The Community Blog for Business Analysts

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...

Not a suggestion for eliminating the process of documenting a software application, but rather a proposed for replacement of the documenting activity and manually produced documents with something more manageable and less likely to frighten the development team. Initiative for this work comes from a number of discussions I have been following and ...

Ad Hoc Procedures My belief is that software development should be more of a science and contain as little artistry as necessary. It is great to come up with ingenious processes and guidelines for developing your software, but if they impact your colleagues you must get buy-in from everyone who is impacted before you start using them. Some people...

Unnecessary Documentation The first section that I look for in a document, is the paragraph that describes ‘who this document is written for’ and ‘what benefit they can expect to gain by reading this document’. If I do not see my role, or I do not see any benefit from me spending time reading the document, then I have to ask myself the question, ‘...

If you are writing a letter to your mother, it is fine to create a new a new blank document, type your random thoughts, add highlighting, colors and emphasized text where you want to make and get a point across, and basically format the document with any creative ideas that you feel appropriate. When working with documents in the workplace, ad hoc...

I may be overreaching but I include risk analysis as a proper subject of systems analysis. I've done enough TRAs to justify that position—at least to myself. So here's a risk analysis topic. Toying with the idea of getting some certification I took a look at the CISSP and ISC Common Body of Knowledge.  One thing I found odd enough to exchan...

SAP has announced a SaaS BI service that looks ideal for SMBs.  It seems to have all the tricks you'd expect, so it's worth learning about. Problem: SAP is being cute about their pricing and I don't want to waste a lot of time on this if it turns out to be another overpriced SAP product. Has anyone got any idea what SAP intends t...

How many times have you experienced a disagreement between colleagues, only find out later in the project that they were both correct. Chances are that they were using the same word, but both had different ideas of its meaning. [1] I can derive hours of entertainment by playing word games with my friends, by picking a word they are using and purpo...

How often do you see the same piece of information documented in 2 places? I am used to seeing requirements information copied into design documents; whole sets of requirements being copied into a test repository and diagrams copied from one document to another. Unless you employ a strict change management control system that includes a traceabilit...

This following blogs contain rants and recommendations for good practices, useful not only for when delivering software, but that can also be used any time organization is required. The most common improvements that can be leveraged on any (some on every) development process it has been my experience to be involved with, are the following: ...