Pentland Training  worked with Andrea Case at Siemens to deliver a training course that would help her to  improve her Business Writing skills along with three of her colleagues. Jamie Squires of Pentland Training caught up with Andrea after the course to review the training’s effectiveness. Here is the conversation:

Jamie: What lead you to look for a training course in Business Writing?

Andrea: In my new role I am writing Business Cases and Reports as well as the usual day to day emails.  My Manager and I recognised that a training course would assist me to aid my written communication.

How did you find the training course?

The day was great, I learned so much through the practical exercises and the tutor guidance and expert knowledge. I liked the self-assessment we had to do at the beginning of the course, where we each had to pick three areas we would like to focus on. This meant that the training was tailored to the whole group. The tutor continued to tailor the course throughout the day, so we covered as much relevant content as possible.

And your colleagues?

A couple of my colleagues had more experience than myself in Business Writing so they were unsure if they would learn anything new from a training course. They were pleasantly surprised by how much they learned, including Structure and Planning , along with a better grasp of clinical communication. 

Did the training course achieve its objective?

Yes definitely I have put what I have learned straight into practice. I’m much more confident  in my approach to business writing through all the different ways that I communicate. Business Writing is something I recognise that I continually have to work on to improve. The Reference Book that came with the training course will be handy to keep dipping in to. Eventually I will be saving my Manager a lot of time as he won’t have to amend any of my reports!

What would your advice be to anyone looking to improve their Business writing skills (apart from booking an on-site course with Pentland Training!)

We’ll, I don’t think that I’ll forget the ABC rule from the training course. Be Accurate, Brief, and Clear!

How long have you been a trainer for?

I have been involved in training for over 25 years.  This has included IT, Project Management and personal development & management courses.  Hang on, that’s just made me realise that this means when I started training we were using DOS and Floppy Drives!

What’s the biggest change that’s happened in the training world in that time?

The Internet and Computer Based Training . It has transformed so many areas of the training environment and is used by some companies as a ‘total solution’ for all their training needs.  However I still strongly believe that there is no replacement for ‘hands-on’ training delivered by an individual who can bring the experience and understanding to each course that makes it unique.

If you weren't a trainer - what would you be?

A project manager!  That way I would still enjoy the personal satisfaction of solving problems and delivering a solution that I gain from training. 

What is your favourite course to teach and why? 

That’s a tricky one! Probably Communication Skills as it enables me to get ‘up close and personal’ with the delegates.  I really enjoy helping people overcome the barriers they have when dealing with others.  If you have effective communication skills everything you do is so much easier. 

List of Qualifications :-....

PRINCE2 Approved Trainer 

PRINCE2 Practitioner 

Senior Associate Institute IT Trainers

I.I.T.T. TAP 2002

MSC in COBOL

MYEC (in final year BA (Hons) Business)

Quick Fire...

Linked In or Facebook – Personally I’m not a big fan of either, I’m still more interested in talking directly to my friends and business contacts.

Favourite book – All Terry Pratchett’s books, or a good detective story

Favourite holiday destination – I love France , especially the food and wine

Favourite Website – Bing, my favourite doorway to endless information

Favourite personal development tool – The internet of course….:)

1. Don't assume you know what the customer wants - ask.
2. Involve the users from the start – they are generally the ones with the most relevant and valuable opinions.
3. Define and agree the scope of the project up-front, it makes it far easier when it comes to tracking and measuring success at a later date.
4. Ensure requirements are specific, realistic and measurable.
5. Gain clarity if there is any doubt – a tight brief makes for an easier project.
6. Create a clear, concise and thorough requirements document and share it with the customer, ideally gaining sign-off early on.
7. Confirm your understanding of the requirements with the customer (play them back).
8. Avoid talking technology or solutions until the requirements are fully understood.
9. Get the requirements agreed with the stakeholders before the project starts.
10. Create a prototype if necessary to confirm or refine the customers' requirements.

Remember, requirements gathering is about creating a clear, concise and agreed set of customer requirements that allow you to provide exactly what they are looking for.  Bear this in mind throughout the project and you won’t go far wrong.

Many projects start with the barest headline list of requirements, only to find later the customers' needs have not been properly understood.

One-way to avoid this problem is by producing a statement of requirements. This document is a guide to the main requirements of the project. It provides:-

• A succinct requirement specification for management purposes.
• A statement of key objectives - a "cardinal points" specification.
• A description of the environment in which the system will work.
• Background information and references to other relevant material.
• Information on major design constraints.

The contents of the statement of requirements should be stable or change relatively slowly.

Once you have created your statement of requirements, ensure the customer and all other stakeholders sign-up to it and understand that this and only this will be delivered.

Finally, ensure you have cross-referenced the requirements in the statement of requirements with those in the project definition report to ensure there is no mismatch.

Common Mistakes

There are several common mistakes that can occur when gathering requirements.  Keep an eye out for these and try and avoid them at all costs :-

• Basing a solution on complex or cutting edge technology and then discovering that it cannot easily be rolled out to the 'real world'.
• Not prioritising the User Requirements, for example 'must have', 'should have', 'could have' and 'would have,' known as the MoSCoW principle.
• Not enough consultation with real users and practitioners.
• Solving the 'problem' before you know what it is.
• Lacking a clear understanding and making assumptions rather than asking.

