Building a mature business analyst practice: Interview with Mark Jenkins

by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg on March 11, 2010 · 0 comments

in Business Analyst Career, Managing Business Analysts

Mark Jenkins and I had the opportunity to chat a few months back while he was Manager, Business Analysis at Websense. He has since taken on a new role on the other side of the country as Associate Director, Business Analysis at KPMG. We initiated a conversation as the result of a Twitter stream [follow [...]

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Diary of a CBAP Seeker: Learning methods for absorbing the BABOK

by DougGtheBA on March 10, 2010 · 2 comments

in CBAP

Dear Diary: After immersing myself in multiple methods to try to absorb the BABOK content, I am only a few weeks away from sitting for the exam. As I continue to struggle to acquire all the content that I think I will need to know. I’ve definitely learned some lessons about what to do and [...]

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Help a BA! Where should I locate my new BA? With the developers or with the product manager?

March 8, 2010 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

Reader question:
If the Product Manager and the development team are located in two different states, where should the BA reside?  I am in a very tough position right with hiring a BA and my development team is in another state. Where should the BA reside to best help the team? Should they be with [...]

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What part does the IIBA play in your professional development?: Interview with Kym Byron, CBAP

March 4, 2010 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

The best business analysts are open-minded. They let you help them get better.
Editor’s Note: Before the holidays I had the opportunity to sit down with fellow-IIBA-Denver board member, Kym Byron and talk about her role and her career advice for other BAs. It’s always amazing to me how you can collaborate with someone and not [...]

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Building a better business analysis practice

March 3, 2010 by Adriana Beal

John Davis writes:
We’ve been looking at IAG’s BA Benchmark 2009 that deals with the impact of poor requirements practices on project and organisational success. Short of hiring a company such as IAG, how can we as BAs best help our organisation – or a client organisation for those of us in IT Services – develop [...]

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Help a BA! How big is the gap between sales and business analysis?

March 2, 2010 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

Reader question:
I have been in sales now for about 15 years, mostly in the financial industry. I am thinking of changing careers and the business analyst route seems interesting to me. From what I hear there is the interaction part with people along with communication skills and the liaison aspect between departments. My question is, [...]

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Akk! The developers won’t use my requirements specs!

March 1, 2010 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

Ask not what your developers can do for you, ask what you can do for your developers.
These past few weeks I’ve been practically overtaken by a waterfall of humbling experiences. To be perfectly blunt, the developers did not like my requirements specifications. It was hard to realize that I had failed to communicate requirements in [...]

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Overcoming common challenges to find contract business analyst jobs

February 25, 2010 by Steve Mulhall

In this article I will describe the common challenges that I faced in becoming a contract business analyst. I am sure many of you will relate to my experience and I hope you find encouragement in knowing these challenges can be overcome.
Challenge 1: Fears
“I’m worried that I don’t have enough experience to become a contractor.”
It [...]

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The Janus Relationship as a model for how business analysts and project managers can work together

February 24, 2010 by Steve Blais

In Roman mythology the god of gates and doors is Janus.  In his capacity as god of doorways, he is also the god of beginnings and endings and was used by the ancient Romans to symbolize change and transitions, and the launch of new enterprises.  Romans placed statues of Janus near a doorway or paintings [...]

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IIBA introduces a new performance competency model

February 23, 2010 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

Last week IIBA introduced a performance competency model. Angela Wick and her Competency committee have done a great job culling the BABOK Guide for performance competencies and pulling together list of expected behaviors and interlinking them with the knowledge areas, techniques, and underlying in the BABOK. There are 53 competencies total and the model describes [...]

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