The credibility of an analyst as a factor in team performance

Based on real events and their own participation in them.

A couple of years ago, at my last place of work, after the next reorganization, there was one more development department.
And since there were close analysts, one of the developers, let's call him, Vadim, was offered to retrain.
The developer was skilled, sociable, agreed with pleasure, on this outwardly everyone calmly accepted it. The new department took shape organizationally and set to work.

Within a few weeks, the management noticed that the new department was working more slowly, did not meet the deadlines and threatened to disrupt the release. The first thing that came to mind was that the new analyst is probably not coping, you need to help him!

Because Of all the other analysts in the company, only I was training people, then I was attracted to this good cause.
I still did not know the background of the problems, so I, taking on the beliefs of the leadership on faith, set to work.
I must say right away that already in the beginning I realized that Vadim wrote pretty decent technical specifications, on the basis of what he had already worked with (documents of other company analysts, including mine), things went quickly, we polished something, learned to better formulate goals and limitations of improvements, and after two weeks, Vadim’s documents became much better.
But it did not help.

The department continued to lag behind and management became impatient.

Then, I decided to talk with the rest of the team and then the abysses of hell opened up for me.
In one meeting with them, I learned the following:

-Vadim does not know how to write requirements.
-Vadim stubborn ram, does not listen to the team.
-Do not know how to communicate with the customer.
-It seems like he is hopeless as an analyst.

Immediately after that, I talked with Vadim and suddenly everything became clear.
The problem lay far beyond professional skills. The team simply did not perceive Vadim as an analyst.
As a result, everyone has accumulated a whole bunch of pseudo-objective claims to his work.
Team members demanded all his documents for a review, found fault with the wording of the requirements, argued on each issue, even reaching a direct disregard for requirements, initiative and attempts to solve any problems with the customer through Vadim’s head.
Despite the fact that when he was just a developer, they had no conflicts.

I had to work as a "psychotherapist."

Over the next two weeks, I held collective meetings of the following content.

• I sorted out TK written by Vadim, explaining why he did just that, and not otherwise
• Explained how to work with requirements and why
• Showed abstract domain case studies

After each meeting, the team thanked me and said that now everything is clear to her and in general, thanks for telling me.
Vadim was very surprised. After the very first meeting, he tête-à-tête complained that he told the team exactly the same thing as I did, but his words were perceived in a completely different way.

Then I told him what was the matter. Of course, it saddened him, but I encouraged him, saying that over time it will pass.
We continued the collective therapy sessions and after a short time the work of the department returned to normal.
And now, Vadim, in general, is considered one of the best analysts of my former company.

In the future, I had to once again encounter such a situation, but I was already ready and did not waste time in vain, immediately proceeding to "psychotherapy".

So if you come across this, do not get hung up on skills, look at people.