Month: May 2025

Vera went to Mull

Back from a glorious week on the beautiful island of Mull, part of the Inner Hebrides, a three hour drive punctuated with a 45 min ferry crossing.

It’s our second holiday here with family, the first was in 2022 with a very young boy, a big tent, a night in an Air-BnB, and a night in Tobermory Hotel. That year I was supposed to be taking part in a cycling event on Mull but I underestimated the amount of training I’d miss with a young baby keeping us busy so I ditched that and we just noodled around the island for a few days before heading to the campsite.

This year we decided to stay in the same campsite on Fidden Farm. It’s a beautiful little campsite right on the beach, about an hours drive from the main ferry (mostly on single track roads so time depends on traffic), and of course this year we were taking our motorhome (Vera) for the week.

And what a beautiful week it was, sunny blue skies almost every day, a slight breeze to keep the midges away, long walks on the beach, cake stops, a wander around Iona, and lots of fun and laughter with Becca’s family. Jack had an absolute ball running around with his Grandpa, his Uncles and Aunts, and even occasionally with his boring old Mum & Dad!

It was our first time not on a fully serviced pitch with Vera, no electric hookup, no handy tap near the van, but thanks to the glorious weather, we had no issues at all. The joy of solar panels, and an LPG gas powered fridge freezers! Yes, quite a difference from the last time with the tent.

It was also a much needed holiday for me and Becca. We’ve been through a torrid time, all of which I’ve covered here, and between the good company, the sunshine, and a lack of a great signal on our phones, it felt like a proper break from reality.

I had a little time to myself on occasion too, and one evening sat on the rocks on the shore, watching the sunset bleach the sky from blue to orange. It was stunningly beautiful and I took the time to think about my family as I realised that this is exactly the type of thing I’d normally have shared with them. It was sad that I couldn’t do that any more. I cried a little, then reflected on my remaining family, and the immediate (inherited) family I was sharing the holiday with and reminded myself how lucky I was to be there under that sky with all those kind, caring people.

But mostly, it was a relaxing time pottering about the campsite and the beach. Somehow doing nothing of much makes the days both luxuriously long and pass by far too quickly. We stopped off at Tyndrum on the way home for a night too, just to give us a little decompression before heading home.

Vera was a joy, and the more we use her the smoother it goes as we learn all the little ins and outs. A very worth while investment. And for those wondering… She’s called Vera because we used the money i inherited when my Mum passed away to buy her.

Mum’s name was Lynda. But she had a little electric wheelchair that she nicknamed Vera. I don’t know why she called it that (we did have an Aunt Vera but don’t think that’s why).

Anyway, we already have another long weekend scheduled in Nethybridge in a few weeks, and maybe another couple of get aways once the school holidays finish too, the beauty of having a motorhome, we can just jump in and go!

May 25, 2025

The Accidental BA

I wrote this piece for the BA Digest, replicating here for posterity.

I wasn’t always a Business Analyst.

I started my working life as a technical administrator; essentially a technical dogsbody for a small I.T. firm, a bit of database work here, a bit of user documentation there, and it was the latter that took me into the world of Technical Communications. It was in Tech Comms I flourished, grew a career, became a manager, spoke at conferences, and eventually slide sideways into what I refer to as my B.A. adjacent years. I wasn’t yet a Business Analyst but I worked with, and managed, a couple of great B.A.s within my team, learned a lot from them, and realised that my career built on writing technical documentation wasn’t all that different, it was just at a different point in the software development process.

Technical writers who create user documentation (think user guides) based on the solution that is being built, are known to be user-focussed and look to provide instructions to get the most value from a process or system whilst understanding the end goal the user has in mind. Sound familiar? Shift that thinking to before the solution is being built and, et voila, hello Business Analysis. As I made the transition in career so too did some of the writing team as well, and we ended up creating a user documentation driven development process; the developers would use the pre-written documentation as part of the requirements to help build the solution, it worked well in tandem with some artefacts from test driven development processes.

That transition took place at one company over many years but eventually redundancy arrived and, after a couple of months of taking stock (essentially a holiday and a lot of trips to the cinema during the day), eventually I needed a job, saw a contract role for a Business Analyst and thought, well why not! The interview was fascinating, lasted about 8 minutes and consisted of me being asked what I thought a B.A. did, to which I respond something about figuring out the As Is is, and what the To Be could be, and was told that was all they needed to ask me… and 10 years later I’m a Business Analyst.

I don’t have any formal qualifications, and if I’m honest I feel a bit long in the tooth for that these days. I have been an Operations Manager, worked with Product Managers, Technical Architects, Software Developers, Testers, Technical Writers, UX Designers, Business Managers, Team Leaders, team members, end users, and people on a production floor. What I’ve learned about being a B.A. I’ve learned by observing how things can be done, what doesn’t work, and critically how to understand who needs to know what.

It also means that I don’t adhere to any specific methodology as I didn’t learn to be a B.A. by following one. Like the best Agile development teams will borrow and adapt from different Agile processes, rather than adhering to the given rules of, say, Extreme Programming, or SCRUM, I think the best B.A. teams do the same, tweaking and adjusting common working processes to best suit their needs. I think being able to flex your approach, and focussing on value add, has been a key mindset that has helped me in my career so far.

This is not news to you, we all adapt how we work to the environment, the processes, and the people, we work with. It’s impossible to make every environment fit within a rigid methodology. To those who determinedly hold to a specific practice and the processes it entails I ask this, do all of the things you do offer value? Are there some parts of your processes that you are doing because it’s just what is done? As B.A.s we challenge this thinking regularly with others, but how often do we look at ourselves and how we work?

My career path is atypical, and I’ve always had a problem following rules, and whilst all of what I know I’ve learned on the job, I think I’ve weaved a good enough path through the myriad of different views and voices telling me how to do my job. I’ve still got a lot to learn no doubt, but I’ve googled, I’ve asked colleagues, I’ve read books (yes that book!), and articles and I think I’m ok at my job. I’m also always happy to learn and improve, something my time as an Operations Manager taught me well; a good retrospective is a powerful thing.

I have a personal motto, I’ve had it for many years now, Keep It Simple (Stupid). That last word isn’t the insult some take it to be either, or at least I don’t take it that way, rather I look at it as an instruction, to keep things simple for people who aren’t as skilled as others, or as I’ve heard it called, be stupid in context. I’m stupid when it comes to welding, but a welder isn’t. It’s an important mindset for a B.A. I think, to keep some humility and remember the “curse of knowledge” (hat tip to Chip and Dan Heath for that phrase).

I have enjoyed my time as a Business Analyst, through a myriad of responsibilities and processes at Virgin Money, to my current role with Golden Charter. I am happy that I can bring both experience and some knowledge but, and I think most importantly, I bring a mindset of challenging how things are done, poking and prodding at processes for improvements, both within our team and for the wider business. I’ve been very lucky to have worked with very gracious and intelligent people along the way too, so whilst I didn’t start my career as a Business Analyst, it feels like I finally landed in the right role for how my brain works.

So I’ll keep learning as I go, I’ll keep challenging practices and processes, and do my very best to keep things as simple as possible. It’s how I work best.

May 13, 2025