October 14, 2025 • 15 mins
Every great strategy needs someone to turn it into action — and that’s where Business Analysts shine.
In this episode, Benjamen Walsh explores how BAs can bridge the gap between strategic intent and delivery execution. Learn the deliverables, tools, and thinking frameworks that make you the “missing middle” every organisation needs.
Listen now on The Better Business Analyst Podcast.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We've all been there, haven't we?
The exact teams in a room talking about strategy, growth,
transformation, customer experience, while the delivery
teams downstairs talking about Sprint goals, user stories and
Jira ticket. Somewhere in the middle there's
a big gap, and that gap is wheremost projects go wrong.
(00:24):
See, Strategy explains Why are we doing something, and delivery
explains how we're doing it. But unless someone collects
those dots, the vision really makes it all the way through to
the final product. That's where business analysis
comes in. In this episode, we're diving
into what I call the missing middle, the space between
(00:47):
strategy and delivery, and how we as B as can bridge that gap
using the right mindset, deliverables and tools.
The Better Business Analysis Institute presence, the Better
Business Analysis podcast with Kinsman Walsh.
(01:09):
Welcome back everyone. That's right, we're talking
about the missing middle today, bridging strategy and delivery.
And I'm going to talk to the BASout there, of course, who
listen. But this is really important for
any business leader to understand or anyone in the
business. Let's jump into Part 1, why the
(01:30):
gap exists. Let's start with the reality.
In most organizations, there's aclear line between strategic
planning and project delivery. They're usually different
towers. They're sometimes in different
buildings. Leaders are focused on the big
picture, market share, innovation, revenue, customer
(01:51):
growth. And this was my word when I was
a general manager for a consultancy company.
That's the kind of conversationswe would have.
Meanwhile, delivery teams, no matter how mature, are deep in
the trenches. They're either building, you
know, planning, testing and shipping features, even though
(02:14):
they don't like that term, they're delivering value to
customers or they think they're delivering value to customers.
And the problem is they often don't speak the same language or
even hang around with the same type of people.
Executives talk about transforming customer experience
and developers here building a new app.
(02:36):
And somewhere between those two interpretations, the intent gets
lost. And so when ABA is dropped into
a project that's already started, which let's face it,
happens a lot, it's like being asked to translate 1/2 sentence
in some ways. Our job as BAS is to complete
(03:00):
that sentence to connect why we're doing something to how
it's actually going to get delivered.
So looking at Part 2, the BA here is the translator.
Someone needs to do this. This could be a product manager.
Think of yourself as a bridge between 2 worlds.
(03:21):
On one side you've got the strategy, the vision, the goals,
the business drivers, all that great stuff, which is what I
talk about often, that you need to be a business strategist to
be a better BA. And on the other side of the
bridge, you've got delivery, thebacklogs, the sprints, the
deadlines, the best practice, the, the development cycles has
become quite mature with, you know, Agile Plus your value as
(03:45):
ABA is being able to move fluidly between the two.
You interpret business intent and you translate it into
delivery reality. And this is where the Better
Business analysis framework comes into play.
So we talk about and we train for enterprise and strategic
(04:07):
analysis all the way through to release an operational
improvement. And it's not about 1 document.
It's about thinking about all the things that connect them all
from beginning to end. And it's quite rare to do that.
And ABA who can connect those dots is invaluable.
The key deliveries that make that bridge up, right?
(04:30):
I'm going to talk about them. I'm going to give away all our
secrets today is a problem state.
That's that's the tool. It clarifies what you're
solving, why it matters, The business case, which explains
the expected benefits and how they're measured.
The Lean or Business model canvas, which visualize how
value is created, delivered, andcaptured, which is a great tool
(04:51):
to manage up with smart objectives.
Turning the ambition or the ambition statements I've seen
recently or outcomes into measurable, achievable targets.
Then you use the context diagram.
You define the boundaries and show what interacts with what,
and each one of these pranks is your bridge.
(05:13):
And if you get those right up front, this is, I've not
mentioned processes, I've not mentioned requirements once
here. This is important.
Those elements, if you get them right, the strategy flows
naturally into delivery at the right points.
And so a lot of Vas don't play in those spaces or don't use
(05:33):
those tools, but they're important.
So we move to Part 3, the tools that help you bridge the gap.
I want to go into a little bit more detail about some of those
tools and some others about how you might wrap some of your
traditional deliverables into a greater set of tools.
(05:58):
The practical side, the tools and techniques that make this
real are, like I said, the Lean Canvas and Business model
Canvas. And I have a whole podcast
episode on that. But they are brilliant for
connecting the big picture to project scope.
