The U.S. economy is bleeding jobs, but -- at least, so far -- the high-tech industry is something of a safe haven. That's not to say there haven't been tech losses or that it's easy to find an IT job. However, people with the right skill sets and the savvy to sniff out the particular areas of demand are much better positioned than professionals in some of the more-beleaguered industries.
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Demand for IT business analysis is also on the rise right now, according to Rubillo, driven by a couple of different factors. Of particular importance in these recessionary times is the need for analysis that can wring out the most efficiency from a software application.
"Companies are increasingly aware of understanding the real world implications of an IT investment," said Rubillo. "A new software application, for instance, can result in bottlenecks in the supply chain, or a need for new resources -- or the ability to cut back on others. Companies want to get ahead of these developments as they implement their new IT investments."
Companies are also looking for untapped savings from pre-existing systems, he added.
Author: Erika Morphy
Billions of dollars earmarked for new technologies, at the same time billion-dollar projects are failing. Virtual teams who can’t implement Virtualization. Service Oriented Architecture when customers are no longer oriented towards your services.
Where can you turn to? Who can you trust?
Enterprise Business Analysis is the solution
EBA is Strategic, Process and Organizational Consulting: o Strategic – Planning and execution. o Process – the steps. o Organizational – the whole enchilada. o Consulting - Internal or external, the combination of expertise and intuition, Techne and Poesis, improvisation and practice in planning and supporting the enchilada’s goals.
You are already familiar with EBA, under its many masks for the diagnosis of the patient, and prescription for the cure:
Author: Sam Cherubin
Why has it been necessary to write so many different, book-length treatises about requirements management on software projects? Is it not possible to develop an approach to handling software requirements that is simple enough to express concisely -- and yet can work with large, complex projects as well as smaller efforts? At the risk of using a word that disturbs many in the field of software engineering, requirements management is just a process. The more simply this process can be described, the more likely it will be to work in real software organizations. So rather than consider every possible nuance relating to managing software requirements, this article will attempt to express the essence of an approach that can work well on virtually any Agile software development project. In the appendix, I include a detailed example illustrating the key ideas.
Author: Theodore F. Rivera, Software Group Strategist, IBM
The problem of business-IT alignment is of widespread economic concern.
As one way of addressing the problem, this paper describes an online system that functions as a kind of Wiki -- one that supports the collaborative writing and running of business and scientific applications, as rules in open vocabulary, executable English, using a browser.
Since the rules are in English, they are indexed by Google and other search engines. This is useful when looking for rules for a task that one has in mind. The design of the system integrates the semantics of data, with a semantics of an inference method, and also with the meanings of English sentences. As such, the system has functionality that may be useful for the Rules, Logic, Proof and Trust requirements of the Semantic Web.
The system accepts rules, and small numbers of facts, typed or copy-pasted directly into a browser. One can then run the rules, again using a browser. For larger amounts of data, the system uses information in the rules to automatically generate and run SQL over networked databases. From a few highly declarative rules, the system typically generates SQL that would be too complicated to write reliably by hand. However, the system can explain its results in step-by-step hypertexted English, at the business or scientific level.
As befits a Wiki, shared use of the system is free.
Author: Adrian Walker
Good business solutions begin with good business analysis. But what's needed to excel as a business analyst and to get projects started on a good footing? Much has been (and will continue to be) said about the set of skills that go to making a good business analyst. Forrester Research, for example, has published a spreadsheet (called the Business Analyst Assessment Workbook -- Note: subscription required) that lists more than 150 attributes of a good business analyst, grouped into categories such as Core Capabilities, Business Knowledge, Job-Specific Skills, Technical Knowledge etc. (I was particularly pleased to see this last category: It is important but not quite obvious that business analysts should also have a rudimentary general understanding of technology environments and architectures… mostly built up through seeing past analysis engagements fructify into delivered solutions).
Although the workbook is obviously intended as an assessment tool, I also found in it good for use as a training tool — for example, to bone up on technology approaches to business needs and to study sample projects, correlating the original business requirement with the type of solution delivered. Here are 10 items from the Forrester list that I found particularly interesting and beyond the obvious (in no particular order)...
It has been just over a year since I published my book, and that makes it easier for me to measure what has happened since then.
I have spent this year visiting many companies and discussing their business analysis function. In some cases, I have performed an assessment on the business analysts as well as the business analysis function within many large Corporates.
It has now got to the point where I could document the findings before I start the investigation. The reason for this is that the problems are the same. From articles and discussions from other countries it appears the problems are similar the world over. These are the problems I encounter most often:
Here we are, the end of another year, and the question I ask always is, what have we learned? If we are not learning something, be it from a success or a failure, or something in-between, then how can we move forward?
Information security is something that needs to continuously improve and refine itself, otherwise it will fall behind the curve of those that choose a different avenue to your beloved data store. A tool that information security practitioners often use, especially after a security incident like a virus outbreak or full out attack, is holding a “Lessons Learned” meeting. The core concept is to be able to take something away for the incident, no matter how big or small, so that the next encounter of a similar kind does not have the same result as the first.
