Memorable Messages: The Who, What, Where, When, and How to Convert Your Executives to BA Assessment Believers.

by Kitty Hass and Lori Lindbergh, PhD

So, we have spent the last few months singing the praises of real, scientifically-based assessments.  But how in the world can you convince your management team of the value? 

It’s a Daunting Road Ahead

As you can see in the table below, there are many elements that need to be in place to implement a mature BA Practice.  So, it begs the questions: How are we ever going to get there?  How fast can we get there?  How do we know what to work on first?

Cultivating Mature BA Practices – the Message

BA Assessments are the first step in building a mature BA Practice.

Why?  Because assessments provide:

• Information about the current state of your BA practices (you need to know where you are), and…
• A roadmap to more valuable BA practices (you need to know where you are going), and…
• The readiness to accept and support the new BA practices (you need to know who is on your train, and who is off your train), and…
• An understanding of how BA will bring value to your customers and wealth to your organization (or why else are we investing in projects?)

So you know all this, but your message to your leadership team must be short, memorable, and convincing.

BA Practice Assessment – In Brief

• What is it?
• An independent appraisal of Business Analysis practices
• Why do it?
• Provides a foundation for improvements to ensure business value is generated from project investments
• How is it used?
• Determines where we are today; where we want to be in the future
• How is it conducted?
• Uses an appraisal process based on assessment best practices
• BA practices assessed against what?
• Current capabilities are compared to a BA Practice Maturity Model based on project complexity and benchmarked against a global data base

Building a Memorable Message

The secret to effective strategic communications is to devise custom messages for each of your key stakeholders.  For the message to be memorable, take your team through these steps.

Step 1: Assess your Political Environment

Quickly assess your organization’s readiness to invest in mature BA Practices. 

Step 2: Identify your Audience

From your environmental assessment, identify individuals and/or groups that you need to convince. Note: this information may be sensitive; if so, use numbers to indicate the stakeholders.



Step 3: Identify Influence Strategies

When identifying influence strategies, be sure to keep these in mind:

• What’s in it for them?
• What do they need to view BA Practices positively and actively support the assessment and subsequent improvements?
• What actions will you take?

Step 4: Get your Message Heard - and Remembered

There are four steps to developing memorable messages targeted at executives.  Facilitate a small team of experts through these activities.

1. Compose a customized message for each stakeholder
• Determine the purpose of the message
• Tailor the message to each individual or group
• Write from the stakeholder’s perspective
• Use the information in your political and audience analysis for help 

   
  2.  Add memorable phrases

• Use short phrases that adroitly to capture the heart of your message
• In media, these are referred to as sound bites: they stand out in the audience's memory and thus become the "taste" that best represents the entire "meal" of the larger message or conversation (hence, “sound bite”
• To be memorable, they must:
• ü  Clearly and cleverly make the point
• ü  Capture the message in a snippet
• Examples,
• ü  I have a dream – Martin Luther King
• ü   The Buck Stops Here – Harry Truman
• ü  All politics is local - U.S. Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill
• ü  Building Locomotives to Move Freight to Your Home Town – G
• BA Examples:
• ü  Successful Projects Hard To Achieve? Not Anymore!
• ü  It’s not about the Technology – it’s about the Business!
• ü  A Day without Business Analysis is like a Day without Sunshine
• ü  A Day without Business Analysis is like a Day without Value
• ü  Business Analysis: our Best Defense Against Project Failure
• ü  Assessment first - Improvements second - Value third
• ü  Assessment first - Improvements second - then comes Value
• ü  Building Business Analysis to Drive Wealth to our Bottom Line

3.  Develop clever slogans and mottos

• Short phrases are memorable, are used as a rallying cry, intend to be motivational – cause the audience to act.
• Used to express the aims or nature of an enterprise, organization, candidate, or BA Practice; often expresses a valuable aim or purpose
• Examples:

• ü  Don’t Leave Home Without It – American Express
• ü   Yes, We Can – Obama, 2008 campaign
• ü  Pure Systems – IBM
• ü  A Smarter Planet – IBM
• ü  Imagination at Work - GE
• BA Examples:
• ü  Value Driven by Business Analysis
• ü  Get the Business Analysis Habit
• ü  The Business Analysis Effect
• ü  Smarter Projects
• ü  Pure Value
• ü  Business Analysis at Work coverts to Value

   






4.  Trim the message to become your "pitch" or your "elevator speech"

• Delivered in 30 seconds/100-150 words
• Used by:
• Entrepreneurs pitching an idea to a venture capitalist
• Project managers, sales people, evangelists, policy-makers, job seekers, speed daters, and
• Business Analysts to sell their value
• Compelling; the “hook” that catches people to further engage
• Use catch phrases, mottos, and slogans to be memorable

You may only get one change to craft and deliver your message. So create a clear, memorable message that will catch your executives’ attention and stick. Remember, sticky messages make a difference by triggering emotions and feelings in your audience. The emotional reaction is what will call your executives to action.

Next week, we will discuss strategies for communicating the compelling message you have created to your executives.