Business Analyst “Blueprint for Success”

I recently mentioned Laura Brandau’s new book on becoming a business analyst, and wanted to highlight another resource that was recently made available by Alex Papworth. If you are active in the online BA community, you may recognize Alex from his Business Analyst Mentor website, his articles on Computer World UK or from Twitter (@alexpapworth).

Alex’s likes to emphasize the value of mentoring and training in BA development, so it’s no surprise that his free e-book, Blueprint for Success as a New Business Analyst, follows the same pattern:

[The] advice in this guide is the result of combining my knowledge and experience of the business analyst role with the knowledge acquired from helping a number of individuals who want to become business analysts. … [It] is deliberately brief so that it can be read quickly and easily.

“Blueprint” provides some information on the why, who, what and how of becoming and developing as a business analyst, and includes some practical tips and links to helpful external resources (thanks for mentioning Practical Analyst, Alex!).

One of the things I like in particular is the new/collaborative media tack Alex seems to be taking which distinguishes “Blueprint” from many of the traditional, more static publications in the niche. Clearly, he intends for the work to evolve from “1.0” in an iterative and collaborative way:

This is the first version of this guide and I intend to continually improve it and release new versions as I help individuals who wish to become successful new business analysts. Your help is key in achieving this. Please contact me with stories, recommendations and advice on training, gaining experience and presenting yourself as a credible business analyst.

Go have a look at Blueprint for Success as a New Business Analyst and give Alex some good, constructive feedback and a “thank-you” for the work that went into providing this free resource to the community.