Entries for 'Transform VA'

This year’s top 10 business analysis trends show that in many ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same. In 2014, the focus will continue to be on delivering business value to the organization by leveraging the power of requirements at all levels through Agile and business architecture. Business analysts (BAs) will also continue their quest to take on new skills to meet a broader job scope and the needs of more multidisciplinary roles.

Have you heard it said that ‘business rules define the operational boundaries of an organization’? Do they?... Something is being bounded by business rules, but what? Does scope need to be understood in some deeper, richer sense? And how do these issues relate to smart business processes?

The path to choosing a third party business process management (BPM) system is riddled with potential pitfalls. The decision can make or break a business, so it’s worth the time and effort to get it right.

At the core of a good requirements management system is a good business process, not a fancy tool. Such process needs to clearly define how changes will be submitted and approved, and how team members will be notified when a change affects downstream or upstream work.

In a new business analyst role, typically there will be a few types of requirements documents that are most commonly created...  In this article, I’ll go through 7 steps you can take to write better requirements documentation or learn how to write a new type of requirements document.

You’re a successful Business Analyst, but are now ready to take the next step to advance your career. So what is your next step? Do you need to move out of business analysis to advance? Are you a BA who wants to see where your career may go in or beyond Business Analysis? Are you interested in managing BA teams or leading BA teams on projects?

Requirements Planning is an important part of the requirements development process that is often overlooked. Requirements Planning is the brains of requirement development and enables successful execution of the requirements phase.  Developing a Requirements Approach is a way to capitalize on the following benefits of effective requirements planning...

The traditional axiom in business analysis that there should be a “Berlin Wall” between analysis and design is being torn down these days. Several authors and thought leaders are arguing that you cannot do analysis without designing and that you cannot design without analysis. This article is striving to visualize why this is really so.

Have you ever been confused about why you were not allowed to do what you tried to do? Been judged or evaluated in a way you didn’t expect? Stumped by the result or decision a business system produced? If so you are a ‘why victim’.
 

The goal of DMN is to provide a notation for decisions understandable to all audiences, including business and technical people. This is good news and is the very reason we introduced The Decision Model (TDM) to the public in 2009

Business analysts are jacks-of-all-trades -- and masters of some... unfortunately, many BAs fall short. They often spread themselves too thin, lack the requisite confidence to speak with authority, or don’t understand fully the important role they play.

Do you know? If not, should you? I’m using BA as an abbreviation for Business Analyst (really, though, it’s one who performs business analysis regardless of the title) and BOT for “Business Order Taker” (also an abbreviated term for ROBOT). They are different in the way they approach business analysis.

It’s pretty rare to be a business analyst and not facilitate meetings...  In this article, we’ll look at 3 possible roles new BAs fill in meetings, how to expand your meeting facilitation experience, and review 5 critical meeting facilitation techniques that will help you run working, productive meetings.
 

This article examines how to use tabulation to write better business rules. If you’re not writing business rules, well, you should be. Fortunately, the very same guidelines apply to writing requirements in general, so there is much to be gained on all fronts.

There are a myriad of requirements elicitation methods. The BABOK lists nine (Brainstorming, Document Analysis, Focus Groups, Interface Analysis, Interviews, Observation, Prototyping, Requirements Workshops, Survey/Questionnaire), but there are many more methods out there such as protocol analysis , job application design , and so on).