How is a Business Network Analysis Done?

The broad generic process is as follows.

Determine the unit of analysis. This is arguably the most important step, as it determines how data is collected and which tools and analysis techniques should be employed.

Determine the questions. The questions depend on the unit of analysis. Some examples of the types of questions are:

• Collaboration Mapping . Please identify the people who are important to you in your professional network. These can be people who provide you with information to do your work, help you think about complex problems posed by your work, or provide developmental advice or personal support helpful in your day-to-day working life. These may or may not be people you communicate with on a regular basis and must come from within your organisation.
• Information Flow Mapping . Please identify the people in your department you have passed documents or e-mails to in the last month. These may or may not be people you communicate with on a regular basis, but they must be part of your department.
• Organisational Interface Mapping . Please identify up to 10 people who work in external departments and who are important to you in your professional network. These can be people who provide you with information to do your work, help you think about complex problems posed by your work, or provide developmental advice or personal support helpful in your day-to-day working life. These may or may not be people you communicate with on a regular basis and must come from an organisation external to yours.
• Project Interface Mapping . Please identify the people in other project teams that you rely on to provide information for your project. For each person you have identified please assign a score based on the amount of contact you have with them. 1 is the most amount of contact. 10 is the least amount of contact. Each score should be different.
• Social Capital Mapping . In your workplace who do you go to for information that helps you solve problems or capitalise on opportunities?

Collect the data. Typically the questions are answered using a survey. The survey can be done in person, on paper, or be web-enabled. Where appropriate data collection can also be done using data-mining techniques. For example intra-departmental e-mail traffic could be mined. In the case of a policy relationship mapping exercise the documents are parsed for key words, headings and other relevant attributes.

Import the data into a visualisation tool. Typically data is entered into an Microsoft EXCEL workbook or database, and then imported into a visualisation tool. There are several propriety visualisation tools depending, each of which has specific uses and limitations. The primary tool HolisTech® uses is NetMiner . The visualisation tools also provide some ‘back-end’ statistical analysis capabilities. Of course, because the data is stored in a database or EXCEL it can be exported into other specialised tools for analysis if required. An essential sub-set of data analysis is the ‘common sense’ check.

Act on the Data. Acting on the data is up to you! Please e-mail or ring us if you want to know more.