Latest articles
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Onshore vs. Offshore
The way I see it, offshore outsourcing of IT work – chiefly development and QA – is not going away. Those of us stateside…
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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…
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A Couple Tips on Keeping Use Cases Simple
Use cases are atomic functions that are portable and not dependent upon a certain situation. They are requirement “objects” in the “object oriented” sense.…
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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…
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Precision Tools: Requirement Structure
I recently posted about the need for accuracy and precision in requirements. In that post, I mentioned that natural language requirements are probably the…
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Good Requirements Are More Than Just Accurate
The business analyst’s job is not complete if the requirements are documented and accurate but lack precision.
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Requirements Elicitation: Are You the Artist, or the Order-Taker?
Requirements elicitation is an art. Watching a solid business analyst efficiently identify and document business need by using a careful mix of questions is…
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What are user stories, and why should I use them?
I have used user stories – or at least something similar – to help me identify user requirements, but have never used them as…
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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…
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Business Analysts and the Abilene Paradox
You don’t agree at all with a decision, but you fear that you may be the only one – in disagreement. So…
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UML Use Case Modeling – A Little Help?
Recently, I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in some very interesting training sessions relating to business process re-engineering, and UML modeling. Now, I have…
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Does Humor on the Job Work for You?
As I’ve mentioned on this blog, I like to keep things as light and humorous as possible. That’s true in my personal life, and…
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Dr. Pausch's "Last Lecture"
I just want to pass along a story I read in this morning’s WSJ that I think will appeal to this blog’s audience because…
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Handy Requirements Quality Digest/Checklist
This quick post is just to share an article I came across that I thought might be beneficial, especially to the relatively new analyst.…