Business Analysts as Active Listeners

A response to the Find Your Fit Activity
created July 10, 2021 by Jessica Joy (@jessica.joy)

Number of views: 230

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A key responsibility of a Business Analyst in systems design is to gather requirements information from users. One technique used to gather this information is conducting elicitation interviews or workshops, both of which require the Business Analyst to exercise several soft skills including facilitation, interpersonal skills and active listening. The exploration of the available OER referatories and repositories revealed several useful and relevant resources to help students understand, reflect on and practice active listening skills. One resource in particular helped me to consider expanding my search beyond “active listening” to also include “reflective listening”. My hope was to find traditional textbook resources as well as alternatives to textbooks; I found these three resources to be a good fit for the topic:

• Resource #1 – Textbook “Interpersonal Communication”, Chapter 5 – Listening (OER Source: OASIS)
  This particular chapter in the textbook focuses on the mechanics of listening; how, why and the barriers to listening. It also provides information on ways to improve listening skills. The information is generalized (not discipline-specific), and can thus be easily integrated into many courses, including business analysis. Relating this resource to conducting effective interviews will help students better understand user’s needs and gather requirements information.

 

• Resource #2 – Self-assessment Quiz “How Well Do You Listen?” (OER Source: MERLOT)
  This resource provides students an opportunity to reflect on the effectiveness of their listening skills by understanding the elements within the scope of active listening and considering how they might improve those elements. This activity can also be connected to the concept of conducting effective interviews as a business analyst.

 

• Resource #3 – “Art of Listening Guide” (OER Source: MERLOT)
  This resource is teacher-facing, and provides an interesting perspective on improving listening skills by summarizing the “Seven Laws of Better Listening” as well as providing several interactive activities and exercises suited to the classroom. This is an excellent alternative to simply providing students with traditional text-based resources by delivering the content through live role playing exercises.

 

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