Today the term Business Analyst is synonymous with a career in the IT industry but the most successful and valuable analysts are those who understand the 'business' rather than those who understand IT. So what exactly is a Business Analyst? What is the Business Analyst’s role? What is the best background for this job? What skill set is required? What type of person is the best fit? What training is required and available? Each organisation seems to have its own ideas about the role, skills, responsibilities and expectations of the Business Analyst. Given the importance of the job, a common definition would assist both practitioners and employers. We explore some of the issues here. Written by Derrick Brown, IRM's Director and instructional designer, it shares first hand observations and experience gained from training thousands of Business Analysts since 1980, first in the UK and since 1984 in Australia.
Author: Derrick Brown
For most businesses and organisations, if IT stops, the business stops. Whenever a company turns on a new production line, opens a new retail store, launches a new product or provides a new service, there is invariably a new or modified IT system behind it. Going live is the culmination of time, effort, resources and finance. A problem-free IT system is the “acid test” of significant, often crucial investment.
Whilst the technical testing of IT systems is a highly professional and exhaustive process, testing of business functionality is an entirely different proposition. Does the system deliver the business functions that are required – does it follow the company’s business rules – does it support a government department’s obligations - does it cope with exceptions? The people who have to make these decisions – to accept or reject the new system – are the business users. It is therefore critical to get the business user involved in testing and not rely only on the technicians. In this paper we explore the rationale behind User Acceptance Testing (UAT), why it is so important, and how best to go about it.
Author: Jan Kusiak
“Where does UML fit?” is a common question among new (and not so new!) business analysts. We all know that the M stands for modelling but beyond this, perceptions start to differ. In its current form (V2.0) UML consists of 13 diagram types all of which provide a different view of a system. In this article we’ll take a brief look at which of the 13 diagrams are of most relevance for us and how they fit together...
Across North America, businesses in all sectors are adopting standard development methodologies to turn out a higher quality of goods and services. The tried and true approaches that have yielded such great results for competitors are heralded as best practices. But here is the sad news: no one methodology fits all. In fact, different methodologies are appropriate in fitting diverse projects. Some projects are so unique, future-thinking Business Analysts (BAs) are finding that the adoption of new hybrid concepts is the only smart way to go in problem solving tomorrow’s projects. The word ‘fresh’ describes that feeling of turning over a new leaf when January 1 rolls around each year – and the sentiment we as individuals strive to maintain all year long when we set New Year’s resolutions. Much in the same vein as these annual goals, BAs seeking an innovative means by which they can see their requirements come to fruition are increasingly interested in the study of the existing methods that are in place within the industry, as well as fresh methods established through modeling and fusion.
It’s Monday morning and, as you arrive at your desk, you know that it is going to be a busy day. The new portal project is going to be promoted into production in a couple of weeks and there are still a few items to clear up. As you fire up your e-mail client and take the first sip of coffee, your shoulders start to tense up. The subject line of one of your e-mails reads “Threat Risk Assessment Finding Report” and it is marked important. This not the way you wanted to start the week, but you remember the report was due on Friday, the day you decided to “call in sick”. As you open the message, realizing you can no longer avoid it, you cross your fingers hoping it won’t be too bad. Then you remember why you hate these reports so much, they are confusing and seem overly alarming in their findings. Critical, Severe, High, Medium and Important findings all over the place, red, orange and yellow screaming in your face, reams and reams of technical output, patches missing, vulnerabilities exposed, buffer overflows, exploitations amok, privilege escalations, and on and on. Oh your head hurts now. Where do you begin? What’s important, and how much is this going to push the timeline back? You know the launch is in two weeks and there are functional issues that need to be addressed, there is no time to deal with all this!
Here’s a question that often gets asked: What are the benefits of Business Analysis? The depressing but true answer is that the benefits are usually invisible: good Business Analysis ensures that the project implements the right solution, and because it is the right solution no-one ever sees all the cost, time and effort that has been avoided (a project that does not do sufficient Business Analysis has to re-work all the bugs that slipped through the ‘analysis’ stage because the analysis was never done).
The ubiquity of software project failures – with failure defined as projects that fundamentally failed to meet business-sponsor expectations, missed scheduled completion dates, or exceeded budget – is a pronounced theme in any number of independent research reports on custom software development. The Standish Group, for example, cited that only 31% of projects delivered 100 percent of the expected value, were on-time, and on-budget and a report from the Aberdeen Group found 90 percent of projects came in late, of which 30 percent were simply cancelled before delivery. Analysts and users alike cite inaccurate, incomplete and mismanaged requirements as the number one reason for software project failure. The Standish Group’s annual CHAOS report indicates three of the top five reasons for project failure are related to requirements. Requirement miscommunications is also the primary factor behind the prevalence of rework, which according to industry statistics, can add up to 40 percent of the total development effort within a given software project. A 2005 survey conducted by iRise and Decipher found that almost three-quarters (73%) of organizations budget for rework, thus, in effect, planning for failure. Moreover, almost one-third set aside more than 25% in their budgets for these change orders, money that could be funneled directly into innovation rather than re-doing work that should have been com¬pleted the first time. Ultimately, rework costs companies the ability to get to market quickly and saps competitive advantage; while companies are busy fixing applications, their competitors are busy capturing market share. The solution to these costly, frustrating problems is the creation of accurate requirements before development even begins. By allowing the business analyst to col¬laborate with stakeholders, users, architects, user expe¬rience designers and developers early on in the development process, all parties are involved in the definition of the product and all parties know what will be built long before a single line of code is written.
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