Posts by author:

Adriana Beal

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 [...]

3 comments Read more

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 [...]

9 comments Read more

The positive influence BAs have in the quality of documentation in agile projects

January 4, 2010 by Adriana Beal

As you read the title of this article, you may be thinking, “doesn’t agile methodologies emphasize verbal rather than written communication? is there any value in even talking about documentation in this type of project?”.
The answer is yes to both questions. Agile developers may require very little written documentation to do their work, but documenting [...]

5 comments Read more

Beyond gathering, eliciting and trawling for requirements

December 2, 2009 by Adriana Beal

In my last article, I explained why I don’t see any benefit in moving beyond the term “requirements” when describing the key activities performed by a business analyst. My point was that business requirements and solution requirements represent the logical progression toward establishing a solution for an identified business need. This article from Practical Analyst [...]

18 comments Read more

Requirements as the main focus of the business analyst work

November 4, 2009 by Adriana Beal

In discussions about the role of the business analyst, it is common to see professionals insisting on the importance of “going beyond requirements” when describing the BA work. These analysts argue that BA activities such as enterprise analysis and process improvement indicate the need for a broader description. Being myself a consultant who often works [...]

35 comments Read more

Expanding the business analyst role–good or bad?

October 14, 2009 by Adriana Beal

One of the topics that appear to be on the mind of many business analysts lately is the expansion of the business analysis role. How can a BA make a difference in his/her organization, perhaps going beyond conventional analysis to become a visionary? What are the challenges a BA may need to overcome to respond [...]

17 comments Read more

How to increase your chances of finding a business analyst job in this tough market

September 16, 2009 by Adriana Beal

I’ve been working as a consultant in New York City since 2005, performing business analysis activities for client organizations either as a stand-alone service or as part of a larger consulting packaged service related to custom software development. Because of the nature of my role, it’s common for me to start looking for the next [...]

16 comments Read more

Software Requirements Essentials: New online course

July 21, 2009 by Adriana Beal

2wtx Consulting is opening a new online class for the course Software Requirements Essentials, taught by Adriana Beal, specialist in requirements engineering. The course is intended for business analysts, project managers and developers interested in developing or re-tooling core competencies and skill sets required to elicit, analyze, specify, validate, and manage software requirements. More information [...]

0 comments Read more

On big-L and small-l leadership

June 16, 2009 by Adriana Beal

Leadership doesn’t have to be about supervisory authority, big egos, or the popular myth of the hard-driving, high-living CEO. Business analysts, like other brain-powered workers, function on a knowledge-intensive environment that require a whole new form of leadership, practiced among peers, most often in teams. BAs are used to a delineation of leadership duties among [...]

0 comments Read more

Managing business analysts for success: 4 questions to ask and answer [guest post]

May 6, 2009 by Adriana Beal

In a recent blog entry at the CIO Magazine website, Adriana talks about what she considers the main issues affecting the ability of talented business analysts to perform their jobs well. In this guest post, she expands on the topic, keeping the focus on the perspective of the business analyst reporting to an IT team [...]

0 comments Read more