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The Community Blog for Business Analysts

Adrian M.

BA: If You Want to Succeed, You've Got to Read!

To be an average analyst is fairly simple... .... all you have to do is go to all the meetings, complete all the mandatory training courses, and listen to feedback from your manager. But... IF you want to be a GREAT analyst - if you want to truly be successful THEN that's not enough. To truly succ...

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This entry was published on Nov 16, 2014 / Adrian M.. Posted in Career as a Business Systems Analyst. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Martin@DocProd

Three Great Tools for Managing Bulleted Lists

This post describes three great tools for managing bulleted lists in Microsoft Word. They allow you to automatically punctuate them , reorder them , and select them for further processing. This post complements my earlier article Three Great Tools for Editing Tables that described tools for efficiently entering and numbering the content in Micr...

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This entry was published on Oct 20, 2014 / Martin@DocProd. Posted in Tools. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Martin@DocProd

Three Great Tools for Editing Tables

I use Microsoft Word a great deal in my work as a BA, it is my primary tool for formally communicating text based project deliverables. Where I can, I like to use tables, so that I can quickly capture information and present it without having to write full, grammatically correct paragraphs. Over the last few years, I have prepared a numbe...

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This entry was published on Aug 23, 2014 / Martin@DocProd. Posted in Tools. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Thai Son

Relative Item Point (RIP) Estimate Methodology

ABSTRACT Software development is burdened with high levels of complexity (and many unknowns), yet it requires perfection for the software to compile and work. Because of these factors, no estimation approach is going to be foolproof. It is believed that relative item point estimation is just as accurate as any alternative (WBS, UCP) while offering...

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This entry was published on Aug 22, 2014 / Thai Son. Posted in Estimation. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

sbowling999

Dealing with Difficult Stakeholders

The question will undoubtedly arise during your tenure as a business analyst, ‘How do I manage a difficult stakeholder?’ I once encountered a stakeholder, a very highly respected mathematician, who had developed an application based on a mathematical model of his weather systems. The algorithm was amazing. The application sucked. It wa...

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This entry was published on Jul 27, 2014 / sbowling999. Posted in Business Process Management (BPM) , Elicitation (BABOK KA), Requirements Analysis (BABOK KA) , 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 ...

1 Responses

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.

Łukasz Pasek

Modeling complex logic with Warnier diagrams

Warnier diagrams are not well known. They were introduced in the age of Structured Systems Analysis and are now forgotten. However they are the best tool for solving complex problems. Sometimes you need to model complex logic with multiple different exception scenarios. Sometimes you need to come up with requirements for complex functionality like ...

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This entry was published on May 23, 2014 / Łukasz Pasek. Posted in Structured Systems Analysis (DFDs, ERDs, etc.). Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Frank Pipolo

Brainstorming: A Powerful Tool in Business Analysis

(Image credit: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/14918242487402982/) Tired of holding those long and boring meetings with your analysts and stakeholders to encourage them to come up with new ideas and strategies for your business? It seems more of drudgery than a productive exercise when you find yourself lecturing your team for hours on en...

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This entry was published on Apr 01, 2014 / Frank Pipolo. Posted in Business Analysis Planning (BABOK KA). Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Pjbussol

Come to me with problems, not solutions

“Bring me solutions, not problems”. How often have we heard those words uttered by management? In the main it’s a sensible ask however, for a Business Analyst, quite the opposite is true. Our job is to define business problems when often we are presented with solutions. “We need a new reporting tool because the MI we receive isn’t always cor...

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This entry was published on Mar 28, 2014 / Pjbussol. Posted in Business Analysis, Analytical and Problem Solving Skills, Career as a Business Systems Analyst. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Trividh Patel, CBAP

How Do I Become A Business Analyst?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions I have encountered ever since I have started training business analysts. Before exploring ‘how’, one should ask ‘why do I want to become a business analyst?’ Is it just because every talented individual want to do it, or you want better opportunity, or for better salary. In my opinion, if you have...

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This entry was published on Mar 05, 2014 / Trividh Patel, CBAP. Posted in Interviewing & Hiring Business Systems Analysts, 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