Tuesday, May 21, 2013

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Entries for the 'Analytical and Problem Solving Skills' Category


» Feedback cycles, meet deadlines. NOT good bedfellows
Article Rating (1600 Views) (0 Comments)
  Its quite a feat of strength to pretend you don’t have any weaknesses. I don’t pretend to be that strong. Its quite a bit easier for me to look for faults, gaps, misses, short comings, imperfections and details that spell out why something is not right. Its a blessing and a curse. Looking at my deliverables in this light is second nature...
Posted by: theBetterBA

» The Role of the Requirements Analyst in Driving Specialized Development Teams to Success
Article Rating (2534 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

» BA Careers - Is industry experience more important than Analytical skill?
Article Rating (3866 Views) (5 Comments)
  Business Analysts often delve into business requirements, gathering, understanding and documenting business processes and functions. An analytical mind and detailed information gathering are considered to be essential; one wonders though, if industry experience is a must for good business analysis skills. After all, if you knew well the ins...
Posted by: HSantanam

» Learned Processes
Article Rating (2374 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

» Being New 101
Article Rating (2222 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

» Lessons for a Good Hair Cut
Article Rating (1965 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?
Article Rating (1955 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

» BA World Sydney - A review
Article Rating (3988 Views) (0 Comments)
I went to the Business Analyst World Conference in Melbourne on the 19th and 20th of July. Like last year it was a great event.  On day 1 I spent the whole day in one room (introducing speakers.) and got to listen to three very different stories. Matthew Coppola from Perth training outfit Paramount Training gave a talk on Und...
Posted by: Craig Brown

» Work Harder, Not Smarter
Article Rating (1746 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?
Article Rating (2653 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

» Creating Accurate Time Estimates
Article Rating (3996 Views) (3 Comments)
By Landerson I recently joined a new project where I will be working as the person responsible for the developing and creating the requirements and documentation on a major development effort. As the person on the hook for a significant portion of work, I need to provide accurate time estimates for my portions of the project. I was concerned about...
Posted by: Seilevel

» How to solve problems?
Article Rating (3442 Views) (2 Comments)
As an analyst I almost daily have to solve some kind of problems and I bet you do also. Problems can be in different forms, but I’ve been noticing that the same pattern for finding the solution keeps coming up. I think this pattern is something essential and we use it often but i think it is a good idea to put it on paper. First, every problem has...
Posted by: Karl

» Quantitative Risk Analysis
Article Rating (2129 Views) (4 Comments)
I may be overreaching but I include risk analysis as a proper subject of systems analysis. I've done enough TRAs to justify that position—at least to myself. So here's a risk analysis topic. Toying with the idea of getting some certification I took a look at the CISSP and ISC Common Body of Knowledge.  One thing I found odd enough to exchan...
Posted by: Marc Thibault
  
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