What is the most important characteristic in an e-shop's web page?

When you visit an e-shop's website, what is the most important characteristic(ex.: customer reviews, wizard tool, security, many payment methods, etc.), according to you? What is the one thing that will make you trust and buy, or come back to that specific e-shop, or what you are searching for?

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Great question! You would be surprised how many outfits set-out without considering this topic first so you're already at the head of the pack!

Here's my two cents worth:

Walk a mile in your customer's shoes... create a few persona's that model your typical target audience... bring them to life (like soap opera characters) and role play their experience when using your site. Better yet use these personas to look at your competitors sites. The objective being to uncover deeper insights into the design features that are most likely to win your target audience. The next and arguably most important step is to implement your e-shop with the intention of changing it in response to customer feedback. Get your site into a low-burn experimental state... as you discover what really works invest those parts.

Your e-shop should evolve really quickly and effectively this way.

oh and one other thing... as your question suggested that you want to differentiate I would suggest you use the persona's to try out new features or user experiences... This way you can home in on the differentiations that really work!

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The many modes of a Business Analyst

These days, business analysts are plying their trade in increasingly diverse settings and are being pushed more than ever to add value at strategic levels.

Good analysts are showing their mettle by adopting a range of operating modes. Here's a list of the operating modes I've applied myself and observed in others:

1) Orientation Mode

This is where the analyst (or analytical team) gets familiar with the domain and the stakeholders. We expect to see a great deal of relationship building here paying particular attention to the 'agenda setters' within that domain.

What it looks like:

• Relationship building.
  
• Coffee meetings.
• Taking a passive role in meetings.
• Conversations over the drinks cooler.
• Conversations with the movers (and the shakers).
  

2) Description Mode

An analyst in description mode is focused on describing the current state and the end game and ensuring this is communicated to everyone involved. This is where the vision is captured from the leaders and communicated in as many ways as possible. The aim being to prompt discussion at the tactical/operational level and help the implementers understand how the vision is different from the status quo.

What it looks like:

• Taking an active role in meetings.
• Relationship building.
  
• Generating descriptions (proposals, business cases, high level conceptual states, GAP Analysis).
• Presentations & workshops aimed at understanding.
  

3) Analysis Mode

This mode comes into effect when the analyst has a substantial amount of data to digest. This may be information captured from users, stakeholders, subject matter expects or even simply from themselves which needs to be analyzed and developed to address key questions.

What it looks like:

• Taking a more active role during meetings.
• Analytical Modeling, requirements analysis, gap analysis, impact analysis
  
• Cogitating, thinking, mulling over...
• Discussing with other analytical peers
• Researching analytical methods
• Testing of theories
• Recreational activities (e.g. playing online games or lots of breaks)

4) Prescription Mode

Here the analyst has developed a strong sense of direction and needs to communicate this to the implementers (whether that be directly to the developers or the people who manage them).

What it looks like:

• Thought Leadership
• Setting the agenda
  
• Influencing
• Providing constant reminding of the destination
  
• Monitoring progress
• Isolating and correcting misalignment

5) Prediction Mode

This mode is underpinned by a significant application of analytical skill-set, estimation. Here the analyst aims to predict the outcome of various conceptual (or committed) paths. It is important to note that the quality of this activity plays a major part in supporting good quality decisions. Often projects live or die by the quality of estimation at the outset.

What it looks like:

• Estimation workshops
• Wideband delphi
• Creating estimation models
  
• Trend analysis
• Data analysis
• Impact analysis
  
• Workshops
  

6) Validation Mode

In this mode the analyst aims to independently compare actual outcomes with the outcomes envisaged to validate progress or delivery. This mode also aims to test the usefulness of what's been delivered as perceived by the user or customer.

What it looks like:

• Test strategy formulation
• Test design
• Testing
• Quality Assurance activities
  
• User Acceptance Testing
  
• User Calibration Testing
  

Plan to succeed on projects (Part 2)

Now that you've planned the flight... Fly the plan.

If you've taken the advice given in Part 1 you should be set up to drive your projects by result rather than activity... you'll find your team responds best to this approach...

I posed a question on LinkedIn recently to see what advice the professionals would give a budding PM:

"What are the top 5 tips you would give a PM to improve their luck on projects?"

I chose a couple of these answers as they sum up the basic principles of flying the plan nicely:

Here's the answer offered by Gianluca Bacca:

1) Define the scope of you project as clear and as soon as possible and formalize it … a project doesn’t exists without a Project Charter and a WBS!

2) Be realistic and pragmatic, don’t forget that generally available resources are limited … a request or change coming from a stakeholder, generally, involves a trade-off between different elements of the “triple constraint” (time, cost & quality) … think always in terms of trade off between the elements of the “triple constraint”.

3) Manage ALL your stakeholders with care being proactive: to do this you need to identify ALL of them and constantly communicate with ALL of them

4) Identify all risk of your project and constantly looking for their evolution along the entire lifecycle of your project … don’t forget risk! In Project Management luck and bad luck doesn’t exist (more or less) … there are mainly identified and unidentified risks! Identifying risks you can build your luck by yourself ;)

5) Don’t forget to collect lessons learned after each project … you cannot improve your ability to manage your future projects without lessons learned from your past projects ;)


This is my favourite answer from an old colleague, Gunveer Mahandru:

1. Show leadership (strong vision, direction. take risks, manage them)
2. Develop a backbone (back up what you say, don't wilt and wimp)
3. Work the team dynamic (manage the form/storm/norm/perform phases)
4. Engage stakeholders and keep buy-in (politics with a small 'p')
5. Inject entrepreneurship (excite, motivate, innovate)

Short, sharp and very effective...

Here are a few more useful little project tips:

Derive a burndown chart and use it to generate momentum and track progress.
- use Mike Cohn's estimation technique, planning poker.
- derive the ordered stack and begin plotting this over the time line.
- You may want to include checkpoints (or iterations) in the plan. (Step towards Agile)
- use these checkpoints as opportunities to deliver value (no matter how small) and plot your position on the burndown chart.
- Remove products from the stack when considered 'done'.
- 'Done' = when someone other than the developer (preferably the recipient) says it is... i.e. it meets the predetermined acceptance criteria.

In fact, I'd heartily recommend you watch Mike's YouTube clips on Agile Estimation: Part 1 and Part 2

A short note on lightweight reporting:
Agree a '5 minute emergency channel' with the sponsor... As you become aware of an issue which significantly affects the project, present what you know to the sponsor (no interpretation) along with a few proposed next steps. Aim to present and get a decision within 5 minutes... Even if the next step is to have a longer meeting. This way you keep your sponsor in touch.

Good luck!!