Discovery of real needs is the responsibility of the business analyst. Choosing the optimal solution is usually the responsibility of the stakeholders. Working together, both parties can ensure that they are providing the maximum business value.

Requirements are inputs to achieve the project objectives that transcend from routine operations to enhance the value proposition of a business endeavour. Stakeholders invariably perceive an endeavour to be successful only if they are able to clearly correlate the derived outcome to predefined business requirements. Thus project success is best defined in terms of effective user requirements.

While others are moving forward introducing new banking products, the Americans find themselves in the role of constantly fighting fires. You cannot move forward until you put your house in order by bringing standard practices and discipline into your work effort. This is what happens when you treat system design as an art form, as opposed to a science.

Follow this script at the beginning of your requirements discovery process, and you should see visible results in terms of the quality of your solution requirements. This checklist will help you anchor any and all discussions about features and designs on how they will help your customers achieve their desired outcomes and benefits. It will also allow you to define a valuable, usable, and feasible solution without having to rely on your customers being able to describe it for you.

The Agile Manifesto was born out of frustration by a group of developers who were fed up with how software was being developed. Software development is a learning experience and no one understands this better than those who are actually writing the code. Waterfall was a misguided concept that seems reasonable on the surface but does not work in reality. Since software development is a learning process it is impossible to think of every single requirement up front and have them signed in blood before starting development.

I am constantly coming across alleged ‘business analysts’, many new to the industry, sauntering confidently into a project or an organization. Typically, the first thing they do when assigned requirements elicitation is organize a workshop. These people are engaging, charming, energetic, and, in many cases, evangelistic. They are very adept at gaining the undivided attention of their audience.  However, their primary and, in most cases, their only concern is determining what the client wants and what the problem is without a thought to a workable action plan to improve anything. 

Are the current IT systems meet the requirements of Business users or deliver the services that will bring competitive advantage to the organizations?

IT projects continuing to cost overrun, time overrun or doesn’t meet requirements. Poor communication – particularly between business and technical experts – is a constant problem. – As per Financial Times

I selected a topic, in this case Business Process Management, and then developed an initial outline of talking points for the webinar. I then iteratively build a slide deck with text that explains the ideas and images that stimulate the imagination on the concepts. With the slides done, I develop formal text on each slide along with estimated delivery time. This is what I called my baseline deck for the presentation.

Usage of one enterprise architecture language capable of expressing concerns from technology layers to business needs and drivers gives tremendous benefits to the organization. It streamlines the communication and enables easy collaboration between Enterprise and Business Architects...  ArchiMate was deliberately aligned to be compliant with the TOGAF 9 framework. It is also very useful for people practicing (high-level) Business Analysis, according to the BABOK Guide. 

Many business analysts focus their full attention on tasks related to specifying, modeling, verifying, and validating requirements. And in doing so, they often forget about a critically important aspect of the BA work:requirements prioritization... Since good prioritizing skills help teams deliver business value faster, it’s a key competency for business analysts to develop. An effective to get better at prioritizing requirements is to follow this 3-step approach during the requirements discovery process.

This article briefly summarizes the CBAP and CCBA programs, and how eligible business analysts can create a “foolproof” plan to obtain their certification. Bear in mind that any certification plan is only foolproof if you personalize it, commit to it, and follow it. The majority of the article covers the crucial steps for your plan and several tips to help you execute it to become certified.

This is the story of an outsourced contract for development involving a Financial Services Company (BigNameCo) and an Outsourcing company (ServCo). It appeared to be a simple development project, but in the process, the CIO was fired!

The Top 10 Trends in Business Analysis for 2016 examines the evolving ways in which BA practitioners can help organizations realize better business value and the shifts needed within the BA discipline to achieve it. The 2016 trends highlight BAs evolution from “order taker and liaison” between stakeholders to an increased focus on being an “agent of change”, and communicating and collaborating about much more than requirements.

I’m frequently asked to summarize what business problems the business rule approach was created to address. Here’s my take on that important question. I believe the potential benefits for your company are compelling.

Business Requirements are central to Software Development Offshoring relationship. Requirements are not hard objects that can be put across as formulas or equations. Irrespective of the artifacts used in requirements communication, requirements remain soft objects subject to various interpretations that may leave many voids for assumptions.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the challenges of requirements communication in Software Development projects.