That's specifically what they'regood at.
And they are if you want to be astrategic BA or have those
(06:18):
conversations, this is a technique that execs can get
behind. They will help you articulate,
you know, help you facilitate that articulation.
You will articulate the problem,the value proposition, the
customer segments and one visualand management teams love this.
I often use this when kicking off new initiative if I can, if
(06:38):
I've been hired before, it starts very rarely.
But if there are stakeholders who are struggling to align on
what success looks like, this isa great technique.
But I think it's just really good if you work with your
strategist and say, let's let's just do this every time.
And some companies have developed, you know, business
cases on a page. These are quite, this is a
little bit different. It's not around the
(06:58):
justification, not around the cost benefit per SE.
You as ABA, you know about process modelling, that's what
makes you ABA. You know, BP men, maybe you
know, swim lines or service blueprints or whatever flavour
it comes in. This is so important.
And I, I, I, I was asked actually the other day, what
makes a Baba and I said ABA makes the two elements that the
(07:22):
minimum of ABA are managing requirements and doing process
diagrams and, or process modelling and understanding
that. And you know, they're very
practical, boring things, But you know, if you don't have
those things, you don't really need ABA per SE.
We were talking about product owners and product managers.
So, but in the process modellingspace, once you know why and
(07:43):
what process models can help throw out the kind of low level,
what steps. And sometimes you can define
that as a how you can be, you can do about semantics there,
but it's it's, it's the what andwhat in the system.
So depending on how low you go. So they're like your
storytelling tools from top to bottom.
(08:03):
And again, there's lots of episodes on this when you
visualize the current and futurestate.
We talk about as BAS all the time, but they make invisible
processes and, and steps and people visible and help give a
shared language. And it's also a very good
technique. It's still one step below what
I'd say an executive level wouldbe interested in.
(08:24):
And that's why you need to use all these different logs to get
across the bridge. And one that's completely
underrated in my mind is the requirements traceability.
Matrix traceability isn't about compliance, It's about clarity,
whether these things come from, and it ensures that every
requirement ties back to business objectives.
(08:47):
In other words, you can literally draw a line from the
CEO strategy, right? The slide that I've just told
the whole organization to a developer's user story, and
that's powerful. And what people do is they
outsource or they just jump to user stories and they don't have
their requirements matrix beforehand.
You should not jump there. You need to do your matrix when
(09:08):
you're doing your high level requirements and your mapping.
And yes, as I talked about last week, Jira has some of these
tools, which means we don't haveto necessarily use an Excel
spreadsheet this week or next week.
But at the moment, I still don'tsee a valid replacement for a
strong requirements traceabilitymatrix.
And to be honest, they can do not capability matrixes after
the fact because all those requirements are required not
(09:30):
just in the project, they're required post project, but
that's a whole other chapter. And story mapping, I don't see
it enough. Story mapping bridges users,
customer experience or user experience depending on its
internal or external and delivery priorities, right?
It helps you see the full journey, not isolated stories.
It helps you make sure that the most valuable slices get built
(09:54):
1st. And that's what Agile's all
about. Agile for me, cannot exist
without your story map. And finally, your requirements
pack for me, that is the bridge.It has all those things in it we
talked about and it's your bridge document.
It connects strategic goals, process models and solution
design or at least out to solution design and it
(10:15):
complement by a solution architecture diagram document,
sorry. And it completes the story from
problem statement to process to product.
And it's a really great way of doing it.
And when I say putting it all ina pack, I don't mean 100 pages.
I mean PowerPoint presentation linking out.
And we, we, we give you that when you work with us Part 4.
(10:38):
These are the deliverables that show strategic alignment, OK?
If your deliverables don't connect to strategy, they're
just documents. If they do, they become evidence
of value. OK.
So we'll list these out. Number one is the strategic
level. The deliverable is the business
(10:59):
case. And it defines why this matters
in the tactical level, the process model, it defines what
is changing. You have the operational model,
which is the the level and the deliverable is your requirements
pack. It defines how we will deliver
OK and what areas we're going todeliver in.
(11:22):
And the control is the traceability matrix.
It proves we're delivering the right thing.
Every one of these ties the Y ofthe strategy to the wall and the
hell of delivery. Now before you get all excited
and copy would have just said here are some pitfalls part 5
(11:43):
and these are the common pitfalls and how to avoid them.
Number one is jumping to solutions too fast.
We we all the time and this is something you manage up, manage
sideways, manage yourself about this.
