Use cases: a personal history (and a bit of a love affair)

by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg on February 8, 2010 · 1 comment

in Agile Business Analyst, Requirements Specifications

I recently discovered that even after 200 blog posts here, I’ve never written about a post about my beloved use cases! I guess I think that most of what there is to say has already been said. But we’ve each got our own story about how we discovered use cases, what we do with them, [...]

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Starting a Requirements Engineering Community of Practice: Interview with Anthony Oden, Business Systems Analyst at Dell

by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg on February 4, 2010 · 0 comments

in Business Analyst Career, Managing Business Analysts

Editor’s Note: A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak with Anthony Oden, Business Systems Analyst at Dell, Inc. It turns out that BAs at Dell read Bridging the Gap on a regular basis (how cool is that!) and Anthony went out of his way to send me a thank you note. I [...]

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Managing ambiguity – a key business analyst competency

February 3, 2010 by Adriana Beal

Editor’s Note: In this post, Bridging the Gap columnist, Adriana Beal helps us stretch our perception of a key competency for any business analyst — managing ambiguity. I’m happy to announce that Adriana will be also be contributing to The Promotable Business Analyst by authoring a key section on assessing your competencies. I’m excited to [...]

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Help a BA!: How do I break into the financial industry with no industry experience?

February 1, 2010 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

Editor’s note: This week we are tacking the tough question of industry experience. I hold that you should only apply for jobs for which you are qualified and many BA jobs in specific industries require specific industry experience. This puts experienced BAs without the relevant experience in a tough position.
Please help me help a reader [...]

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What’s your next step toward earning that business analyst promotion?

January 29, 2010 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

This week, we’ve explored what it takes to earn a promotion as a business analyst. We started by addressing the question of “Can I be promoted as a business analyst?“. My position here is a resounding “yes”, but you need to be prepared to take your career and career path in your own hands. I [...]

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Quickly solidifying a senior role within the BA profession: Interview with Jennifer Banzon

January 28, 2010 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

Editor’s Note: You would never know it unless you asked, but Jennifer Banzon only discovered the business analyst profession a couple years ago. The reality is that Jennifer has been incorporating aspects of the business analyst role into her career for several years. As a result she brings deep experience in a host of related [...]

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The senior business analyst: what are new responsibilities should you take on?

January 27, 2010 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

Yesterday we shared some ideas about defining your “real” job description. The point of this exercise was to help you build insight into what you actually do today and what value your activities achieve for your organization.
Now that you understanding what your current role is, let’s explore what additional responsibilities you are prepared to take [...]

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Write your real job description

January 26, 2010 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

Before heading off in a new direction, it is helpful to understand where you are at. Taking a bit of time now to take stock of your current (or most recent) position will help you frame up where you are headed in your business analyst career.
Yesterday we kicked off a week-long series of posts about [...]

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Can I be promoted as a business analyst?

January 25, 2010 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

Earlier this month we discussed career paths beyond business analysis and explored some opportunities that BA experiences prepare you for. While some of you may wish to move around your organization, explore multiple roles, or get promoted up the ranks into management and eventually find yourself on an executive team, others are probably saying “wait [...]

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How to choose a business analyst (part 3): technical skills, career level, and resume

January 22, 2010 by BarbaraDavis

We are finishing up the week with Barbara’s final thoughts for hiring managers on choosing a business analyst.
In part 1, Barbara introduced the common mistakes business analyst hiring managers make.
In part 2, Barbara shared her views on business skills and soft skills for the business analyst.

Technical Skills
Technical knowledge is the knowledge and understanding that a [...]

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