Entries for 'Transform VA'

It looked like it would be a while before I would get to see Doctor BA I was on assignment in Singapore and Doctor BA was somewhere in the Alps. So as not to lose touch with him, I asked him some of the questions I received using email. Doctor BA didn’t use Twitter which he said was “for the birds”. I didn’t want to argue the point.

Efficient and smooth workflow practices are believed to be accomplished through Agile methodologies with an emphasis on flexibility and rigor to optimize utilization of resources. Two popular implementations of Agile are Scrum and Kanban. In would be fitting to compare and analyze these processes, in an attempt to understand the dynamics behind their respective methodologies.

Customers are demanding better service and they know they can get it and BAs have a duty to provide it through Lean Business Analysis (LBA). Not because customers see better service from a business’s competitors. But because they get it from all the other companies they interact with in their daily lives as consumers of Uber and Apple and Amazon and Netlfix and many more. They don’t care that one company is a bank and Uber’s an app.

I understand that the business analyst does not have the authority to make decisions about the project or the product, but the business analyst does make decisions. What are the decisions that a business analyst has to make throughout the solution life cycle?

How can a business analyst mindset transform the practice surrounding good retrospectives, create an engaging meeting, and promote active change across their team? There’s no tried and true formula to a Retrospective, but I have found the ones that are the most successful rely on the characteristics and practices of good BAs. Thus, conducting Retrospectives that are data driven, clear, honest, creative, and experimental. Why? 

Success and failure are difficult to define and measure since they may mean different things to different people. An assumption that success can be quantified seldom holds true in the face of an ever-changing yardstick used to measure success. What might be considered to be a successful attribute today can be rendered unsuccessful under the influence of dynamic and multi-dimensional constraints.  A project is primarily implemented to target a predefined outcome, and it is imperative to measure the output in order to determine the benefit derived through the project. However, benefits realized do not necessarily add up to success. Project ‘success’ is different than ‘benefits realization’.

“Well it just so happens that I have a question about tools.”

"What tools do you suggest a business analyst use in pursuit of his or her vocation? What tools can be used as best practices for business analysts?”

How do you become a business analyst and where do you begin?  So you want to cross over to the land of analysis? A land of ‘schizophrenic’ people who need to possess multiple skills and make meaning out of ambiguity. You'll need to break down complex problems into bite-size chunks that can be easily understood. You'll also need to manage different stakeholders and break down knowledge barriers formed by these stakeholders. (Most having been in their organisations for decades) Finally, you'll need to develop a thick skin to stand in the firing line.

 

One of the key aspects to be considered before implementation of Agile methodologies is the degree of agility suitable for the organization. Due consideration should be given to the ‘current state’ before we create a proposal for the ‘future state’ of agility desired. Neglecting this aspect may invalidate the very purpose behind the endeavor.  Degree of agility refers to the relative ability of an organization to adapt to the lightweight methodologies in conjunction with an assessment of current state process maturity.

A long, long time ago in a land far, far away…. a project delivery team was busily spending their days delivering projects. They were tasked with delivering change projects and often these included software delivery. This team consisted of people with a variety of skillsets, personalities and experiences. Some of them were project managers, some were analysis and some were developers. Others were software testers and others were business experts and non-project people.

Since 2009 we have enjoyed reflecting on what’s happened the previous year on projects and making predictions for the upcoming year. Here are some of the recent trends we have discussed: agile successes and challenges, recognize the importance of roles that help maximize value, Scaling Agile, Certification trends in business analysis, etc...

Here are the seven industry trends that we have chosen for 2018.

During a recent presentation to business analysts, I used one of my consulting projects as an example of how to apply an analysis technique we were discussing. A member of the audience asked, “What made this company hire you as a BA consultant to tackle this project, when they already have so many in-house product managers and business analysts on their teams?”

In his classic book Flawless Consulting, Peter Block described three types of roles that consultants might take on: expert, pair-of-hands, and collaborator. Each of these represents a different kind of interaction when working with clients and a different source of satisfaction for the consultant. Business analysts can engage with clients in the same three modes. This article describes some of my experiences with these three modes of consulting engagements.

Intelligent Business Requirements are business needs and objectives that were designed to add business value and promote scalability and innovation.

‘Project success’ is the attainment of predefined criteria that emerge from attainment of user requirements. User requirements, in turn, are defined by an evaluation of the business and functional requirements. Thus requirements pave the path that leads to project success.

Given the speed of change, it is really tricky to predict what trends will grow in popularity or relevance. I am sure whatever emerges will seem obvious in hindsight, even if it would have been difficult to foresee. Yet, I have always thought that making predictions has a useful place in that it creates a conversation and it creates debates. So, what follows is designed to provoke discussion, and is intended to represent ‘potential trends to watch’.