Minnie’s Musings

My desk is tidier than it has been for months.

I have a test on Wednesday. This test is on the business analysis section of my course that I signed up for in a bid for self-improvement. At the moment I am heading towards a borderline fail/pass, depending, so I am attempting to learn all six parts of the Business Analysis Service Framework.

I should have taken this test several weeks ago when the knowledge was fresh, but I didn’t. I am now attempting to regain lost knowledge and learn what each and every acronym means. This has led to Best Beloved reading out the chapter on strategy while we ploughed up the M40 yesterday (with a brief hiatus when the heavens opened and traffic slowed right down to 30mph, because no one could see where they were going and the M40 is not the straight slab that both the M4 and M1 are).

I digress. Focus is not my strong suit on a Monday morning.

So I got as far as sticking annotated mini post-it notes on Chapters 1-3 and rehearsing over and over again the Business Capability Model, the Business Model Canvas, the Business Analysis Service Framework and the Boston Box (whose axes make absolutely no sense whatsoever, at least one is backwards). I can now describe VMOST, the development of a Business Case (it starts with Alignment and then its something beginning with ‘D’) and have achieved the seemingly Herculean task of remembering Porter’s Five Powers.

Yes, there is an industry with almost as many acronyms as Education. Loyal FB readers may have heard me rant about acronyms and mnemonics previously. But here I go again.

An mnemonic should only flow out of a set of tasks/procedures/instructions naturally. It should not be shoe-horned into anything. It makes it ridiculous and irrelevant and too many of them make them too difficult to remember.

They do however give business people a useful game to play in boring meetings; many years ago – I am told – key players in the numerous associations surrounding the energy and insulation industries were sitting around a table trying not to fall asleep while the latest government initiative was outlined in detail. One individual (who shall remain nameless because I can’t remember it) put all 13 acronyms into one sentence, which he randomly interrupted the meeting to deliver. The table creased up. They broke for lunch.

My next post is likely to be rant about the different use of the word ‘environment’ in said mnemonics. One is the natural world, climate etc and the other is…. I forget what. For crying out LOUD!