Today we meet Chad Crider, a recent participant in The Business Analyst Blueprint® training program and an Applications Analyst from CNG Inc in Ohio. With over 20 years of experience on a different career path, Chad found himself entering into a role that needed a proven, repeatable process framework.
What we love about Chad’s story is how, through The Business Analyst Blueprint® training program, he was able to identify skillsets developed in his previous career that were business analyst skills, but lacked the framework to make the skills transferable. The training program provided Chad with a repeatable process framework with quality deliverable outputs that have allowed him to streamline his work and focus on the most valuable deliverables.
In this interview, you’ll discover how:
- The skills Chad learned through his 20 years of experience as a Director of eCommerce were easily transferable to a skillset in business analysis.
- The Business Analyst Blueprint® training program provided Chad with a repeatable framework for projects, as well as, how he has seen that same framework work for colleagues across a variety of industries through the training program’s Office Hours.
- Chad juggled a busy work schedule and home life with the training program course material. He provides tangible examples for how to integrate the course work into career work and how blocking his time proved to be the most effective strategy for prioritizing the course deliverables.
Laura Brandenburg: Hello and welcome. I’m Laura Brandenburg from Bridging the Gap here today with Chad Crider, and I’m so excited. Chad was one of the first participants in the updated version of The Business Analyst Blueprint® training program, where I’ve been back in a teaching and instructor capacity and got to work with him directly on his business analysis skills and doing all kinds of great things in his career.
So Chad, welcome. I’m so glad you’re here. Thank you for joining us.
Chad Crider: Thank you for having me. I’m excited.
Laura Brandenburg: So first, if you could just take us back to a little over six months ago when you started the program. Where were you at in your career? What were your goals? What were some of the things that you were worried about professionally? What was going through your head at that time?
Chad Crider: So to go back six months, we should probably quickly go back three years. Up until three years ago this month, I was a director of e-commerce for a local company, and I was miserable. I mean, part of that was the pandemic. And, everything that came along with that and working just insane 80, 90 hour weeks.
And it got to a point where I needed to make a change for my own mental health. And so this opportunity as an application administrator came open, and I thought, you know what? I know a couple of people there. Let’s see what this is. And, started and I really enjoy what I do.
I love working, kind of part support, part BA, part app development. It’s a really unique kind of position that I get to occupy in the business. And, as we started talking through, I have 20 years of experience before I came here in a different career path.
And I told Nik, who was also in your class, I feel like I have a lot of skills, but I don’t have a lot of framework for them. And he said, well, this Bridging the Gap course is going to be changing how we do things. And we’re looking at running a couple of people through it, would you be interested?
And so we talked through it and he showed me the stuff that he worked on when he went through the class. And I talked with my wife about it and I said, you know what? I think this is like the next step to kind of figure out if I want to do more BA work?
Do I want to continue with the idea of getting into data? So that’s how I ended up, in Bridging the Gap, trying to take all the skills that you learn over a lifetime in a career and provide a framework for how you do things. I’d never thought about anything I had done as an e-commerce director through the lens of BA work, but it’s a lot of BA work. So that that was the motivation.
Laura Brandenburg: I love that how you talked about that because so many people feel like they don’t really have a career, like they’ve been doing these different roles and filling different gaps, and often they have a ton of business analysis experience that they don’t appreciate or realize is even valid.
It sounds like that was part of the awareness that you had going as part of joining, but also going through the program. What did that look like to realize like, oh, I’ve actually been doing this for 20 years.
Chad Crider: Yeah, there were a couple of moments, [when I realized] that this course is helping me in multiple ways. It’s helping me because, when Nik or one of our other BAs that I work with a lot starts talking now, I know some of the reasons why they ask the questions they do, the way they do the framing.
Personally, I felt a little lost when I first started this career because it felt like such a divorce of everything that I had done before. And now going through The Bridging the Gap [training course], I’m able to look at it and I’m able to say, you know what? I’m not doing it the same way anymore, but it’s the same processes that I was following – being mindful of scope and all these little things that you just learned to pay attention to. But you just didn’t have that that framework that ties it all together to make it repeatable every time.
Quick aside – here’s the business analysis process framework Chad is talking about – you learn it in module 4 – The BA Essentials Master Class.
Laura Brandenburg: So you kind of feel like you’re making it up as you go along, even though you really are applying principles that make sense.
Chad Crider: Right.
Laura Brandenburg: One of the things that you said when you registered for this was that you used the same project all the way through. Can you share a little bit more about that project and what your takeaways were?
Chad Crider: I work for a manufacturing company. One of the parts of our manufacturing process, we create film plastic that food is stored, wrapped, and frozen in. We’re adding to that business and we’re looking for a new certification in that.
We had these traceability exercises that we had to be able to successfully prove that we can do this. We have that for a lot of our other processes, but for this new process, now that we’re going for the certification for these specific things, it can’t just be, well, we kind of do that. Now we need it to be documented. Now we need to be able to see if there were a recall or something, we have we have a finite amount of time that we have to start that. So they said, we would like you to spearhead getting this traceability going for us.
