I’ve been a consultant with DB Results for over two years now and for most of that time, I’ve been placed as a business analyst at a financial institution. Although I’ve been at the client site for a long time, I’d like to share how being part of DB Results gave me the support to kickstart my new project.
Typically, a consultant will come onto projects for a short amount of time (about six months to a year) and then hop across to another client to help drive and deliver a different initiative. However, the stars aligned, and I’ve been lucky enough that I continue to be needed by the client, and I also still find growth and enjoyment in being on the team.
Introducing sanctions
In my original statement of work with this client, I was brought on as a business analyst in a project to decommission a merchant payment terminal. After two years, we are finally hitting the tail end of this project and wrapping things up. As much as I had learnt along the journey – from figuring out the strategy to learning about the BAU processes and meeting people – there was still something in my heart that was keen to learn more about the merchant business.
Jupiter was in my house, and my product owner asked me what I was keen to do next. I brought up my desire to become a subject matter expert (SME), and she gave me the opportunity to take lead on a side project and explore the wonderful world of sanctions.
My only exposure to sanctions at this point had been the anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance course we had to complete annually. Luckily, I knew there were a couple of DB Results employees I could reach out to and pick their brains on what they knew about sanctions. The conversations we had helped me build my basic knowledge. Although they couldn’t give me the exact answers I wanted, like telling me how sanctions affected business merchants and payments transactions, I was able to use their input to dive further into understanding sanctions. My favourite moment was when a cheeky coworker linked me back to Google!
Finalising sanctions
To better understand how sanctions affected my client in the product management space, I engaged close to fifteen people across the business from merchant product, sales frontline, fraud, financial crime and technology. It was fascinating to hear about sanctions from their perspectives, but while they all had great in-depth knowledge about sanctions in their area, I could see they didn’t have the complete picture of how sanctions exist across the merchant space.
During this process, I felt like I was filling in a puzzle that I dictated the shape and delivery of. It was a strange process where I took puzzle pieces from my conversations with the experts, and I worked out how they fit together. At times, it wasn't always clear to me how the pieces were going to relate to each other; but by trusting the process and keeping the end goal in mind, the puzzle steadily came together.
This completed puzzle took the form of a business document that I recently presented to my product owner. She’s taken my learnings and will implement a working group that I’m excited to be involved in over the next few months, as the new SME. From the company side, a DB Results employee also expressed interest in getting a walkthrough of the final business document. It’s a great feeling that my research can bring value to more than just my client – that people in the company are also interested in the work I’m doing. I feel visible.
Ultimately, it makes me feel good to deliver a piece of work that I can call entirely my own. In saying that, my DB Results colleagues have been instrumental as a sounding board and helping to kickstart my knowledge and showing interest along the way. Often our projects as consultants take us into our niche little area, but as my experience shows, when you bring in one DB Results consultant, you also bring in the experience and knowledge of the whole company.
