Work WITH the Technology

So what did you do today?

I wrote chatbot for my website.

Oh wow - must have been difficult!

Nope - took 10 minutes...

Yes...seriously took 10 minutes and wrote a chat bot for my website. While watching a video that reminded me to review this feature my website provider discussed, I tried the instructions for the chatbot. It was a combination of Kajabi and Creator.io. Here's the link if you're curious. And you can go to my website to see what happens as you ask about the activities of our amazing team at Champagne Collaborations!

But you might ask "So What?!?" And you are exactly RIGHT!

Just cause you can create something, doesn't mean you should...

And this is exactly why I LOVE being a business analyst! We ask WHY! And the challenge you have is balancing out learning what capabilities there are in our ever-expanding technical worlds (and beyond) with what needs the business or organization has or might have in the future.

Determine the Need

My example of a chatbot started with thinking about how I make it easy for people to find information on my website. I'm doing a good job these days and putting more and more content on my website. It's becoming its own repository of helpful information for those doing business analysis and project management and technology change work. But how does a user know how to find the information that can best help them?

Now we get into being a good business analyst and thinking about the personas that might visit my website. A person looking for training wants to know the options and the next available session. But someone interested in booking me for speaking to their group wants to see video highlights or a listing of topics. While someone interested in certifications but not sure where to start might want some downloadable resources to help them layout what's required for certifying. Very different needs that's hard to keep reshaping my website for each niche.

However, why not guide the user to exactly what THEY want. It's about them, not you, remember! ;) (see my work on Facilitation on my perspective of this!). A chatbot simply became my method to provide that unique experience for them!

Start Small

Build something enough to get feedback. My first iteration only does my website. You have to pay to link these newsletters and my LinkedIn Learning courses and my Youtube channel and more. But why not start with something to see if it works? I was more worried about breaking my website playing with javascript than I was it working. But hey - it does! And so far the trials are great! Yet this small step is what you need ask now you know how to ask the right questions!

Now I'm really thinking my audiences. Now I see why they suggested chatbots for your courses. Imagine taking an online course now and you can ask the chatbot questions to help you along the way. And seeing how easily I could prescribe which content does (and does not) go into the sources, I can really focus on very specific learners and their respective goals in a course. Yes, now I'm justifying the cost of going bigger and buying the paid version, but it wasn't until I understood what capabilities could be applied to MY business. This is exactly what you need to do with your teams and organizations. Help them translate from the capabilities of tools, especially newer technologies, to what business problems it solves for them!

Process-tize IT

But then you gotta ingrain the business capabilities into business operations. This is where change management superstars like us really earn the big tomatoes (wait - I'm supposed to get paid for having this much fun???)! You need to then ingrain these business accomplishments through:

• Communication

• Training

• Usage

These are all related really, but think about who you told about the technology. Did you tell anyone what the technology can do? Did you tell them what you're doing now? Did you tell them what might be considered in the future?

Then you gotta SHOW them. Training and demonstrations are great. But don't train the tool, train the business case. What I mean is to show your teams how they solve their business challenge using this tool. I won't show you how to use my chatbot. I'm going to show you how you can easily search my site for just the information or the resources you need. See the difference? You help THEM solve their challenges by using the technology in a way that works for THEM!

But any new shiny object is just an expensive paperweight if it's not used. Now THEY have to use it. This is where you ingrain the procedure into daily work activities (you might hear the term "operationalize" it). While training is helpful, you want people to start getting comfortable using the approach and thinking about the technology without having to look at a user guide. One of the best things is to get your user base to write up how THEY use it. What do they need to do to leverage it? And how do they communicate with others?

And then keep it fresh. Keep learning and sharing more of the capabilities so that it stays top of mind. After trying it I'm definitely thinking about what else we could put in this database so that you have your own private Champagne Collaboration ChatGPT model here. But then I'm also thinking about putting this on every course then. And that would of course mean it goes into standard operating procedures for creating ANY new course. But then if everyone on my team is doing this for their courses, we've operationalized it and will have something to keep looking at to consider how to do it better. How can we meet the needs of our collaborators faster and more efficient and effectively?

Business Analysis really is powerful

And as I finish this article fully lamenting the fact that I took four times as long to write this article than I did to create a chatbot and install it on my website...that everything I described above could be applied for ANY technology or even toolset at any organization in any capacity. We need a business need that makes a shiny object valuable. We need room to explore and sample so that we can fully digest the scope of the impacts. And until others have bought into the value, it will be hard to expand and fully take advantage of both the capabilities and the ROI. And having amazing people who can see from this lens no matter if they're writing a LinkedIn Newsletter article or building a chatbot is what makes business analysis your most powerful tool in your toolbox!