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As we have said, training courses can be designed to use these concepts in
different ways. For example, one approach is to give students an exercise,
let them mess it up and then debrief on how it could have been done better – and
then do another one. This approach is attractive to Honey and Mumford’s activist
types – many salespeople are like this – but very off-putting to reflectors and
theorists like many IT developers. They prefer to have the theory explained first
and then to consolidate that with an exercise.
So what is the relevance of this to planning a business change? Well, as business
actors try to masters new skills and systems, they will go through the stages of
these cycles and will need support as they do so. The design of the training they
receive should reflect an understanding of the cycles, and patience must be shown
to the reflectors and theorists if they seem to take longer than their activist
colleagues in getting to grips with the new arrangements.
In addition, a BA who is facilitating a workshop to elicit requirements or explore
possible solutions needs to keep the learning styles in mind. Techniques such as
brainstorming tend to favour the activists, whereas using Post-Its is better for
reflectors and theorists. People with a pragmatist bent will tend to grow impatient
with long theoretical discussions, and will want to get down to ‘brass tacks’ and
discuss practical issues. If the group contains a mixture of styles, the facilitator will
have to use a variety of techniques to avoid alienating some of the participants.
Using the learning cycle
Although the usefulness of the learning cycle is fairly clear, an obvious question
that a BA might ask is: ‘How do I know what styles I am dealing with?’ Honey
and Mumford offer questionnaires that, when completed, will indicate people’s
styles, but trying these on a large user population or prior to staging a workshop
is probably not very practical. Over time, however, BAs will develop a ‘nose’ for
the types of people they are working with, and, as we have suggested, people who
go into particular occupations tend to exhibit certain learning styles – activist
salespeople, reflector or theorist technical specialists and pragmatist engineers,
for instance. However, the BA needs to be aware of over-generalising here, since a
particular engineer, say, may well not conform to the archetype.
Another practical difficulty is found where a group of people is brought together
for a workshop and turns out to contain a mixture of the learning styles. Here,
while using techniques like brainstorming will engage the activists, it will
alienate the reflectors and theorists. Approaches such as using Post-Its (see
Technique 14 for details) allow the latter to think about their answers before
recording them but are also suitable for activists.
Technique 70: The conscious competence model
Description of the technique
Unlike the various learning cycle models, which consider people’s different attitudes
to learning a new skill, this model considers the process of skill acquisition itself.
The origins of the model are unclear; as well as classical writers such as Confucius
and Socrates, more modern thinkers such as Abraham Maslow have been claimed
as its author. Wherever it originated, however, it provides a useful framework for
the way people learn and the traumas they may experience whilst doing so.
BUSINESS ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES