Entries for 'Seilevel'

» The Role of the Requirements Analyst in Driving Specialized Development Teams to Success

(2528 Views) (0 Comments)

I am working on a project where Development teams are divided into specialized areas called Centers of Competence. For example, one team works on Customer data, another team on Product data and validation, another works with the Shopping Cart, another with Checkout and so on. Requirements are gathered within each of these Centers of Competence and ...

Posted by: Seilevel

» Five New Year’s Resolutions for Requirements

(2583 Views) (0 Comments)

It’s that time of year, where our thoughts turn to the holidays…the holiday parties, the shopping, the lights, visiting with family! For many organizations, the end of the year tends to be quiet on the IT front, for no organization wants to risk introducing problems into their production environment at year end. So as I look back at th...

Posted by: Seilevel

» Is Traceability Possible Without a Requirements Tool?

(3221 Views) (1 Comments)

I have spent the last year and a half working on an enterprise software solution development effort where we do not use a Requirements Management tool like Caliber or Visual Studio TFS. Our requirements are created in Word using standardized templates and distributed to Development and Test teams for consumption. Test cases are written in Excel an...

Posted by: Seilevel

» Challenges with User Stories

(3260 Views) (1 Comments)

A Promise to have a Conversation I’ve been writing user stories for a couple of years now, and the best way I’ve heard how to describe them is that they are a promise to have a conversation. Enough information should be written down to give the reader an idea of what the gist of the story is (and to be able to roughly estimate a story point ...

Posted by: Seilevel

» Learned Processes

(2372 Views) (0 Comments)

I know you are going to call me crazy, but I just have to let everyone know. Machines are controlling us. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. You don’t believe me? Okay, I’ll explain. People come and go in organizations. Systems tend to stay much longer. Simple enough right? Here is the kicker. When that sy...

Posted by: Seilevel

» Why Should We Hire You?, Part I

(3743 Views) (0 Comments)

We look for the best and brightest when hiring for Requirements Analysts and Product Managers. It’s a long and difficult process with many people applying; only a fraction get through the first interview and even less are able to hang in the process as it continues. This has brought great strain to our company: as we expand we simply aren’t able to...

Posted by: Seilevel

» The single most important failure with requirements

(2872 Views) (0 Comments)

A lot of our clients bring us in to fix their requirements issues. Based on the literature a lot of what you see about requirements is geared towards making sure that you write a requirement in the correct way – measurable, testable, traceable and atomic. Our experience with many Fortune 500 companies leads to a different issue being the most...

Posted by: Seilevel

» Requirements Engineering Conference Is Just Around The Corner

(1931 Views) (6 Comments)

Its being held in Sydney Australia September 27th- October 1st 2010.If you are attending this conference don’t miss out on the Requirements Engineering Education and Training Workshop that is taking place September 28th. Do you want to broaden your skills? Learn new techniques? This is the workshop for you. This workshop will add...

Posted by: Seilevel

» Being New 101

(2220 Views) (1 Comments)

Being a relatively new Requirements Analyst/ Business Analyst ( BA) and being new to the industry, I have been blessed with the opportunity to have mentors. Receiving direction from more experienced BA’s has definitely helped me find areas that I can improve on, while at the same time, finding my strengths and improving those too. Yet there stil...

Posted by: Seilevel

» IT Black Ops

(2350 Views) (0 Comments)

I’ve worked on at least one project now and heard of several others where a super-secret development team works in parallel to solve the same business problem as the “official” IT project team. A coworker of mine coined the term “IT Black Ops” to refer to these sorts of projects where the business, either out of frustration, arrogance, or ignorance...

Posted by: Seilevel

» Lessons for a Good Hair Cut

(1961 Views) (1 Comments)

Last year, I wrote about my Lessons from a Bad Haircut. I’m please to say I finally have a lesson from a good haircut. How did I finally get a good haircut? It was what the stylist did after I explained what I wanted. She drew a quick sketch. It took about 15 seconds. And, with that sketch, I was able to say “No, that’s not what I want.” 60 ...