The minute someone says we need a new system, pause and ask why
The best BA stays in the problemspace longer than anyone else.
(12:03):
OK, can't stay there forever. You can't be a naysayer.
But you stay there longer than anyone else #2 deliverables with
no business. Like it's easy to create
beautiful documents that no one reads.
Always test your outputs. Do they trace back to strategy?
You know this. The testers might care, but if
(12:23):
they don't link to strategy, then the project manager might
not think they're necessary #3 is assuming alignment means
understanding. Just because stakeholders not,
doesn't mean they really agree. Use your models, your maps, your
visuals to show alignment, not just assume it.
(12:44):
So OK, make sure they understandthat you need to do what I
always refer to as the Wiggles model, which is the red and the
green, the higher you go up the chain.
And then you need to provide a little bit more detail about the
wheels on the bus. It's, it is, it's not minimizing
or joking or dumbing down for the sake of a dumb audience.
It is simply the amount of information that people at
(13:06):
different cases of the organization have to process,
right? The one is, you know, usually
you're working on one thing thatyou do, you've got lots of
information about it at the bottom, at the top, they're
usually looking at a number of things, but they can't process a
whole of variables about 1 area.And and again, SLTS struggle
when they find themselves micromanaging and #4 is failing
(13:30):
to validate benefits. We're not just analysts, we are
value Stuarts and value engineering is probably a good
name for our future career. Make sure benefits are
measurable and linked to the work being delivered.
And sometimes I vomit when I hear about benefits realization
because the benefits were made-up in the 1st place or or
(13:50):
whatever. But just meeting those
objectives is a good start. And finally, number six, the
future BAA strategic operator. This is where the profession is
heading. Gone are the days where BAS just
wrote requirements. Today, the best BAS, the better.
BAS operate like strategic system thinkers.
(14:12):
We navigate both strategy and delivery.
We use tools like AI, data visualization, design thinking
to ensure every project contributes to real business
value. We value engineer, and that's
the sweet spot. That's the missing middle.
You're not there to pass messages between strategy and
delivery. You're there to connect purpose,
(14:34):
to progress. So next time you find yourself
caught between the executive team and the developers, don't
get frustrated. Get strategic.
The gap you're standing in, that's the place where real
value is created or captured. You are the translator of
strategy, the connector of context, and the guardian of
(14:54):
value. That's the heart of modern
business analysis, and that's what will make you a better BA.
Thanks for tuning in and I'll see you next week.
We've all been there, haven't we?
The exact teams in a room talking about strategy, growth,
transformation, customer experience, while the delivery
teams downstairs talking about Sprint goals, user stories and
Jira ticket. Somewhere in the middle there's
a big gap, and that gap is wheremost projects go wrong.
(00:24):
See, Strategy explains Why are we doing something, and delivery
explains how we're doing it. But unless someone collects
those dots, the vision really makes it all the way through to
the final product. That's where business analysis
comes in. In this episode, we're diving
into what I call the missing middle, the space between
(00:47):
strategy and delivery, and how we as B as can bridge that gap
using the right mindset, deliverables and tools.
The Better Business Analysis Institute presence, the Better
Business Analysis podcast with Kinsman Walsh.
(01:09):
Welcome back everyone. That's right, we're talking
about the missing middle today, bridging strategy and delivery.
And I'm going to talk to the BASout there, of course, who
listen. But this is really important for
any business leader to understand or anyone in the
business. Let's jump into Part 1, why the
(01:30):
gap exists. Let's start with the reality.
In most organizations, there's aclear line between strategic
planning and project delivery. They're usually different
towers. They're sometimes in different
buildings. Leaders are focused on the big
picture, market share, innovation, revenue, customer
(01:51):
growth. And this was my word when I was
a general manager for a consultancy company.
That's the kind of conversationswe would have.
Meanwhile, delivery teams, no matter how mature, are deep in
the trenches. They're either building, you
know, planning, testing and shipping features, even though
(02:14):
they don't like that term, they're delivering value to
customers or they think they're delivering value to customers.
And the problem is they often don't speak the same language or
even hang around with the same type of people.
Executives talk about transforming customer experience
and developers here building a new app.
(02:36):
And somewhere between those two interpretations, the intent gets
lost. And so when ABA is dropped into
a project that's already started, which let's face it,
happens a lot, it's like being asked to translate 1/2 sentence
in some ways. Our job as BAS is to complete
(03:00):
that sentence to connect why we're doing something to how
it's actually going to get delivered.
So looking at Part 2, the BA here is the translator.
