Disbenefits are changes to on-going operating costs as a result of a project; they could be perceived as positive or negative. These disbenefits are included in defining the Total Cost of Ownership rather than a component of project cost, and is more of a focus for controllers due to its on-going nature rather than one time project savings and revenue.

Trying to secure a business analyst job interview in an area in which you don’t have prior experience can be a huge challenge. It’s common for recruiters and hiring managers to screen out applicants--no matter how accomplished they seem to be from their resumes--simply because the candidate’s job history doesn’t include work in the target industry...  But how do you get your foot in the door when so many recruiters and hiring managers tend to ignore applications from a candidate whose background doesn’t match the role they are trying to fill? The following tips may help.

When security requirements are considered at all during the system life cycle, they tend to be general lists of security features such as password protection, firewalls, virus detection tools, and the like. These are, in fact, not security requirements at all but rather implementation mechanisms that are intended to satisfy unstated requirements, such as authenticated access. As a result, security requirements that are specific to the system and that provide for protection of essential services and assets are often neglected. In addition, the attacker perspective is not considered, with the result that security requirements, when they exist, are likely to be incomplete. We believe that a systematic approach to security requirements engineering will help to avoid the problem of generic lists of features and to take into account the attacker perspective. Several approaches to security requirements engineering are described here and references are provided for additional material that can help you ensure that your products effectively meet security requirements.

This is the last article in this current  “Deep Dive Models in Agile” series and covers Decision Models, which include both Decision Trees and Decision Tables. Decision Models include two RML System models (Decision Trees and Decision Tables) that detail the system logic that either controls user functions or decides what actions a system will take in various circumstances.

The point is, no amount of elegant programming can solve a system problem without someone who understands the overall system architecture, someone who understands how the business works. Attacking systems development without such orchestration, such as one program at a time, will not produce the desired results. That would be like trying to build a bridge without a set of blueprints; it would probably be disjointed and one end would likely not connect with the other in the middle. 

What is Leading with Influence?... It is about the ability to affect the actions, decisions, and thinking of others to accomplish key goals or tasks that you consider to be important. Simply put, leading with influence is about getting people to willingly follow the direction that you provide when you lack organizational authority. It is about leading when you are not in charge. As a Business Analyst, I want delivery partners on a project to follow the guidance I provide without having to demand their compliance.

While BABOK and other sources include Behavioral Characteristics as an essential underlying competency for business analysts, many analysts may have only a vague idea of how it applies to their personal work environment, or even exactly what behavioral characteristics are, so let’s define those first.... The term behavioral characteristics simply refers to an analyst’s workplace ethics and character. 

The purpose of this brief article is to explain the connection between documenting requirements and contract type. Recently I consulted with a firm eliciting requirements for a new product. In this case, an internal business analyst team was documenting the product requirements by consulting with appropriate stakeholders. The follow-on project intent was to outsource the work to develop the product in the form of a contract.

I take the approach that as Business Analysts, the line between requirements and design is an imaginary line. We need to be pragmatic (abandon purist thinking) and not be afraid to wear the design cloak, to adopt design thinking. 

 

So how do we incorporate design thinking in Business Analysis in a value-add way? Take the following thoughts into consideration when working on your next project that involves building or significantly updating a customer-centric application.

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Author: Michael Roy, Business Analysis Professional / Requirements Leader

Michael is a solutions-focused Business Analysis professional with extensive experience leading change initiatives at a tactical and strategic level.

 

Don't underestimate how pervasively across your organization business rule is misunderstood. What is a true business rule?

A true business rule is simply a criterion used in daily business operations to shape behavior or make decisions. The things that IT implements under today’s software platforms are not true business rules; rather, they are mostly encoded representations of business rules.

I bet everyone has, at least once in their career, heard the expression:

iRise gives Business Analysts the tools they need to communicate clearly with both the business and its stakeholders.  They use working previews that can be virtually indistinguishable from the final product.  When business analysts uses iRise to elicit and document requirements: the business analyst becomes a powerful weapon to get to the right answer, ...

State Models include two RML Data models (State Tables and State Diagrams) that show the transition of an object through various states or statuses, including which transitions are valid and what triggers an object to transition state. A state is a short-form description of a stage in a data object’s life that influences the behavior of the system.

The end products of requirements development for a business analytics project will be similar to those for any other project—a set of business, user, functional, and nonfunctional requirements. Process flows, use cases, and user stories can reveal that someone needs to generate analytics results, and performance requirements describe how quickly they need results, but none of these uncovers the complex knowledge required to implement the system... An effective elicitation strategy for business analysts (BAs) is to drive requirements specification based on the decisions that stakeholders need to make to achieve their business objectives.

A good business definition is not only good because it is clear and concise, but because it holds a clear, exclusive position within its full set of peers – i.e., the glossary for your business vocabulary. This discussion outlines five basic guidelines for ensuring the quality of a glossary holistically, focusing on avoiding naming anomalies, subtle redundancies, and avoiding circularities. Find out how you can become world-class at communicating the meaning of your business concepts. Part of the secret is a clear focus on seed concepts.