The Wave

First of all, a happy new year to everyone!

The following may seem a bit over-interpreted to some readers, and I do probably agree with you, even before having written it, but nevertheless I think there are some valuable points.

Yesterday I saw the movie "The Wave" or rather a modern German remake of it called "Die Welle". That fact that the movie was in German somehow added a subconscious scary feel to it. Perhaps because the teachers rally speaks reminded even more of Hitler. I can actually recommend this version, as it is updated to today with modern technology for communication, financial crisis, high school shootings etc. taking it a little closer to today's society.

For those of you who does not know "The Wave" it is a novel written by Todd Strasser (under the pseudonym Morton Rhue) basen on a Screenplay for at movie written by Johnny Dawkins.
The story takes place in a High School, where the teacher, in an effort to explain how Hitler and other dictators could gain such a following, creates his own movement "The Wave" with himself as the leader. The experiment includes uniforms, a special salute etc. Within a few days "The Wave" takes on a life of it's own. Read more about it here.

The moral of the movie is that the movement becomes the most important thing and if you are not for "The Wave" you are against it, and some members will resort to any means to protect "the Wave", its members and especially its leader.

A now, how does this relate to our everyday work as business analyst?

Well many business analysts, including myself, are employed in an IT-organization developing solutions for customers either internal or external.Most IT-organizations have one or more playbooks, guidelines, methodologies, development models, call it what you will. Common to them is a certain set of what we believe to be best practices, and they often are. But this is also where the clash with the customer is often experienced.
They know nothing of our "development model" and when they ask why we perform a certain activity, they get the answer "Because the model says so!"

Have we created our own "Wave" here?
Don't get me wrong, I am not about to argue for the removal of all development models...

But, if we can not explain how performing a certain activity will add value to the customer/solution, at least indirectly because it it necessary for the project, why should we then do the activity? And in this case we have chosen our base, community or what you would like to call it, above the needs of others, and in my mind that is a sort of "Wave". Not as extreme as the one portrayed in the movie, but it is nevertheless counter-productive to what we want to achieve with our project.


We have to be careful not to see the world as "Them" and "Us", which sometimes happens when the customer and the IT-organization does not agree on certain parts of the solution. In these situations, it is our job as business analysts to see the problem from all sides and try to find a solution that can satisfy all parties.

In short we sometimes have to see beyond our own "Wave", and understand the needs of others as well, in order to ensure finding the best solutions.

I'll end this post with a quote from a song by the British Band Faithless "You don't need eyes to see, You need vision"