Persuasion Tips for Business Analysts

Persuasion tips for Business Analysts.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle, is known for his work on a broad range of subjects including economics, politics and psychology. “He began the wider Aristotelian tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science.”

His triangle framework identified how speakers appeal to and persuade audiences. There are three components:

• Pathos (Values, Beliefs)

• Ethos (Credibility, Character)

• Logos (Reason)

By appealing to all three components, speakers have a stronger chance of persuading audiences to their arguments.

 More on the Triangle - The Rhetorical Triangle: Understanding and Using Logos, Ethos and Pathos. 

Business Analysts are expected to be persuasive, we’re the client voice, eliciting, documenting and implementing their requirements.

That said, persuasion is a balancing act. Not enough persuasion and you’re overlooked, slide-lined. Too much and it’s perceived as shady, manipulative.

Awareness of this framework, provides a balanced approach, ensuring we’re neither side lined or perceived as manipulative 😈.

Some final thoughts:

• Be aware of over using pathos — beliefs, perceptions, without sufficient use of logos or ethos — reason and credibility

• Once credibility is lost with stakeholders, it’s difficult to restore!

• Be conscious of your body language

• Balanced persuasion is undermined if your body language — in person, on Zoom — isn’t in sync.

Klarna’s use of AI Agents for customer service.

Klarna is a fully regulated bank with 4,000 employees operating in 20+ countries, processing $100 billion in transactions, for 100 million consumers and half a million merchants - offering buy now, pay later services. 

In this podcast from Training Data their CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski discusses Klarna’s business and how they replaced 700 customer service reps, saving $40 million and reducing resolution time to 2 minutes (from 14 minutes).

50 minute video. Watch for implementation insights, a vision of how Generative AI will be used for productivity gains. 

Bringing Back the Joy of Software Development.

One more generative AI related story for you. 

Introducing Knovva a Generative AI platform designed to free developer time by automating "routine, soul sucking tasks". 

The news stack article details the amount of time developers spend on routine tasks (40 - 90%), and how Generative AI can help. 

A developer specific tool makes sense. For analysts, routine tasks are often documentation based:

• user story creation / edits

• updating Confluence

• setting up meetings

One app to rule them all, won’t work!

Several different Generative AI apps allowing us to learn from past projects, create / edit user stories in minutes, will help us reduce time for our own routine tasks. 

More on Provoke the company behind Knovva and their services. 

The CI/CD Pipeline, Explained.

Informative 3 minute video from Eye on Tech defining the CI/CD pipeline. Includes definitions, usage in software development, its reliance on automated processes and tool integration . 

Tech Target CI/CD Pipelines 

When Governments Shut Down the Internet. 

A report by Access Now stated that 2023 was the worst year for internet shutdowns. 

In their article When Governments Shut Down the Internet, Technopedia summarise 2024 shutdowns and why it’s not always due to politics. 

When Governments Shut Down the Internet

Access Now Internet Shutdown Searches

Cloudflare Outage Center