Posted by: Seilevel

» What do you do when the client isn’t focused on the business outcome?

(1953 Views) (1 Comments)

One of the values that we bring is that we can help our clients to decide what scope to cut by providing them with a framework that links quantifiable business objectives to specific features. We create an objective chain to do this and it helps to spotlight features that don’t feed into the core business purpose. Typically our stakeholders are abl...

Posted by: Seilevel

» It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye: Tips for Getting Closure on Your Project

(1495 Views) (0 Comments)

Sometimes projects are like villains in horror movies: they just won’t die. Even when you’ve doused them in gasoline, set them on fire, then dumped them in a river, they just keep coming back. A project’s extension beyond its natural or expected life is not good for the project as a whole (even though it might help keep you busy). Projects are expe...

Posted by: Seilevel

» Top 10 User Acceptance Testing Preparation Tips

(8340 Views) (1 Comments)

If you are a Product Manager or Business Analyst in charge of managing users through User Acceptance Testing (UAT), here are the top 10 things to do to prepare: Formal scripts – prepare formal scripts for the business users to run. If you can re-use any of QA’s scripts, all the better. At a minimum, use your use cases to build test scripts. ...

Posted by: Seilevel

» RML® Model 4 – Data Dictionary

(2737 Views) (1 Comments)

When creating a data dictionary, it is critical not to design with it. You should not be attempting to create a database nor should you be showing the relationships of data. This will be a detailed description of the data involved in your project. It will also be one of the largest morale draining approval processes you can have f...

Posted by: Seilevel

» Building Credibility With Your Team

(2237 Views) (0 Comments)

As consultants and product managers, it is important that we quickly build and maintain credibility with our team so that we can work productively and effectively. If you are unable to join the team dynamics, the work that we provide will be met with apathy or even outright hostility. I’ve learned a few tips to help...

Posted by: Seilevel

» How many Business Analysts do I need on my project?

(2504 Views) (0 Comments)

At the beginning of almost every project (and even sometimes midway through them) we are asked to create a requirements plan and estimate the time required on tasks and the number of BAs necessary to execute it. In a later post I’ll talk about the actual plan items, but we do have a rule of thumb for how many BAs you need on a project. We have a s...

Posted by: Seilevel

» How do you determine if you have a business rule?

(1713 Views) (2 Comments)

On a recent client’s project, we were asked to help in the effort of creating a system to automate much of the current manual processes. In order to capture the requirements this also meant that we were documenting the business rules that were currently being used. When I started the project, I did not have a complete understanding...

Posted by: Seilevel

» Work Harder, Not Smarter

(1745 Views) (0 Comments)

I am all for great tools and processes that increase efficiency of work, facilitate better accuracy, allow for repeatable results, so on and so forth. But sometimes they simply do not fit. Yes, I just said better is not always good. Why? Spending time trying to improve tools or processes on short turnaround projects or tasks is us...

Posted by: Seilevel

» Is Your Product Knowldege an Asset or Liability?

(2651 Views) (0 Comments)

There was recently an interesting post by John Mansour on the Austin PMM Forum (registration required) discussing whether Product Knowledge was an Asset or Liability to product managers. The author makes several claims about how product knowledge is a liability: “In a nutshell, the more product knowledge you have, the less product management yo...

Posted by: Seilevel

Previous Page | Next Page

Join the Premier Community for
Business Analysts, Business Process Professionals,
Systems Analysts, Data Analysts, and more…

The Community Blog for Business Analysts

Entries for 'Seilevel'

Join the Premier Community for Business Analysts, Business Process Professionals, Systems Analysts, Data Analysts, and more…

The Community Blog for Business Analysts

Entries for 'Seilevel'

Join the Premier Community for
Business Analysts, Business Process Professionals,
Systems Analysts, Data Analysts, and more…