This month’s column explores the biological basis of human decision-making based on Lehrer’s book. However, it also suggests that lessons from the human brain can sharpen our decision models2 and enhance the process by which we create and manage them.
 

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, the practice of resume writing is not what it used to be. Resumes must be more clean, concise, and convincing than they were in recent years. Today’s business analysts need every edge they can get.

The ownership of business processes is often a bone of contention – with various parties feeling that they should be considered the owner of certain processes and not of other processes. Inability to agree on ownership can lead to turf-wars when there are perceived overlaps, as well as impactful inaction when no clear owner has been identified.

This article analyses the source of ownership conflict, and makes suggestions regarding resolutions to the problem. It considers the issue of ownership, as well as the issue of custodianship.

Mobile application development is hot. Smart phones and tablets sales are exploding, and technical teams are exploring ideas for new applications. With new development work, sometimes roles like Business Analysis get left behind as programmers rush to code a new mobile app. Even when we’re in a rapidly changing industry, taking a bit of time to work on design is still important. In fact, it can be the difference between an application that is used and one that is discarded and left behind.

Ladies and Gentleman of the class of 2011, adopt SOA. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, SOA would be it. The long term benefits of SOA may not yet have been proven and my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

In this article, I explain a project completed in the financial services industry. A client asked me to lead a project to redesign a failed sub-process that had resulted in billions of dollars of backed up financial transactions. This particular financial process had a history of failed and abandoned process improvement projects. The pressure was on and, I must confess, I was not entirely sure that The Decision Model would be a good fit.

While my co-workers know me as a manager of Business and Systems Analysis, others know me as a Triathlete (A triathlon is multi-sport event involving the completion of three continuous and sequential endurance events; most commonly swimming, bicycling, and running).  It was while reading a recent article about Triathlon that I began to draw a strong parallel between achieving career goals as a business analyst and achieving goals as a triathlete. 

Once while teaching a business analysis elicitation course, a student in the class asked me, “Have you ever had a wasted interview with a stakeholder?” The question took me back, a surprise; a question I had not been asked before.

In an ideal world, all software projects would have an interaction designer or user experience (UX) specialist working with the team to ensure that the product is designed in a way that truly satisfies the needs of end-users. In a software project with separate business analyst and interaction designer roles, the work of these professional is complementary

On February 12, I wrote and passed the CBAP exam on the first try. I had completed my application way back in September but hadn’t been able to find an exam sitting date that I felt would give me enough time to study. I finally decided in December that I would never find the perfect time so I set the date for early February and told myself I’d find a way to make it happen.

I know many of you are still trying to get to grips with Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), so apologies in advance for the potential mental exertion and confusion of introducing Business Oriented Architecture (BOA).

The structure of business analysis documents isn't a commonly discussed topic. This article will show what documents are produced by a Business Analyst and the main sections they contain.

These are the main documents produced by a BA over the course of a project...
 

Business Process Modeling is becoming a higher priority for business managers and analysts as there is an increasing emphasis in organizations to document, understand and improve their business processes. Although Business process modeling provides many important benefits to companies and organizations, however, these five are the most critical and high impact.

You are experiencing success with decision models even without the assistance of decision modeling software. Imagine the possibilities with proper software support!

Business requirements are usually captured in narratives and graphics that, regardless of how detailed, structured, cross-referenced and validated, are fundamentally imprecise. A data-driven approach to specifications has the potential to help avoid these problems and subsequently decrease the risk and increase the return on companies' IT investments.