From the category archives:

Eliciting requirements

Eliciting requirements is a core business analyst competency to ensure that organizations focus on solving the right problems and finding the best possible solutions.

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 [...]

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Help your stakeholders discover technical possibilities to define new project concepts

November 25, 2009 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

As business analysts, we talk a lot about gathering or eliciting requirements. In some situations, business stakeholders simply don’t understand what’s possible because their view of technology is limited by the  current capabilities or by what a rogue developer told them was “impossible” a few years back.
As business analysts take on increasingly strategic roles within [...]

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How to become more confident in requirements elicitation

November 2, 2009 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

The initial meetings with a stakeholder can be nerve-wracking. Oftentimes projects come to us for “analysis” with very little detail. It can feel like everyone else knows more and is better prepared. Yet we, the business analyst, own the next step. Especially as new business analysts or business analysts in new organizations who have not [...]

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Using a stakeholder requests list as part of scope definition

October 19, 2009 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

Oftentimes a business analyst gets involved in a project with multiple different business stakeholders with competing views. Before jumping into the analysis of the project or even defining scope, it can be helpful to pull together all the competing requests and categorize them. This activity can help shed light on the nature of the requests. [...]

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Painful Lessons are Really Opportunities to Learn

October 7, 2009 by DougGtheBA

I’ve been collecting, consolidating and conjoining the data from several lessons learned sessions over the last year. My organization is trying to execute some trend analysis over time to see how things are going. That, however, is not what I want to write about, it’s just the trigger. When we were young kids, there was [...]

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How I take meeting notes and facilitate the discussion without driving myself crazy

September 14, 2009 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

We all know that meeting notes are important. Some of us live and die by our notes. Some of us loathe getting “stuck” taking the notes. In many organizations, the leader of the meeting must fill multiple roles. You probably created the agenda, are guiding the discussion, and trying to take notes. Having someone else [...]

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How to learn about a new business

August 31, 2009 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

In a new business analyst position, it can be a challenge to figure out how to learn everything you need to know to be successful. Knowledge about the business and industry is a core competency for a business analyst. It can be acquired over the life cycle of a project, but oftentimes you need to [...]

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Whose perception of value do we care about?

August 12, 2009 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

As business analysts we often deal with stakeholders at multiple levels of the organization. Someone has to help multiple people align around a common understanding of a project concept and then create a plan of action to implement the best possible solution and it’s a natural place for the BA to be, even if their [...]

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How your organization can use Twitter to improve customer relationships and build better products

July 16, 2009 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

Is your organization using Twitter to engage with customers, obtain product feedback, and coordinate communication about new product releases? Should they be? While some traditional marketing teams are still avoiding or possibly dabbling in Twitter, others are jumping in and and building value for their customers. As Twitter and other forms of social media become [...]

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Can we elevate constraints in the requirements process to encourage creativity?

June 10, 2009 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

One of my favorite shows to watch is improv theater. It wasn’t until this most recent show that I realized why I like it so much. There is something a wee bit magical in experiencing highly intelligent and creative people make you laugh uncontrollably when faced with the most bizarre of constraints. Need to make [...]

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