Advance Your Business Analysis Career
From the category archives:
We ask the questions that people having been avoiding for years while they were trying to look smart. I read an article today from our respected colleague, Yaaqub Mohamed about the importance of data analysis as part of a good analyst’s tool belt. Well that is not exactly how he put it, but you get [...]
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Reader Question: The organization I work for is expanding its Business Intelligence capabilities, introducing a new Enterprise Data Warehouse for management reporting. This is based on the concept of OLAP Data Cubes – permitting greater flexibility for user reporting. My question is – what’s the best approach for eliciting and documenting requirements for BI/Data Cubes? [...]
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Working with stakeholders to prioritize requirements is an important part of the BA role. Often, prioritization can be a difficult exercise, with stakeholders asserting that every single requirement is a “must have”. When this happens, it can be a sign that insufficient attention has been paid to the project foundations. Prioritization should be based on [...]
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In my previous article titled “How I became an agile business analyst” I talked about my passage from the world of good old fashioned ‘write it all up and get it signed off’ business analysis into the uncharted territories of agile. In this article I’m going to describe my first experience on an agile project. I [...]
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Reader question: “How do people go about collecting report requirements from clients and trying their best to reduce overheads whilst still fulfilling the data needs? I know there has been a big drive recently for Green IT and how companies can reduce their carbon footprint, is this a tactic that should be used? In addition, [...]
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As a seasoned Business Analyst you come to recognize that not all “requirements” are really requirements. Ideally discovery teams first diverge, taking differing positions, identifying all possibilities. Then after carefully examining numerous alternatives, they use a decision-making process to converge on a solution. In a face-to-face workshop you might group, rank, or prioritize ideas, but [...]
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Do you consider all the implications of your projects? As business analysts, we are often most comfortable thinking about what happens if we’re “on spec.” After all, specifying a future state of affairs is a big part of what we do. Given that, do we think enough about what happens if our projects fail, succeed, [...]
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When I decided to write about prioritizing requirements, I figured that there were enough articles out there….and very good ones at that…to not warrant yet another “how to” blurb. An aspect we don’t hear about quite so much is understanding the value of prioritization. As analysts, many of us work in an environment in which [...]
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The business analyst in world of COTS projects The number COTS or Commercial-off-the-shelf-software options have increased exponentially in recent years. A sister of COTS, the “SaaS” or Software-as-a-Service where the commercial solutions are made available over the web, with no hosting or installation required, has made these solutions even easier to implement technically. This blog [...]
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We all know exactly what “assumption” stands for and how false assumptions can make those first 3 letters stand out and beat you over the head. But do you take time to clarify your assumptions? And better yet, do you validate them? False assumptions lead us …. well we know where they lead us. But, [...]
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3 posts
Recently posted: How to Start a Business Analyst Career eBook – now available on Kindle and Nook!
35 posts
Recently posted: Dipping My Toes in Ice Water: a Story of Perseverance
21 posts
Recently posted: Help a BA! What’s the difference between business analysis and business development?
13 posts
Recently posted: The Virtual BA: Video Conference Self-Awareness
19 posts
Recently posted: If your project is a turkey, kill it early
9 posts
Recently posted: The Future of Business Analysis: Innovation and Creativity
11 posts
Recently posted: Help A BA! How Do I Find a Mentor?
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Recently posted: The stupid analyst
8 posts
Recently posted: The Power of Index Cards
