Business Analyst Community & Resources | Modern Analyst

The Community Blog for Business Analysts

Leadership & Management

NO Image:

Seilevel

IT Black Ops

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...

0 Responses

This entry was published on Aug 22, 2010 / Seilevel. Posted in Project Management, Soft Skills, Leadership & Management, Technical Topics, Roles and Responsibilities. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Seilevel

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

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...

1 Responses

This entry was published on Aug 17, 2010 / Seilevel. Posted in Project Management, Business Analysis, Analytical and Problem Solving Skills, Leadership & Management. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Seilevel

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

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...

0 Responses

This entry was published on Aug 12, 2010 / Seilevel. Posted in Project Management, Business Analysis, Leadership & Management. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Seilevel

Building Credibility With Your Team

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...

0 Responses

This entry was published on Jul 28, 2010 / Seilevel. Posted in Business Analysis, Soft Skills, Leadership & Management. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Seilevel

How many Business Analysts do I need on my project?

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...

0 Responses

This entry was published on Jul 27, 2010 / Seilevel. Posted in Project Management, Business Analysis, Leadership & Management, Career as a Business Systems Analyst, Roles and Responsibilities. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Craig Brown

BA World Sydney - A review

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...

0 Responses

This entry was published on Jul 26, 2010 / Craig Brown. Posted in Business Analysis, Analytical and Problem Solving Skills, Soft Skills, Leadership & Management, SDLC, Process, and Methodologies, Structured Systems Analysis (DFDs, ERDs, etc.), Agile Methods, Rational Unified Process (RUP), Career as a Business Systems Analyst. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Seilevel

Is Your Product Knowldege an Asset or Liability?

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...

0 Responses

This entry was published on Jul 14, 2010 / Seilevel. Posted in Project Management, Business Analysis, Analytical and Problem Solving Skills, Leadership & Management, Career as a Business Systems Analyst, Roles and Responsibilities. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Miles Barker

BA Careers - Domain knowledge versus analysis skills

I've been thinking a lot recently about the value of the BA, and BA recruitment - at all levels. A common question that comes up is "Do I need to have experience in Industry X/Domain Y to work as a BA in that industry/domain?" In a nutshell: Is it like that now? Yes. Should it be like that? Probably no...

7 Responses

This entry was published on May 27, 2010 / Miles Barker. Posted in Business Analysis, Interviewing & Hiring Business Systems Analysts, Leadership & Management, Career as a Business Systems Analyst. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Derek Roos

Blurring the Lines between Business and IT

A “What If” question for business analysts and IT professionals… What if it suddenly became very easy for someone to do both your job and their own, at the same time? If history provides any forecast for the future of IT, we are likely to see some interesting changes in the way human capital is managed – especially for those of us involved in the...

3 Responses

This entry was published on Jan 21, 2010 / Derek Roos . Posted in Requirements Analysis (BABOK KA) , Leadership & Management, Agile Methods, Career as a Business Systems Analyst, Roles and Responsibilities, Tools. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

David Wright

Who owns a Project? and, who is IT’s Customer?

Who owns a project? “You pay for it, it’s yours.” I am sure I am quoting (or misquoting) someone here, but you get the idea. For an IT project of any size or worth, someone senior enough to be an effective sponsor is usually desired, along with the budget to ‘pay’ for it. I put ‘pay’ in quotes because all the dollars spent on a projec...

0 Responses

This entry was published on Mar 12, 2009 / David Wright. Posted in Project Management, Leadership & Management. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Page 5 of 6

First Previous 1 2 3 4 [5] 6 Next Last

Modern Analyst Blog Latests

Jarett Hailes

Three Audacious Goals for Business Analysts in 2013

As we start a new year many of us will take the time to reflect on our accomplishments from 2012 and plan our goals for 2013. We can set small or large goals. goals that will be accomplished quickly or could take several years. For 2013, I think Business Analysts should look to go beyond our traditional boundaries and set audacious goals. Merriam-...

Howard Podeswa

Hey IIBA, What’s Up With That?

Recently, I was asked by the IIBA to present a talk at one of their chapter meetings. I am reprinting here my response to that invitation in the hope that it will begin a conversation with fellow EEPs and BAs about an area of great concern to the profession. Hi xx …. Regarding the IIBA talk, there is another issue that I am considering. It's p...

Adrian M.

BA ABCs: “C” is for Class Diagram

Continuing the ABC series for Business Analysts, Howard Podeswa created the next installment titled "BA ABCs: “C” is for Class Diagram" as an article rather than a blog post. You can find the article here: BA ABCs: “C” is for Class Diagram Here are the previous two posts: BA ABCs: “A” is for Activity Diagram BA ABCs: “B” is for BPMN