Andrej Guštin looks beyond process optimisation, talking with Joe Newbert on the need to understand the influence of personality traits in business analysis.
Andrej Guštin is Managing director at CREA pro, vice-president of the IIBA Slovenia Chapter, and holds a Science Master Degree and Certificate in Business Analysis.
With more than 15 years of experience of large-scale project management, business consulting and training, he has successfully led many functional and technical projects in a variety of industries and technical environments within different European organisations.
Congratulations on your recent talk at the Business Analysis Summit Southern Africa, it was well received by many. For those who weren’t fortunate to attend, could you give us a synopsis of what your presentation was about?
Thank you very much. I really invested some time into this presentation and I am satisfied that it resonated with the audience. My idea was to present a different aspect of business processes optimisation. For decades “activity optimisation” has been the core focus of BPM projects, using LEAN and other techniques to reduce process waste and increase efficiency. Although
… these techniques are in general very useful, in some specific circumstances they might be too impersonal –such as “one size fits all.”
People are different, and their reactions and behaviours vary as well. Should we, as business analysts, also be aware of the influence of personality traits on business process optimisation? Should we be able to detect them and make the most of them?
The topic is clearly an area that you are personally passionate about. Why do you feel this subject is relevant and important for the business analysis profession?
My personal passion inside business analysis is definitely KPIs, quantitative presentation of the results and value in process optimisation projects. In my experience it has happened many times, that results are presented only in the descriptive form without any statistical or scientific proof behind. I personally believe, that we, as
… business analysts, should also be able and willing to go out of the box and try some new methods or techniques …
(like eye-tracking or predictive analytics) to prove that we can deliver good solutions and effective proposals. When you show the results to stakeholders once, they will always want some more :).
Having shared your ideas with the business analysis community. What key points would you like people to take-away, reflect and act upon?
I ended the BA Summit presentation with a very simple – but powerful – example: Kids like to build stone stacks on the beach with randomly selected stones. At the beginning it is very easy and fast to build first layers, but later it becomes more and more difficult, and the shape and form of the stones play an important role. Furthermore, it might be necessary to even remove one layer and replace those stones to go further and higher. In business analysis it is similar, but
… too many times we go straight forward, disregarding the consequences if we are not right.
Why? If we take these stone stacks principles into account at our daily work, we as business analysts, could be better and more prosperous.
Now that you’ve had time to better absorb Inter-View Volume III, what are your thoughts on this initiative and the value it adds to the business analysis profession?
The value behind Inter-View can be found in two areas:
- First is its content and articles (and it might be true, that central EU and Slovenia has some different numbers and statistics, but it is good to see some other data and analyses).
- The second, and for me even more important, is the idea and standard (form) which can be a model for others, if they want to grow and progress (develop).
With a flood of possible articles, advertisements and promotions to choose from, it is difficult to find quality content these days. Our Chapter issues only short monthly newsletter with 2-3 articled related to business analysis and I know it is a lot of work and preparation.
BCMGs magazine is amazing, full of comprehensive and professional content, …
my compliments to the authors and editors.
Business analysis summit spoiled in terms of the learning and networking opportunities. What was your greatest personal insight taken from the business analysis conference?
In one sentence?
Business analyses is a team sport, and all the delegates at the conference were open for the conversation and networking, and I really enjoyed talking with them.
It was as if we’d known each other for a many years. Regarding the presentations and programme, I only attended some of them in the innovation and techniques tracks and they were all super.
If I’m not mistaken, this was your first experience of South African business analysis. What impressions do you leave with of the local business analyst community?
I’ve left with very positive feelings and beliefs. People that I met were really friendly and welcoming to us, as a foreign guests. Personally, I found South Africa very familiar to Slovenia. South countries on every continent are always somehow more “open-friendly” and it was one of the best conferences I have attended this year.
South Africa’s business analysis community is – in my opinion – more developed, stronger and recognised …
than it is in Slovenia, and we have taken some good ideas away from South Africa.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I would like to thank you for your invitation and opportunity to say some words about us and our Chapter. I hope some day we might find some opportunities to work together, regardless of the long distance and different language.
Download Andrej Guštin‘s slide-deck from BA Summit SA 2016 and find out more about The influence Of Personality Traits In Business Analysis. Share your thoughts on the influence of personality traits in business analysis with @Newbert over on Twitter.
