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Entries for March 2008

» Why Use BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement)?

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A good negotiation method should protect you from making a bad agreement or rejecting one that you should accept. For example, if you implement a bottom line – by establishing in advance your worst acceptable outcome, such as the lowest price you’d accept for an item you’re selling – you’re limiting your options if circumstances should change durin...

» Who Does QA? Hint: Not your testers!

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Many of us have Quality Assurance (QA) groups in our organizations, and the natural assumption might be that these groups are responsible for the quality of our products. For a few of us, that assumption might hold true, but for most organizations, the QA group cannot be held responsible for quality because they don't actually assure quality. What ...

» Improving Your Presentation's 'Connection-ability' Part 2

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Key to improving presentations is to focus on where your're audience is, not where you are, or where you want them to be. To do that, you must make a connection first. It is by making this initial connection that your "believe-ability" - your "buy-in" factor - and your "connection-ability" as a speaker are first made. Author: Tim McClintock, PMP

» Improving Your Presentation's 'Connection-ability' Part 1

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"Life is a series of presentations!" I'm not the first to say that. Tony Jeary said it before I did, in his book of the same title. If life really is a series of presentations (and, as a business professional, you're going to be called on to present information) the question is, what are you presenting? What is your presentation saying? Author: ...

» Lessons Learned: It's Not Just a Good Idea...

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Call them "Lessons Learned," "Retrospectives," "Postmortems," or whatever you wish; taking the time at the end of each project to look back is almost universally considered to be a good idea. In fact, I can't remember ever having someone tell me that they don't think it is a good idea. "Oh yes!" I am often told, "We should do them!" Author: Alan K...

» How Did You Get That Out Of What I Just Said? Five Rules to Communicating

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Have you found yourself wondering those exact words just moments after a conversation with a co-worker? Or have you found yourself in a heated discussion because of something you've said to your spouse or loved one? Better still, your teenager gives you the "deer caught in the headlights" look when you ask where have they been so late at night? You...

» Never Let a Good Editor Go

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When documenting systems, quality assurance requires quality support people, especially final content editors. They are worth their weight in gold-edged certificates. If you are part of a large project that has a very large documentation aspect, learn to nurture, develop and retain a good editorial staff, and do not forget to keep everyone's skills...

» Effective Stakeholder Relationships

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Any project that is cancelled, not completed, or fails to meet its objectives and has to be written off, is obviously a waste of organization resources and time. However, it is also not enough just to successfully execute a project to completion. A successful project that is not implemented or used because it doesn't meet the customer's or user's r...

» Who Makes the Best Systems Analysts?

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Over the last four decades I have met a lot of Systems Analysts in a lot of different industries. Some impressed me greatly by their knowledge of their business and the systems they designed, but I have also met a lot of duds along the way. When I think about the better ones, I consider the attributes they share which I can narrow down to three are...

» The Elements of a Good Feasibility Study

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In its simplest form, a Feasibility Study represents a definition of a problem or opportunity to be studied, an analysis of the current mode of operation, a definition of requirements, an evaluation of alternatives, and an agreed upon course of action. As such, the activities for preparing a Feasibility Study are generic in nature and can be applie...

» FEATURED: So you want to be a Business Analyst?

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So you want to be a Business Analyst? “Analyst – analyse thyself….” Introduction This is what Business Analysts do in the real world when embarking on a new project: they analyse… Why? Why are we doing this project - what is the business problem/need and so what measures and targets for those measures will define what success ...

» Process Models Bridge the Requirements Gap

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Defining business requirements accurately is one of the most important success factors for technology projects. Rather than focus on solutions that satisfy a list of requirements, we need to focus on solutions that satisfy desired business outcomes. The best way to achieve this is by performing business process modeling. Employing a vi...

» Is Systems Development an Art or a Science?

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Good question! What do you think? This is an important question which is ultimately at the heart of a lot of the problems in systems and software development. There is one camp that believes development to be an art form requiring free-spirited creative types of people, and another camp believing it to be a science requiring people that are more d...

» Estimating by Percentages

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Having been involved with the systems methodologies field for over 30 years I have been occasionally asked what percentage of time in a project should typically be devoted to a specific phase of work, for example a Phase 1 Feasibility Study, Phase 2 Systems Design, etc. Basically, the reason the person wants to know this is to use it as a means for...

» Best Practices for Agile/Lean Documentation

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Ideally, an agile document is just barely good enough, or just barely sufficient, for the situation at hand. Documentation is an important part of agile software development projects, but unlike traditionalists who often see documentation as a risk reduction strategy, agilists typically see documentation as a strategy which increases overall projec...

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Business Analyst Articles: Business Analysis & Systems Analysis

Entries for March 2008

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

Business Analyst Articles: Business Analysis & Systems Analysis

Entries for March 2008

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