That that started right after Halloween, so early November. And then I started Bridging the Gap, right after Thanksgiving. So, there was there was a little bit of run up to it here on campus for me. But then it was basically, as I’m going through these lessons, I tried to purposely steer myself this way. I was able to look at the modules, see what we have, see what I can learn quickly to start digesting.
And then there’s the deliverables as part of doing the coursework. My deliverables are what I’m providing and building to give to my colleagues here on campus. It was it was fantastic. And yesterday was our final meeting on that [project].
We’ve got everything going. Traceability is working the way we expected. And now we’re just doing some reporting stuff, nothing major, but just stuff that now we’re in that wrap up hyper care phase.
Laura Brandenburg: Well congratulations. That sounds like a great project. One of the things I loved about having you and your colleague in the program is that manufacturing is not an industry that I’m exposed to. And just hearing about the kinds of projects in manufacturing and how that really applies. We always have so many different industries as part of the program, but the types of projects and how they show up.
So congratulations. And I thought it was a really cool project and also a really value-add for your company too.
Chad Crider: There was a satisfaction within me to want to know I’m the one who’s doing this, but I’m also able to do it in such a way that I’m also learning and kind of nurturing my own inner curiosity as we go along.
Laura Brandenburg: What do you think is the biggest difference between how you approach this project and maybe how you would have if you hadn’t been going through the program side by side?
Chad Crider: I am very much, kind of like a ping pong ball. I know this about myself – ADHD, whatever you want to call it. I latch onto something and I go with it, and then something else catches my attention. So I would have kind of bounced from requirement to requirement from this piece to that piece.
And I would have been trying to apply processes to it, but in very, very small bite size increments, probably right up until someone like Nik was like, “Hey man, we need some deliverables!” And then I would have freaked out and I would have spent a weekend getting deliverables ready.
As opposed to, with a course like this, talking through the steps. When we were all done, and because I did module four (The BA Essentials Master Class) last, I went back and I said, “Okay, I’m going to do this module. And then I’m going to make sure because we’re getting ready to wrap this all up. Is everything here? Is everything good?” And just being able to do that and make sure that I’m keeping myself on task and build a document that I can use as my template. This is how I’m going to start now.
It feels like a completely different way to try and do my job.
Laura Brandenburg: Is it something you’re continuing to apply in other projects?
Chad Crider: Absolutely, yeah. One project that went really smooth is great. But being able to say okay, now I proved that not only does the process work, but it’s a process that I can follow and I can do this. So now it’s like, okay, we’re just going to keep doing this. The same kind of format, the same kind of thing.
And sure, you’ll have to change things based on the project. Nothing is ever going to be perfect. But it is a wide enough range template. You know that you can make it fit almost anything, I think.
Laura Brandenburg: That’s awesome to hear. One of the things I really appreciated about having you in the program is you were on just about every office hours call. You asked questions in the forums, but you were definitely really engaged in the office hours calls. What was that like from your perspective? What did you take away, both from your questions, but also other people with questions – what was that like for you?
Chad Crider: So I the thing I love the most about the office hours was this was time not just with you one on one, having a conversation. This was also time with other people doing BA work who I would never run into these people in a normal day-to-day situation. There are different industries, different parts of the world. It was motivating to go to the office hours knowing that, for example, Anna was part of this program at the same time, and she’s doing something completely different from what I’m doing. But we’re using the same concepts to do our jobs.
It was fascinating to listen to how she approached it. And then, you asked questions the same way to both of us. It was very interesting to see how the question doesn’t have to change, even though the answer is going to change based on a perspective or career or industry or whatever.
I did a presentation on the Bridging the Gap course here at work. I found on LinkedIn, or maybe it was on Google, you have a slide out there somewhere that says, business analysis is a skillset, not a job title or something like that. Looking at your office hours and seeing how everything worked really drove that point home where we’re developing a skill set, not a job title.
And if you develop a skill set, that skill set is going to be transferable.
Laura Brandenburg: I love hearing that because the people we get in the program are so varied. Like you said, we have people from different countries, in different parts of the US, different industries. I’m always nervous, like, oh, is this industry going to be the one that my questions aren’t going to work? But you can always find some way of how to apply these foundational business analysis skills set to work within that organization to do something better.
Chad Crider: Absolutely. And it was really interesting the way myself and my colleague that took the course with me. We’re working on very different perspectives of the business right now and we had a weekly call amongst us with Nik, just to talk about everything. And it was very satisfying to see the office hours and the calls that we had here on campus and talking with Nik and it just seeing that as long as you’re approaching this as “these are skills, this is something that there is going to fundamentally change how we approach things.” Industry seems to be set dressing.
Laura Brandenburg: So last question for you and then you’re welcome to share anything else you’d like as well. But I know you have some exciting career goals, so where do you see yourself headed now that you’re obviously excelling in this role that you’re in?