What is a requirement?

 Here are the IEEE definitions of "requirement":

1. a condition or capability needed by a user to solve a problem or achieve an objective
2. a condition or capability that must be met or possessed by a system or system component to satisfy a contract, standard,specification, or other formally imposed document
3. a documented representation of a condition or capability as in (1) or (2)

In laymen’s terms it translates as:

a singular documented need of what a particular product or service should be or perform.

·  Business requirements describe in business terms what must be delivered or accomplished to provide value.

·  Product requirements describe properties of a system or product (which could be one of several ways to accomplish a set of business requirements.)

What types of requirements are there?

Requirements can cover a wide range of needs. For example “we need this by July”; “we want to allow customers to place orders over the web”. As such requirements need to be split into their various types.

The Information systems examination board use the following types:

Functional: What the system should do (i.e. tasks/functions)

Non-functional: How the system should perform (i.e. response times, access restrictions)

 General: Constraints placed upon the project ( i.e. legal, time, cost etc)

 Technical: Hardware and software needs

What are the challenges we face in collecting requirements?

There are many problems associated with requirements engineering, including problems in defining the system scope, problems in fostering understanding among the different stakeholders affected by the development of a given system, and problems in dealing with the volatile nature of requirements. These problems may lead to poor requirements or the development of a system that is later judged unsatisfactory or unacceptable, has high maintenance costs, or undergoes frequent changes. By improving requirements elicitation, the requirements engineering process can be improved, resulting in enhanced system requirements and potentially a much better system.

How do I know when I have  good requirement?

That’s something that is completely open to interpretation. In my  opinion, a good requirement is one that is complete, clear and accurate. It communicates what it is supposed to, without leaving any gaps, and with no ambiguity.

What do we need to document for each requirement?

There are many templates that can be used to document each requirement in a catalogue. Each organisation needs to determine what their content should include to enable them to say what that requirement  does, and gives them something to compare against to confirm that it does what it should. It also gives the customer a way to check what the solution does when deciding how to use the software to meet a business need, and deciding whether the program needs additional functionality to meet a business need.

Can diagrams help?

Yes, it definitely can. Diagramming or modelling helps customers visualise better. It also helps to check for completeness of requirements at an early stage. The saying goes ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ and when applied to the Requirements Engineering process it allows more to be shown in less space.

Is prioritisation important?

Very much so, prioritisation provides transparency to the business and allows them to make informed decisions when deciding on the scope of the project. In other words, they will understand where the money will be spent and that it is spent on the most critical requirements.

How do we make sure requirements don’t fall between the cracks?

Sometimes with the best will in the world requirements can get left behind in the stampede to complete the project. To stop this from occurring we need traceability. Traceability is one of the essential activities of good requirements engineering. It is used to ensure that the right products are being built at each phase of the software development life cycle, to trace the progress of that development and to reduce the effort required to determine the impacts of requested changes.

Traceability is used to track the relationship between each unique requirement and its
source. For example, a requirement might trace from a business need, a user request, a
business rule, an external interface specification, an industry standard or regulation, or to some other
source.

We have shared Pentlands view on how you can effectively develop your team, but what about you?  Writing a personal development plan is not always easy and can sometimes be quite a daunting task – which is why it tends to always get put to the bottom of the list!. 

Here are some guidelines and tips on writing a personal development plan. Remember, your own personal development plan should never be set in stone.  By its very nature it should develop and grow as you do, and should ideally be revisited every 6-12 months to check your progress and review your future plans.

The process can be broken down into 5 distinct stages :-

1. Discovering strengths and weaknesses

For some people, they are absolutely clear on what they are good at and bad at. Others struggle to discover it. If you belong to the latter category, don’t despair. Just start by asking yourself a few questions :-

•  What area/activity do I generally have success in? What do I find difficult?
•  What do people normally compliment me for?
•  What do others view as my areas for development?
•  What are some of my good habits and bad habits?
•  What am I comfortable doing, and what do I feel uncomfortable about? (we

are usually weak in the things that we feel uncomfortable about)

Don’t be afraid to get feedback from others.  Honest insights into how you are perceived are invaluable and can often provide key pieces of information on where you need to concentrate your efforts.

Once you have made a comprehensive list, prioritise them based on your personal goals.  Try not to give yourself an exhaustive list - having 3 areas/skills to focus on is more than enough!

2. Add some detail

After identifying your focus area(s), think about what your ultimate objective for each of those focus areas would be. Make it detailed and specific. 

Having a strong reason behind every focus area will likely be what keeps you focused. Answering the following questions can help you here :-

•  Why do I want to achieve that?
•  How does it help me?
•  What can it give me?
•  What can it prevent/stop?
•  How does it impact my life and those around me?

