This presentation explores the reasons why Project Stakeholders can have different perceptions of the same information and how BAs can promote effective listening skills that bridge reality gaps between stakeholders.

1. Effective Listening: a Cornerstone of
Business Analysis
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2. Content
• 1-The human brain processes Information in a very biased way.
• 2- People often believe in stories that may have very little
evidence to support them.
• 3-BAs can promote effective listening skills that bridge reality
gaps between stakeholders.
• 4- A person’s perception of the world is their reality.
• 5-Listening is the most important communication skill.
• 6- Our education does not teach us to listen well enough.
• 7-Poor communication makes us waste 45% of our lives.
• 8-Listening goes beyond hearing.
• 9-Listening with your 6th sense is essential.
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3. The human brain processes
Information in a very biased way
• “In processing information, our brains tend to
perceive stimuli in terms of their own past
experiences and may systematically filter out
information not in accordance with these
experiences.
• Brains have difficulty processing all the relevant
information – there is too much, it may not fit with
expectations and previous patterns, and some of it
simply may be too threatening to accept” [Kurstedt
2000]
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4. People often believe in stories that may
have very little evidence to support them
• Kahneman has demonstrated that the
confidence people have in their beliefs is a
judgment of the coherence of the story that
the mind has managed to construct. People
tend to have great belief in stories that may
have very little evidence to support them.
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5. BAs can promote effective listening skills that
bridge reality gaps between stakeholders
• One important responsibility of a Business Analyst
(BA) is to ensure that false beliefs and false
expectations are not cultivated and that strong
consensus is achieved among all project
stakeholders.
• This presentation explores the reasons why Project
Stakeholders can have different perceptions of the
same information and how BAs can promote
effective listening skills that bridge reality gaps
between stakeholders.
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6. A person’s perception of the world is
their reality
• Kurstedt reminds us that just as one person
experiences differently what another person perceives
when she sees the color green, even if both parties
agree to call this color green, each person’s perception
of the same light stimuli can be profoundly different.
• Effective communication is the only means by which
two persons can reconcile their respective perceptions
of reality.
• Communication becomes effective when each reality is
not only understood but also truly accepted by both
parties.
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7. Listening is the most important
communication skill
• A study has shown that while people are
awake they spent between 70 to 80% of their
time communicating.
• Communication time is then distributed as
follow:
– 45% listening
– 30% speaking
– 16% reading
– 9% writing
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8. Our education does not teach us to
listen well enough
• Another study by Madelyn Burley-Allen shows
the time allocated to teaching various
communication skills throughout a typical
education:
– 12 years of writing
– 6 to 8 years of reading
– 1 to 2 years of speaking
– Half a year of listening!
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9. Our education does not teach us to
listen well enough
• If you agree that learning happens through
communication, and that human
communication favors listening, then the very
small amount of time our education dedicates
to teaching listening skills makes us
handicapped learners and poor
communicators.
• It should come with little surprise that most
people are not effective at bridging the kind of
reality gaps discussed in this presentation.
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10. Poor communication makes us waste
45% of our lives
• Combine the 80% of life spent on communicating
with the 45 and 30 percent of that time spent
listening and speaking: we are then either talking
to someone or listening to someone for 60% of
the time.
• Research shows that on average people are about
25% effective at oral communication thus yielding
a staggering 45% of our time wasted because we
are either not being understood or we are not
understanding other people!
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11. Listening goes beyond hearing
• Mehrabian postulates that the information
communicated to us when we listen to
someone is distributed as follow:
– 7% from words
– 38% from vocal cues (tone, inflection, etc..)
– 55% from body language (facial, posture, gestures)
• BAs must become skilled at ‘listening’ to all
the above sources of information during face
to face meetings.
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12. Listening with your 6th sense is
essential
• The BA can train herself to become
skilled at:
– Perceiving the feelings in other persons
with empathy.
– Perceiving the positive or negative energy
around a person.
– Perceiving the meaning within the message
and between the message: silence can
speak volume.
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13. References:
• Kurstedt, H. (2000), Management Systems Theory, Applications,and Design,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University - ISE Department,
Blacksburg VA.
• Madelyn Burley-Allen (1995), Listening: The Forgotten Skill:
A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides)
For Comments and Questions contact didier@pragmaticohesion.com
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