By Steve Blais
June 12, 2025
As a consultant for the past 30 plus years, I have found it useful after determining what the client wants done, the problem they need solved, the scope, constraints and guidelines they want followed, to find out how they want the results of my findings presented.
I am thinking in terms of verbal reporting, PowerPoint presentation, written report, etc. I end up typically being given a template of some kind. And, because I asked, I find it necessary to follow the template as exactly as possible. However, I find that the template just does not work as well as the organization might expect.
Why Does the Organization Require a Template?
Many times, it is easy to see the value of templates, especially for management. Templates present information I am giving them arranged in a familiar, expected format and specific order, e.g., the brief Executive Summary of no more than two pages comes first. Then there is a mandatory Terms and Abbreviations section, followed by an Introduction, and so forth.
In other cases—and this is what I think is the real culprit—the rationale for the template has long since been lost in the organization’s annals and has no meaning today; or perhaps the template was created by lower managers as a means of controlling their subordinates. The military forms with which I have had much experience over the years are examples. I ended up putting most of the information in the Appendices because there was no place in the template for the real meaningful info to go.
Templates Are Not Bad
Templates have their place. It is easier to fill out a template than to write the report or document starting from a blank page. Blank pages seem to produce blank minds when people stare at them. That is probably because we are trained to start from the beginning, and we get stymied by the first line in the report. When there are blank sections to fill in with meaningful headers at the top of each section, it is like answering questions and not so much like creating something from scratch. And you can do it in any order–you do not have to start with the first sentence.
Templates also help the organization ensure that certain questions are answered and provide guidelines as to what the organization feels is important.
And then it is downhill from there.
However, the downside to templates and forms and the like, is the tendency to focus the entire process (whatever process it is that you are doing) on filling out the form rather than gathering and analyzing information (and gathering and analyzing information is the main job of the business analyst).
The Template/Method for Using Templates
My suggestion is to note the content of the template indicated by the headers and prompts when you start, so that you make sure you collect the relevant information and then put it aside and then do your best to forget it.
Go gather information, analyze it and define the requirements, or use cases, or user stories or whatever. Maybe even get some verification on your results and validate them. Then near the time you might be ready to submit the Business Requirements Document or Product Backlog or Business Case, shoehorn the information into the template. If you legitimately don’t have information for a particular prompt or header, inscribe “Not applicable”. Anything that does not fit, you can place into an appropriately titled appendix or supporting document.
That gives you the best of both worlds. Doing your job free of artificial constraints and making sure you deliver the results in the form requested.
Steve Blais, PMP, PMI-PBA, is an author, consultant, teacher, and coach who has over 55 years’ experience in Information Technologies working as a programmer, tester, project manager, business analyst, system analyst, general manager, and corporate executive. He has helped start up five different technical companies over the years.
Steve is the author of Business Analysis: Best Practices for Success (John Wiley, 2011) and co-author of Business Analysis for Practitioners: a Practice Guide (PMI, 2014) and a contributor to the Business Analyst Body of Knowledge, V3 (IIBA, 2015). His new book, The Digital Transformation of Business Analysis, published by IIBA Press, 2023.
