Have a look at some of my all-time favorite business analysis-related articles and presentations. These are items I’ve bookmarked over the years that I think are valuable to anyone interested in learning more about business analysis and other pertinent topics. Check back occasionally as I’ll continue to add great resources over time.
I’ve always been of the opinion that I’d like to know as much as I can about whatever I can because you never know when something you learned may come in handy. That said, I do think there are four key knowledge/capability domains that are especially important to the business analyst. I’ll provide a brief [...]
Here you’ll find some of my favorite quotes on topics such as communication, teamwork, leadership and others I think are relevant to business analysts and project professionals.
Browse and download PDF versions of popular blog posts, document templates and some other presentation visuals I’ve made available for use.
I can remember at times being frustrated at the lack of involvement in requirements validation on the part of some of my business stakeholders. It bothered me that we were doing this work for them, and they didn’t seem to want to take the time to give us the feedback we needed. Then it struck [...]
Think of requirements as inventory or as component materials in a storage bin with a shelf life and a carrying cost. Inventory isn’t free. You have to pay someone to produce (model and document) requirements. You need a supply of good, current (fresh) requirements to produce a quality product.
There is no perfect, fits-all template or set of documents which will be effective across all companies or even for all of a given company’s projects. The business analyst should work with internal and external stakeholders to determine which communicative tools will best serve for each project effort and model requirements accordingly.
To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.”
— George Orwell
We know that the business stakeholders whose needs we elicit and capture as requirements are our customers. We know that the sponsor who foots the bill for our work is our customer. Often, product end-users are considered customers. We don’t typically think of designers, developers and QA analysts – our delivery team counterparts – as customers, but maybe we should.
I really like a simple risk matrix as a visual aid, because it makes it much easier for me to explain of how severity and probability combine to make a risk more or less serious than if I tried to explain it with words alone.
So, what exactly are small wins, and why do they seem to add up as well as they do? As solutions professionals, we are ideally suited to make a difference when we help our businesses make those incremental changes which, over time, add up to significant wins and success in the marketplace. This post will include citations from sources I’ve come across while studying the topic of small wins on my own.
It’s important that we take our own advice when it comes to our analysis efforts and keep ROI (Return on Investment) at front of mind.
Agile team members must know something about teamwork and this means understanding a lot about human behavior and why people do the things they do!
I think I’m a pretty decent business analyst.The problem is, I want to be a great business analyst. What does it take to get to that “next level”?
I have a few basic themes that shape my everyday walk and talk as a business analyst and a manager of business analysts. I’ve tweaked a few words here and there over the years and will continue to do so, but the underlying concepts have remained fairly consistent. So, here goes…
I was recently looking at some of the new requirements modeling/management tools, and some of the other technologies that seem to be making manipulating technology more and more accessible to the traditional business stakeholder, and I caught my self wondering: How long will the industry support a distinct business analyst role?
So, what exactly are small wins, and why do they seem to add up as well as they do? As solutions professionals, we are ideally suited to make a difference when we help our businesses make those incremental changes which, over time, add up to significant wins and success in the marketplace. This post will include citations from sources I’ve come across while studying the topic of small wins on my own.
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do – Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011) Stanford Commencement Address, 2005 Also… Steve [...]
If we perceive our role aright, we then see more clearly the proper criterion for success: a toolmaker succeeds as, and only as, the users of his tools succeed with his aid. However shining the blade, however jeweled the hilt, however perfect the heft, a sword is tested only by cutting. – Fred Brooks
I’ve been an IIBA member for several years now. I think the BABOK is great resource for business analysts, and I refer to it regularly. I think the agile extension to the BABOK is shaping up to be another really useful resource. As a manager of business analysts, I love the competency model. I plan, one [...]
I recently bought, read, thoroughly enjoyed and am now recommending Atul Gawande’s book, “The Checklist Manifesto”. In “the manifesto”, Gawande pulls examples from the medical field, construction, aviation and others to show how simple checklists, coupled with timely and effective teamwork, can vastly improve the quality and effectiveness of what we do; in some cases, [...]
Cascade: Better practices for effective delivery of information systems in a multi-project environment.
If you’ve been following me or this site for long, you know that I love to talk and write about business analysis. I enjoy discussing ways that people, processes and tools can be intelligently applied to solve business problems. With that, it’ll come as no surprise that I really enjoyed spending some time here recently [...]
Stability and success for a business analyst over the long term lies not in sparring over which methodology is superior and tailoring your craft to suit, but in truly becoming an agile business analyst; one that is valuable and marketable in any environment – even when the “next big thing” in delivery methodology comes along.
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