The THiNK Blog

Have you ever seen the movie Titanic? Think of the scene when the ship is approaching the iceberg – at the last second they think they’ve dodged it because on the surface it’s not that big. However little do they know, what lies beneath has a significant impact on the ship (and their fate). So what does this have to do with business analysts and planning requirements? Well, in my line of work, a question that I get asked all the time is; “when can a project manager or business analyst confidently say that all the necessary requirements for a given project are complete and fully understood by everyone”?

Unfortunately, the answer isn’t always simple because while a project may seem fairly straight forward on the surface – there is a lot going on underneath to make it happen. And it can turn into a shipwreck, if the right planning is not put in place. Often times, projects have a fairly indistinct approach and thoughts of the project team are continuously evolving.

So in an attempt to answer this pivotal question, the objective of this blog post is to provide project managers and business analysts with an understanding of what lies beneath; i.e., the project’s requirements. And what better way to do this than with an easy to follow, three-question guide to getting your team on the right track?!

In past years, I believe it is safe to say that transparency, as a corporate value was less prominent than it is today. More and more, we’re seeing organizations prioritize transparency as a business practice in many of their actions and communications, especially progressive companies. This is definitely the case at LOGiQ³, however, recently we had to make a call on transparency which I thought I'd share with folks who may have found themselves in a similar situation and to hopefully gain feedback on our decision.

This is the first in a series of posts by several of us on the senior leadership team to share some of the learnings we have had along the way at LOGiQ³ and discuss what we’ve learned in building a business. To be clear, there will be no definitive advice, or “do these 10 things” types of content.  That’s just not how it works.  However, in sharing some of the insight that we have learned, hopefully there will be some words that give you pause, or perhaps resonate with something that happened in your career, and just might provide you some thoughts and ideas on where to go next. So here we go….

I have a major love/hate relationship with public speaking. On one hand, I am given the opportunity to share my experience and advice with people who exhibit a similar interest but on another, well… like most of you, I get nervous!

Originally Published in the The Stepping Stone, August, 2014. Copyright 2014 by the Society of Actuaries, Schaumburg, Illinois. Reprinted with Permission.

A popular definition of a leader is someone who produces superior results through the work of others. Two of the greatest challenges a leader faces are knowing how to build a high-performance team to achieve superior results and then instituting the mechanisms necessary to actually create that team. Now, there are several key areas that a manager must focus on, such as creating a team vision, providing consistent coaching and mentoring, and rewarding outstanding performance. In this article, however, I want to focus on Managing with Metrics as a key driver of creating a high-performance team. And this concept applies equally to the team as a whole, as well as its individual members.