Someone needs to do this. This could be a product manager.
Think of yourself as a bridge between 2 worlds.
(03:21):
On one side you've got the strategy, the vision, the goals,
the business drivers, all that great stuff, which is what I
talk about often, that you need to be a business strategist to
be a better BA. And on the other side of the
bridge, you've got delivery, thebacklogs, the sprints, the
deadlines, the best practice, the, the development cycles has
become quite mature with, you know, Agile Plus your value as
(03:45):
ABA is being able to move fluidly between the two.
You interpret business intent and you translate it into
delivery reality. And this is where the Better
Business analysis framework comes into play.
So we talk about and we train for enterprise and strategic
(04:07):
analysis all the way through to release an operational
improvement. And it's not about 1 document.
It's about thinking about all the things that connect them all
from beginning to end. And it's quite rare to do that.
And ABA who can connect those dots is invaluable.
The key deliveries that make that bridge up, right?
(04:30):
I'm going to talk about them. I'm going to give away all our
secrets today is a problem state.
That's that's the tool. It clarifies what you're
solving, why it matters, The business case, which explains
the expected benefits and how they're measured.
The Lean or Business model canvas, which visualize how
value is created, delivered, andcaptured, which is a great tool
(04:51):
to manage up with smart objectives.
Turning the ambition or the ambition statements I've seen
recently or outcomes into measurable, achievable targets.
Then you use the context diagram.
You define the boundaries and show what interacts with what,
and each one of these pranks is your bridge.
(05:13):
And if you get those right up front, this is, I've not
mentioned processes, I've not mentioned requirements once
here. This is important.
Those elements, if you get them right, the strategy flows
naturally into delivery at the right points.
And so a lot of Vas don't play in those spaces or don't use
(05:33):
those tools, but they're important.
So we move to Part 3, the tools that help you bridge the gap.
I want to go into a little bit more detail about some of those
tools and some others about how you might wrap some of your
traditional deliverables into a greater set of tools.
(05:58):
The practical side, the tools and techniques that make this
real are, like I said, the Lean Canvas and Business model
Canvas. And I have a whole podcast
episode on that. But they are brilliant for
connecting the big picture to project scope.
That's specifically what they'regood at.
And they are if you want to be astrategic BA or have those
(06:18):
conversations, this is a technique that execs can get
behind. They will help you articulate,
you know, help you facilitate that articulation.
You will articulate the problem,the value proposition, the
customer segments and one visualand management teams love this.
I often use this when kicking off new initiative if I can, if
(06:38):
I've been hired before, it starts very rarely.
But if there are stakeholders who are struggling to align on
what success looks like, this isa great technique.
But I think it's just really good if you work with your
strategist and say, let's let's just do this every time.
And some companies have developed, you know, business
cases on a page. These are quite, this is a
little bit different. It's not around the
(06:58):
justification, not around the cost benefit per SE.
You as ABA, you know about process modelling, that's what
makes you ABA. You know, BP men, maybe you
know, swim lines or service blueprints or whatever flavour
it comes in. This is so important.
And I, I, I, I was asked actually the other day, what
makes a Baba and I said ABA makes the two elements that the
(07:22):
minimum of ABA are managing requirements and doing process
diagrams and, or process modelling and understanding
that. And you know, they're very
practical, boring things, But you know, if you don't have
those things, you don't really need ABA per SE.
We were talking about product owners and product managers.
So, but in the process modellingspace, once you know why and
(07:43):
what process models can help throw out the kind of low level,
what steps. And sometimes you can define
that as a how you can be, you can do about semantics there,
but it's it's, it's the what andwhat in the system.
So depending on how low you go. So they're like your
storytelling tools from top to bottom.
(08:03):
And again, there's lots of episodes on this when you
visualize the current and futurestate.
We talk about as BAS all the time, but they make invisible
processes and, and steps and people visible and help give a
shared language. And it's also a very good
technique. It's still one step below what
I'd say an executive level wouldbe interested in.
(08:24):
And that's why you need to use all these different logs to get
across the bridge. And one that's completely
underrated in my mind is the requirements traceability.
Matrix traceability isn't about compliance, It's about clarity,
whether these things come from, and it ensures that every
requirement ties back to business objectives.
(08:47):
In other words, you can literally draw a line from the
CEO strategy, right? The slide that I've just told
the whole organization to a developer's user story, and
that's powerful. And what people do is they
outsource or they just jump to user stories and they don't have
their requirements matrix beforehand.
You should not jump there. You need to do your matrix when
(09:08):
you're doing your high level requirements and your mapping.
