All Entries in the "Business Analysis" Category
How hard could it be to design the stop sign?
I recently stumbled upon this video, got a kick out of it and thoughts I’d share. It is basically a video parody for the process of designing the stop sign if the project were kicked off in 2008. There have definitely been times in my career as a BA where I’ve felt like the poor chap trying to design to the customers’ specs.
Oh.. and for geeks like me who saw this and then wondered when we really did get the stop sign, here’s an interesting link.
It’s Good to be a Business Analyst II
A recent CIO.com article has piqued the interest of many business analysts.
Corporate Strategy and the Business Analyst
A clearly defined business strategy is key to meeting organizational goals.
Random Observations from the February Atlanta IIBA chapter meeting
A few more things I found interesting at the February IIBA meeting.
IIBA Atlanta Chapter Meeting & Requirements.net
A few notes and impressions from the February, 2008 Atlanta IIBA chapter meeting.
On Business Analysis in an Agile Setting
While the titles of who performs the work may differ, business analysis skills are critical in any methodology.
With requirements, discussions matter most
Mitigating the waterfall effect.
A Call to Participate!
For some reason, last week I picked up and began reading from Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography. In it, he mentions a mutual improvement society that he and several of his acquaintances founded in colonial Philadelphia to compare ideas, to critique each other’s publications, and to gather sociably. They called it “Junto.” The idea behind Junto was that in gathering like-minded individuals with a common cause for civil discourse, all participants stood to benefit.
Economist Sowell on… Usability!
I love reading Thomas Sowell’s articles on economics and its social and political ramifications. His “Basic Economics” book broke down the basics of supply and demand as well as other economic principles in a way even I could understand! Today, however, his article was a rant on how hard today’s electronic gadgets are to use.
Thought, Problems, and Business Analysts
Successful business analysts have an ability to draw ideas to their logical conclusions. An analyst’s work typically requires assessment of concepts following a progression from the general to the specific, and other times from specific to general.
How Can a Business Analyst Help You?
Sometimes project stakeholders I work for or with aren’t familiar with the role or the value of the business analyst. I’ve posted about Karl Wiegers’ Bills of Rights previously, and think those are a great way to introduce the role to a new business stakeholder who may not be familiar with the types of value [...]
Finding a Home for Business Analysts
Is the role of business analyst an IT role, a business role, or both? How can the BA role be used to the greatest benefit of the organization?
Is “Requirements Engineering” a Misnomer?
When you think of an engineer, hard skills such as the various science and technology disciplines come first to mind. It’s easy to see where one could question whether the BA has a place in the engineering tent, and I actually see that as a positive. In fact, I think that anything that chips away at the conception of business analysis as exclusively IT work is probably a good thing for the future of the BA role.
Business Analysts: Domain Experts or Generalists?
Is a BA more or less effective when also an expert in the business and technology domains?
Excellent Resources for Business Analysts
Thinking of trying your hand at business analysis? Already a BA, and want to find information that will help you hone your skills? Just wondering what in the world a Business Analyst is, and what he/she does? If so, I hope you’ll find this post helpful.
There are lots of great Web resources available to BA’s and those with similar interests. Below is a list of just a few of my current favorites, in no particular order.
McDonald’s Burgers and High-Quality Business Analysts
What can business analysts learn about quality from McDonald’s?
Meeting Agenda as Catalyst?
What are leading reasons for unproductive review sessions of project deliverables? One comes quickly to mind for me – how about when 90% of your invitees show up without having even glanced at the materials in advance.
For one thing, holding a meeting in this environment is not only incredibly inefficient, but it is also unfair [...]
Planning a Successful Review Meeting, Part I
Holding requirement specification reviews is an activity that is critical to ensuring the quality of your deliverables. Review meetings aren’t typically “fun”, but they can be run smoothly and efficiently. They can also be excruciating if the the organizer and/or the attendees are not sufficiently prepared ahead of time.
I plan to post a few things [...]
It’s Good to be a Business Analyst
The Business Analyst role is a good one – if you’re interested in climbing the rungs of the organizational ladder. At least that’s the tack that Barbara over at the Business Analyst Blog has taken:
In the next few years I think we are going to see more and more Business Analysts move into executive level [...]
Reasons for Engaging a Requirements Analyst – Humorous, but True!
These are fun and typically true. I may even consider sharing them with my next old school stakeholder who can’t see why it’d be best to get away from the classic 5 bullet e-mail as the requirements spec of record.
Here are 5 reasons why to use a requirements analyst:
You’re in the box. You can’t even [...]
Design for Use and Reuse
One way IT factories can really hurt themselves and their companies is by underemphasizing, or not considering at all the notion that systems and components should be designed with “reuse” in mind.
What is reuse, or the Reuse Model?
More Analysis Paralysis
Breaking out of analysis paralysis doesn’t require you to lower your standards, or to aim lower than you would otherwise. It just requires some prioritization. What you have to do is identify those things you have to get right from the get-go, those items that do need analysis, and what can be fixed later.
The Cornell Method of Note-taking
Ok, so a lot of folks nowadays will type their meeting notes directly into their laptops, and that’s not a bad thing. It certainly saves time.
However, there are situations where the old pen and paper is not a bad thing. I, for example, am still a traditional pen-and-paper note taker. Much like in college, I [...]
Open Source Data Modeling Tools – Worth a Look!
This post is to bring attention to some open source data (and general UML) modeling tools I think are worth a look.
Business Analyst Job Description
So, what exactly is a Business Analyst? What is the role of the Analyst in the software development lifecycle? If you don’t want to be completely confused, don’t bother trying to get a conclusive definition by just “Googling” it. There are dozens of variations on the BA role depending on the company, and on the software engineering methodology used.
So, what’s it cost to fix a defect?
I know that the deeper in the project lifecycle that you go, the more expensive it becomes to fix defects, but I’ve never before dealt with a formula for calculating the actual cost of fixing a defect in dollars. I found very interesting the excerpt below from an article by Johanna Rothman entitled, fittingly, What Does It Cost to Fix a Defect?