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Andrii Siryi

When Should an Analyst Suggest Using Queues in Integrations?

One of the most underrated skills for a business or system analyst in integration projects is knowing when to recommend a message queue — tools like RabbitMQ, Kafka, or Azure Service Bus. Let’s be honest: not every integration needs one. But when it does, queues can save your system from chaos. What Queues Actually Solve Messag...

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This entry was published on Oct 28, 2025 / Andrii Siryi. Posted in Business Analysis Planning (BABOK KA), Business Process Management (BPM) , Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) , Elicitation (BABOK KA), Enterprise Analysis (BABOK KA), Requirements Analysis (BABOK KA) , Requirements Management and Communication (BABOK KA), Use Cases, Functional Specifications. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Andrii Siryi

Field Mapping vs. Canonical Data Model — Which One Wins in Integrations?

When building integrations between systems, one of the first architectural choices you’ll face is how to align data between them. Two main approaches dominate this conversation: direct field mapping and the canonical data model. Let’s break them down. Field Mapping: Simple but Fragile Field mapping means you connect each field f...

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Andrii Siryi

YAML-Based Story Mapping

System Analysts who work with integration processes should formulate user stories in a way that diverges from the traditional structure. This is primarily due to the need for a more technical and structured description, which allows for the inclusion of integration-specific details. The user story might need to specify exactly what kind of data ...

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Trividh Patel, CBAP

Top 10 Mistakes in Requirements Elicitation

Elicitation involves bringing out or drawing out information. Elicitation is a key task in business analysis as without proper elicitation the requirements for the solution to the business needs cannot be identified. 1. Not understanding underlying business need Organization’s business environment keeps changing with respect to Customer...

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This entry was published on Apr 27, 2021 / Trividh Patel, CBAP. Posted in Business Analysis Planning (BABOK KA), Elicitation (BABOK KA), Enterprise Analysis (BABOK KA), Requirements Analysis (BABOK KA) , Requirements Management and Communication (BABOK KA), Solution Assessment and Validation (BABOK KA), Project Management, Systems Analysis, Business Analysis, Analytical and Problem Solving Skills, Soft Skills, Leadership & Management, Technical Topics, Roles and Responsibilities. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Dan Tasker

Requirements In Context Part 2: The Functional View From 10,000 Feet

In Part 1 of this series it was stated that the overall objective of these articles is to improve the quality of requirements produced by business analysts. Following the adage that “Context is Everything” it established that a number of different contexts will&n...

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This entry was published on Apr 28, 2019 / Dan Tasker. Posted in Enterprise Analysis (BABOK KA), Requirements Analysis (BABOK KA) , Systems Analysis, Business Analysis. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Rohela Raouf

UX Canvas

Have you woken up in the middle of night thinking how am I going to steer my team, give them the direction that they need but at the same time not constraint in what they want to build/deliver. I recently went through one of these night- I have joined an interesting project where we have very tight timescale to deliver a tech product to operational...

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This entry was published on Oct 26, 2017 / Rohela Raouf. Posted in Enterprise Analysis (BABOK KA). Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Edward Mzwandile Ngubane

Experience Age - a new era

A few weeks ago, one of my colleagues surprised me with a statement he made during our team meeting that the information technology age is coming to an end. I looked at him in complete disbelief. How can the advances that have brought so much convenience to our lives be said to be coming to an end. I thought he must be mistaken, and just like...

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This entry was published on Dec 14, 2016 / Edward Mzwandile Ngubane. Posted in Enterprise Analysis (BABOK KA). Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Paul Crosby

Pablo Picasso and Scope Visualization

Scope – the last frontier. We are on a mission where no business analyst has gone before. To explore strange new diagrams and to have the project scope clearly understood. Extra credit to those who remember which TV show that was from! Scope and context are the number one reason business expectations about a project ar...

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This entry was published on Sep 07, 2016 / Paul Crosby. Posted in Business Analysis Planning (BABOK KA), Enterprise Analysis (BABOK KA), Requirements Analysis (BABOK KA) , Requirements Management and Communication (BABOK KA), Systems Analysis, Business Analysis, Leadership & Management, Getting Started as a Business Systems Analyst. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Alan

BABOK v2 - End-to-end data flow diagram analysis can highlight issues

As part of preparation to sit the IIBA CBAP exam, I wanted a one page summary of the overall BABOK flow. The first step of creating a summary matrix showing a derived master list of documents (e.g. Inputs + Outputs) versus the process that creates or uses it was interesting, but not entirely helpful. By using the matrix to create an indicative ...

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This entry was published on Jul 09, 2014 / Alan. Posted in Business Analysis Planning (BABOK KA), Elicitation (BABOK KA), Enterprise Analysis (BABOK KA), Requirements Analysis (BABOK KA) , Requirements Management and Communication (BABOK KA), Solution Assessment and Validation (BABOK KA), Business Analysis, Structured Systems Analysis (DFDs, ERDs, etc.), IIBA & BABOK. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

theBetterBA

Feedback cycles, meet deadlines. NOT good bedfellows

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...

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This entry was published on Dec 08, 2012 / theBetterBA. Posted in Enterprise Analysis (BABOK KA), Requirements Analysis (BABOK KA) , Project Management, Business Analysis, Analytical and Problem Solving Skills, Soft Skills, Estimation, Getting Started as a Business Systems Analyst. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

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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