The Community Blog for Business Analysts

Everyone knows what use cases are and their use in the software requirements process. We all know there are many ways to write them: logical, physical, to describe a manual procedure or an automated procedure. The purpose of State Diagrams is well-known to everyone in the field. They help us define the transitional lifecycle of an object moving and...

Business analysts who are self-avowed social media enthusiasts will tell you that being part of a large, online community where help is only a click away is worth the time and effort. In fact, these professionals suggest that the only problem with a bit of scanning, reading, clicking, or posting on LinkedIn and Twitter every day is finding the time...

I started my career as the administrator in a project management department.  The first fact drilled into my head was that “the job ain’t finished until the paperwork is done’.  To emphasize this fact, this rule was printed and put up on the wall with a picture of a toilet paper roll.  It worked.  I know you can see the picture ...

Teams and organizations are constantly plagued by project execution errors and failures. These failures create an execution gap -- a gap between what an individual and/or team plans to do and what they actually do instead. Just as retention rapidly degrades after learning, so does project execution after strategic planning. So what can be done? In...

Business Process Modeling (BPM) is one of the cornerstone techniques in electing requirements from our stakeholders. Business Analyst will use the model to gain an understanding of the current system and paint a picture of the solution. In the IT field, we often describe this as modeling the “As-IS” process and modeling the “To-Be” process. We deve...

Do you know how to provide collaborative leadership in a disciplined fashion? And how does one define disciplined collaboration? The current business and leadership literature touts the importance of collaborating in our turbulent world. Large and small businesses and teams struggle to wrap their heads around just what collaboration is. Many see co...

Do you know what your business's core competencies are? Is there just one or are there many organizational attributes? If you answered that there are many, how would you describe them succinctly? Core competencies are one or a combination of a few unique or rare abilities; however, a description of core competencies is not simply a laundry list of ...

  ISO 25010, "Systems and software engineering - System and software quality models" was published in March 2011. The ISO 25010 standard defines 2 broad non-functional categories of requirements, "Quality in use" and "Product quality", articulated in 13 characteristics, many of which are further subdivided into sub-characteristics. This new ...

Gravity can be a wonderful thing. It is an irresistible force that keeps us grounded on this big, beautiful, floating blue marble. It is even applicable to organizations in the form of organizational gravity. For example, I worked with an organization that coined a catch phrase for a challenge beyond its scope of control, deeming the situation a "g...

In today's management environment, new forms of and tools for corporate leadership development programs have emerged. One of the most popular development tools is executive coaching. The number of executive coaches has more than doubled in the past decade and corporate leadership development programs are utilizing their services more frequently. Ho...