Chad Crider: My goal is to end up as a data engineer here. I think one of the most important parts, especially with how our business is set up – we are multi-site, multi-state, different time zones. We’re not multinational yet. But we need to have good, solid practices to make sure that myself, working in Ohio, when I’m working with someone in Chicago or South Carolina or Massachusetts or Wisconsin, we approach it the same way every time.
We can use this to drive culture within our IT department so that we know as we start to build out our data sets and we start to engage with people around the business that we’re being mindful of what they need in the same way that we would be mindful if we’re turning on new software or if we’re putting up some new part of the network for a new building or something like that. We need to make sure that we’re treating our data and the consumers of our data in the same manner.
That’s really kind of the part that I’m hoping to kind of get in and drive. We’re going to start a big push to make our decisions better informed with better data.
It’s slowly heading that way. I’ve been brought in on the data warehouse team to start working through some of these data sets. I’m working with logistics right now on bringing on a new outside warehouse. It’s third-party warehouse. It’s like 300,000 sqft. And working with a project manager, working with myself as kind of the BA role on it – working with everybody else to meet an aggressive deadline by the business. It’s very exciting.
Laura Brandenburg: It sounds like you’re already taking steps for that, which is also how I always advise people to get into business analysis. Just take some projects that kind of get you in that direction, so you’re taking a step forward.
Chad Crider: Take a step, grab a hold of it. Take the opportunity. It’s probably going to be scary. I’m not going to lie. You know, I’ve never done anything to turn on a 300,000 square foot warehouse, you know? But now I’m going to and it’s kind of nerve wracking at times. But, I know that I’ve got BA resources here on campus. I’ve got a couple of connections made through the [BTG] community. I’m excited to reach out to people and say, “Hey, this is kind of what I’m doing. what do you think?”
Laura Brandenburg: Very exciting. Thank you so much for sharing the story about your experience in the program. Is there anything else that you would like to leave people who are listening that might be looking to follow in your footsteps?
Chad Crider: Yes. This is what I told people when I did the presentation to our IT team. I am in my 40s. I have a life. I have a wife, I have kids, I have a kid in college right now. I have a job. I have all these things. I am a very busy guy. I still found time every week to work on this process, to work on this program, to make an investment in me for my career.
If I can do it, anybody can do it. You just have to budget your time. Now, I will say, if you’re if your employer is super awesome and you’re able to work on this for your employer, there is there are easy ways to say this can benefit us as I’m taking the course. So don’t be afraid to try that angle if you need to.
Laura Brandenburg: I think, prioritizing the time investment is so important. And so key. And you mentioned the ping pong effect that you have. So can you just share a little bit like what was your actual strategy for making the time. Because that’s a big challenge for a lot of people.
Chad Crider: So I knew we had the office hours with you once a month. Amber and I, my colleague that also went through this [program], we had set up a call every Thursday morning. We were going to get together and talk about what we had worked on the week before, and we made sure we put that on our outlook calendar.
We blocked out that time. And we said, this is not just help for us. This is holding ourselves accountable. It was only a 30-minute call, just to talk through things. But then we would then know, Thursday I’m going to meet with Amber or she’s going to meet with Chad to talk about what we did.
So it was one of those things like, I have a deadline that I’ve given myself. Now I’m going to start to look, where can I fit this in? And I’ll be honest, the lesson part was the easiest part, because, you know, all the lessons are 30 to 45 [minutes], maybe an hour long.
So that was that was great – turn them on, go through the PDF while you’re talking on the video, taking notes. Then the deliverables, I thought that was going to be the easiest part, because I’ll just take my laptop home and do it. Because I did it for a lot of stuff at work I needed to have access to the work resources. So convinced my boss that this two hour block a week, we’re just going to block that out. And that’s what I’m going to work on my requirements deliverables. And they were very excited for the opportunity to get that time because that’s two hours that I am blocked out. I am just working on this project. They didn’t look at it as well. That’s two hours. Chad’s going to school. No, no, that’s two hours. Chad’s working on this project. And it helped immensely.
Laura Brandenburg: I think that’s such a great takeaway – a big project needs focused attention. That’s a strategy whether you’re taking a course or not, to have focused time to work on your deliverables or the analytical thinking or just whatever you need to move that project forward, it’s just so essential. That’s a great practice. Thank you for sharing that.
Chad Crider: Paper – most of the time is just doodle stuff. But I started keeping a stack of paper here just so I could, like, jot down notes or something. So doodles lead into notes, which lead into deep questions to think about later. It’s great. I will never not have paper right here when I’m going through some sort of project planning.
Laura Brandenburg: I’m a big fan of handwritten paper. I’ve got my weekly to-do lists right here.
Thank you so much Chad. I am looking forward to reconnecting in a while to see how does this all this unfold. Because you’re on a really great career path and I really appreciate you taking the time to do this today.
Chad Crider: It’s been a blast. Thank you very much.
Laura Brandenburg: You’re welcome. Thanks so much.