3. Setting your Goals

Make sure you set specific goals for each of your identified focus areas.  Try and ensure these are SMART targets :-

•  Specific – There is nothing worse than a ‘wooly’ objective!  If your objective is to develop confidence – what does this mean specifically?  Is it to be able to do a 10 minute presentation to 10 of your colleagues?
•  Measurable – How will you know you have met the objective?  
•  Achievable – How are you going to go about meeting this objective?  Using the example above - Are you going to go on a Communication Skills course?  Do you need to learn how to use Powerpoint?
•  Realistic - Make sure your objectives are ambitious, yet remain realistic and within reach.
•  Timely – Commit to a date when you will have achieved this by.  Is this something you want to achieve in the next 6 months or is it a long term goal (3-5 years) that will help with future career progression?

4. Taking Action

 Now you know the areas you want to focus on, why you want to focus on them and how you are going to do it.  Next comes the action! 

There are two elements to this :-

1.  Commit your plan to paper – making sure it is concise and easily reviewable.
2.  Schedule in your development time – this could be weekly time set aside for personal development – or a 5 day course.

5. Review Your Progress

It’s advisable not to leave it too long before reviewing your progress.  Its wise to check your own progress every 3 months so that you can review if you are on target.  If your personal development plan is linked with your place of work, its likely this will get reviewed every 6 months or so.  Remember, this is an ever evolving document – it should always be reviewed as a work in progress and do not be afraid to make adjustments to it if you feel you have changed direction.

If you have identified any areas for development that Pentland can help you with, get in touch.

Learning and talent development are key aspects of sustained organisational performance, not just tools for HR, and creating an effective learning strategy is never more crucial than in the current times of constrained finance, restructuring and redundancies. Identifying your teams training and learning needs should be at the heart of everything you do.

The use of Training Needs Analysis or Skills Gap Analysis is basically a health check on the skills, talent and capabilities of your organisation. It is the systematic gathering of information to find out where there are gaps in the existing skills, knowledge and attitudes of your employees. It involves collecting information about existing employees’ capabilities you’re your organisations demands for skills, and the analysis of how this will impact the future plans for your business.  It should always flow from the business strategy, and its aim is the production of a plan for the organisation to ensure that there is sufficient capability to sustain business performance.

Why should I identify my teams skills gaps?

Careful analysis of needs is important because:

• Organisational performance depends on having the right people, in the right

jobs, at the right time.

•  Providing learning opportunities enables staff to achieve personal and

career goals and increases employee engagement.

•  Well-planned training is an effective retention strategy, particularly for those

identified as talent.

•  Having a clear idea of what needs to be learned and the outcomes

expected allows you to measure the success of your staff training.

How do I know what skills they will need?

Specific skills needs will differ between businesses, but certain skills are required by most customer-focused businesses:

•  IT - are staff making the most of your hardware and software systems?
•  Sales and marketing - are sales staff reaching the clients that matter,

building relationships and closing sales?

•  Procurement and buying - are buyers managing contracts effectively?
•  Finance - are your records being kept in order so you can monitor

performance and meet your tax and other obligations?

•  Customer service - are your staff trained to deal with customers so that

you're likely to retain and increase the business you do with them?

•  Management and leadership - can your senior managers, yourself

included, lead, motivate and get the best out of your staff? 

Once you have identified any skills gaps in your business you can start to address them. This might involve recruiting new employees, but it makes good business sense to see if your existing staff have untapped potential you can utilise. Developing the skills of existing staff improves their job satisfaction and can be a cost-effective way of meeting your skills needs.

What are the steps involved?

Knowing what jobs will be done, now and in the future, is the first step. Then, for each category of employees covered:

•  What capabilities will be required to carry out the job? (the person

specification)

•  What capabilities do existing employees possess? (a formal or informal

skills analysis)

•  What are the gaps between existing capabilities and the new requirements?

(the learning specification).

 How do I go about collecting the information? 

Having planned exactly what data you want to collect, the next stage is to decide how the information can be collected. Some possible ways are:

•  Company Documentation – for example business plans, objectives and new

work standards, job descriptions and person specifications

•  Interviews with line managers - these will often be primary sources of

information on plans, work organisation and changes, or will expand on the facts available in the documentation.

• Existing data, for example on an HR database
• Appraisal and performance management documentation.

If you work within an SME, you may choose to undertake skills gap analysis on a smaller scale.  If this is the case, don’t forget to explore sources of funding - for smaller enterprises government support is available particularly around apprenticeship internships and student projects can also provide capability and skills.  You may also wish to look into flexible learning options if having key staff absent on training courses is not an attractive prospect for you.

 How do I use the results?

The value is not in collecting the information, but in what you do with that information to support the development of your business.  You will likely get a number of outputs, all of which will become an important part of developing your staff:

•  A report of overall training needs for the organisation or department.

To use as the basis of a Learning and Talent Development Strategy or be part of the business planning process.

•  Prioritisation of the learning needs identified.  A discussion with

The management will give guidance on which gaps are most critical.

•  Personal development plans.  Plans for personal learning can be aligned

with the resources available.

Pentland Training can assist you with identifying your teams training needs.  Why not get in touch and find out more.