The Effective Conversations Template Collection contains 20 conversation scripts with 3-5 minute videos to ensure you know exactly what to say in some of the toughest situations business analysts face.

For Only

$197

There is a reason your palms (or pits) start to sweat in difficult situations, while your heart-rate picks up and your chest, or throat, constricts.

You instinctively know that what you say matters.

And you intuitively realize this is a high stakes situation.

For example - it’s not just about how cancelling this meeting at the last minute will push this project out a week, it’s also about the credibility you are trying to establish with this stakeholder group and your position of influence with your manager.

Or, let’s say your sponsor is pushing you to add in a new requirement at that last minute. You know it’s not just about this particular requirement, but your credibility with the technical team and the precedent you are setting for how similar situations will be handled in future projects.

In these critical moments, your reputation and credibility are on the line.

The truth is that difficult conversations get easier with practice.

You need to put yourself in difficult situations, and say the right things (or close enough to the right things) with the right energy.

Do this enough times, and it becomes second-nature. And difficult conversations are not so difficult anymore.

With the Effective Conversations Template Collection, you’ll have access to Laura Brandenburg’s highly distilled wisdom on the most common challenges business analysts face, and be guided on exactly what to say in those situations. You’ll receive fully written textual templates you can easily refer back to again and again (or even have up on your screen during a Zoom session).

What’s more, there is a complete video library – because how you say the words, and the energy you hold, is just as important as saying the right thing. In the videos, Laura models how to hold the energy of the words, so you can really feel what’s required to communicate with more power.

Perhaps even more importantly, when you go through the materials and put these new phrases and ways of speaking into practice, you’ll start to experience the outcomes of your conversations in different ways.

For Only

$197

You might be surprised to see you are not alone – other business analysts face the same difficulties you do. We know because these questions have come up over and over again in our training programs.

Each one of these templates was created in response to an issue that we’ve witnessed multiple business analysts face, and often faced ourselves as well.

Here’s a complete list of each of the templates included in Effective Conversations Template Collection:

Requirements Issues

1. Product Owner Requests Enhancements at the End of a Project

2. Stakeholder Will Not Provide Justification for a Change

3. Critical Business Need Isn’t Technically Possible

4. Being Accused of Not Understanding the Terminology

5. Getting Past “I Don’t Know”

Stakeholder Issues

6. Need Manager to Introduce You to Key Stakeholders

7. Being Accused that Nothing is Getting Done

8. Stakeholder Declines an Important Meeting

9. Senior Colleague Acts Divisively in a Meeting

10. Building Rapport with New Stakeholders Who Would Rather Email

Role Issues

11. Being Told “This is Not Your Job”

12. Being Accused of Opening Up Big Issues

13. You Want to Use a New Technique

14. You Lack Clarity on an Assignment

15. Asked to Cut Down a Timeline

Meeting Issues

16. Critical Stakeholder is a No-Show to an Important Meeting

17. How to Wrap Up a Meeting

18. Meeting Participants Do Not Have the Answers to Your Requirements Questions

19. You Have the Wrong People in a Meeting

20. A Meeting Runs Over Time

You’ll receive a collection of 20 short videos (3-5 minutes each) with supporting textual templates. All of this will be yours to download so you can easily refer back to the materials again and again.

Here’s an example:

Stakeholder Will Not Provide Justification For a Change (Example Video)

Stakeholder Will Not Provide Justification For a Change (Example Text)

We’ve all had these stakeholders – ones who flat out refuse to provide a justification for a change they are requesting. As business analysts, we are trained to ask ‘WHY’ and always understand the business reason or goals behind any change, whether it’s adding a field to a report or implementing a new off-the-shelf business application. And this is because there is always more than one possible solution to a business problem. Understanding why allows us to explore potential other solutions.

But in this case, the stakeholder mindset is that the team should make a change because they said so, and to stop asking them questions.

You want to realize there that there is another ‘why’ to get to the root of, and that’s why the stakeholder doesn’t want to provide justification. It might be because they don’t actually know – perhaps their manager asked for this to happen and they don’t know why and they don’t want to look stupid. Perhaps they are pressed for time and simply don’t want to answer any questions or slow the project down. Perhaps there is a pattern where they don’t get what they want once they start answering questions. Perhaps this is a way that they see themselves exerting their authority.

...

• All 20 conversation scripts, so you know exactly what to say.
• All 20 corresponding videos, so you can feel into the energy of HOW to say what needs to be said.
• 6 months of access to the video library online.