Adriana Beal
It may sound counterintuitive, but the more businesses go through technological transformation and rely on automation, machine learning, Generative AI, and other emerging technologies, the more important it becomes for BAs to acquire knowledge about what influences human behavior.
If this sounds strange or unfamiliar to you, it’s because this competency is rarely discussed, and much less addressed meaningfully within the business analysis community. But if you think about it, it makes sense to see this topic acquire importance for the BA role in a time of accelerated changes.
Business analysts solve problems for a living. Whether you are designing a new customer support process, specifying the requirements for a new release of a supply chain system, or prioritizing enhancements for a mobile app, your job is to find answers for business challenges.
But what happens if nobody listen to your ideas and recommendations?
- If customers are asking for feature A, but digging deeper you learn that feature B will not only solve the same problem but dramatically reduce software maintenance costs, it only matters if you’re able to convince your stakeholders to see what you see and move forward with the optimal solution you recommended.
- If you become an expert on requirements workshop facilitation, it only matters if you can persuade stakeholders to come to your sessions.
- If you are asked to fix a new dashboard that end-users voted as a top priority but now are barely visiting, you’ll only deliver on the expectations if you understand the non-rational but predictable ways humans behave in order to identify the best approaches to increase user adoption.
If you struggle with any of the following:
- Having your ideas heard and acted upon.
- Persuading stakeholders to try a new technique in customer discovery, product design, requirements definition, data visualization, or process automation.
- Keeping end-users engaged and providing feedback throughout the software development cycle.
- Convincing decision-makers of the importance of making subject matters experts available for effective knowledge transfer during project initiation.
Do this
Start blocking time to study topics like behavioral science and the art of influence.
Few things will help you achieve your goals more than understanding the science behind what motivates people. Research shows that we can’t actually get people to behave in a certain way unless, on some level, they want to do it. Even though we don’t have control over how decision-makers or difficult stakeholders act, we can set up situations where their motivations and drives will kick in by making them want to do the things we want them to do.
Here are some good books* to get you started:
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Dan Heath and Chip Heath
Influence New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
* Beal Projects earns a commission if you use an Amazon link to purchase a recommended book. All proceeds go to charity.
More resources
Deepen your understanding of yourself and others: DISC profiles
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