And yes, as I talked about last week, Jira has some of these
tools, which means we don't haveto necessarily use an Excel
spreadsheet this week or next week.
But at the moment, I still don'tsee a valid replacement for a
strong requirements traceabilitymatrix.
And to be honest, they can do not capability matrixes after
the fact because all those requirements are required not
(09:30):
just in the project, they're required post project, but
that's a whole other chapter. And story mapping, I don't see
it enough. Story mapping bridges users,
customer experience or user experience depending on its
internal or external and delivery priorities, right?
It helps you see the full journey, not isolated stories.
It helps you make sure that the most valuable slices get built
(09:54):
1st. And that's what Agile's all
about. Agile for me, cannot exist
without your story map. And finally, your requirements
pack for me, that is the bridge.It has all those things in it we
talked about and it's your bridge document.
It connects strategic goals, process models and solution
design or at least out to solution design and it
(10:15):
complement by a solution architecture diagram document,
sorry. And it completes the story from
problem statement to process to product.
And it's a really great way of doing it.
And when I say putting it all ina pack, I don't mean 100 pages.
I mean PowerPoint presentation linking out.
And we, we, we give you that when you work with us Part 4.
(10:38):
These are the deliverables that show strategic alignment, OK?
If your deliverables don't connect to strategy, they're
just documents. If they do, they become evidence
of value. OK.
So we'll list these out. Number one is the strategic
level. The deliverable is the business
(10:59):
case. And it defines why this matters
in the tactical level, the process model, it defines what
is changing. You have the operational model,
which is the the level and the deliverable is your requirements
pack. It defines how we will deliver
OK and what areas we're going todeliver in.
(11:22):
And the control is the traceability matrix.
It proves we're delivering the right thing.
Every one of these ties the Y ofthe strategy to the wall and the
hell of delivery. Now before you get all excited
and copy would have just said here are some pitfalls part 5
(11:43):
and these are the common pitfalls and how to avoid them.
Number one is jumping to solutions too fast.
We we all the time and this is something you manage up, manage
sideways, manage yourself about this.
The minute someone says we need a new system, pause and ask why
The best BA stays in the problemspace longer than anyone else.
(12:03):
OK, can't stay there forever. You can't be a naysayer.
But you stay there longer than anyone else #2 deliverables with
no business. Like it's easy to create
beautiful documents that no one reads.
Always test your outputs. Do they trace back to strategy?
You know this. The testers might care, but if
(12:23):
they don't link to strategy, then the project manager might
not think they're necessary #3 is assuming alignment means
understanding. Just because stakeholders not,
doesn't mean they really agree. Use your models, your maps, your
visuals to show alignment, not just assume it.
(12:44):
So OK, make sure they understandthat you need to do what I
always refer to as the Wiggles model, which is the red and the
green, the higher you go up the chain.
And then you need to provide a little bit more detail about the
wheels on the bus. It's, it is, it's not minimizing
or joking or dumbing down for the sake of a dumb audience.
It is simply the amount of information that people at
(13:06):
different cases of the organization have to process,
right? The one is, you know, usually
you're working on one thing thatyou do, you've got lots of
information about it at the bottom, at the top, they're
usually looking at a number of things, but they can't process a
whole of variables about 1 area.And and again, SLTS struggle
when they find themselves micromanaging and #4 is failing
(13:30):
to validate benefits. We're not just analysts, we are
value Stuarts and value engineering is probably a good
name for our future career. Make sure benefits are
measurable and linked to the work being delivered.
And sometimes I vomit when I hear about benefits realization
because the benefits were made-up in the 1st place or or
(13:50):
whatever. But just meeting those
objectives is a good start. And finally, number six, the
future BAA strategic operator. This is where the profession is
heading. Gone are the days where BAS just
wrote requirements. Today, the best BAS, the better.
BAS operate like strategic system thinkers.
(14:12):
We navigate both strategy and delivery.
We use tools like AI, data visualization, design thinking
to ensure every project contributes to real business
value. We value engineer, and that's
the sweet spot. That's the missing middle.
You're not there to pass messages between strategy and
delivery. You're there to connect purpose,
(14:34):
to progress. So next time you find yourself
caught between the executive team and the developers, don't
get frustrated. Get strategic.
The gap you're standing in, that's the place where real
value is created or captured. You are the translator of
strategy, the connector of context, and the guardian of
(14:54):
value. That's the heart of modern
business analysis, and that's what will make you a better BA.
Thanks for tuning in and I'll see you next week.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!