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Seilevel

How do you determine if you have a business rule?

On a recent client’s project, we were asked to help in the effort of creating a system to automate much of the current manual processes. In order to capture the requirements this also meant that we were documenting the business rules that were currently being used. When I started the project, I did not have a complete understanding...

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This entry was published on Jul 23, 2010 / Seilevel. Posted in Business Rules, Business Analysis. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Seilevel

Work Harder, Not Smarter

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...

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This entry was published on Jul 22, 2010 / Seilevel. Posted in Business Analysis, Analytical and Problem Solving Skills, Tools. 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...

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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.

Marc Thibault

Planning for Uncertainty

The probability that a project will succeed is different for different cost and time targets. There isn't a single right answer to "How long will it take?" or "How much will it cost?" There are a whole bunch of answers, each with its own probability of being right. The conventional techniques for planning projects only give us one answer—and it's ...

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This entry was published on Jul 12, 2010 / Marc Thibault. Posted in Business Analysis Planning (BABOK KA), Project Management, Estimation. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Seilevel

Creating Accurate Time Estimates

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...

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This entry was published on Jun 25, 2010 / Seilevel. Posted in Business Analysis, Analytical and Problem Solving Skills, Technical Topics, Tools. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Seilevel

“So, what do you do for a living?”: A BA/Product Manager’s guide to surviving cocktail parties

By Jhulgan I used to dread hearing the question, “So what do you do for a living?” This was often usually asked by a family member or other acquaintances not familiar with the software development lifecycle, IT, or business processes in general. For business analysts, product managers, and other software requirements types, it’s diffic...

5 Responses

This entry was published on Jun 10, 2010 / Seilevel. Posted in Requirements Management and Communication (BABOK KA), Business Analysis, Interviewing & Hiring Business Systems Analysts, Soft Skills, Career as a Business Systems Analyst, Salary Info for the Business Systems Analyst, Getting Started as a Business Systems Analyst, Technical Topics, Roles and Responsibilities. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Dr. Mohamed El-Attar

Academia World vs. Industry World

I am a firm believer in the value of a business analysts and requirements engineering. I am an new Assistant Professor and I have been conducting research in the field for over 6 years now and I can safely say that there is a HUGE gap between the academic and practitioner worlds with respect to business analysis and requirements engi...

1 Responses

This entry was published on Jun 08, 2010 / Dr. Mohamed El-Attar. Posted in Business Analysis. 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.

Martin

Humor: Project Management Speak vs. Business Analysis Wisdom

It is common for project managers to question the number of BAs they need on a project or how much time needs to be spent on analysis. The underlying concern seems to be a fear of “analysis paralysis”. Whilst not overtly stated, for many project managers, analysis is a necessary evil that if not carefully controlled, will delay the “real” work of w...

3 Responses

This entry was published on May 13, 2010 / Martin. Posted in Project Management, Business Analysis, Roles and Responsibilities. Bookmark the Permalink or E-mail it to a friend.

Karl

How to solve problems?

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...

2 Responses

This entry was published on Apr 26, 2010 / Karl. Posted in Analytical and Problem Solving Skills. 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