From the category archives:

Managing Business Analysts

Explores how to manage business analysts and organize a business analyst team or a project management office.

Building a mature business analyst practice: Interview with Mark Jenkins

March 11, 2010 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

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

February 4, 2010 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

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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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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How to choose a business analyst (part 2): business skills and soft skills

January 21, 2010 by BarbaraDavis

Editor’s note: Yesterday Barbara introduced some of the common mistakes hiring managers make when selecting business analysts. Today, she provides an introduction into the business and soft skills hiring managers should consider when recruiting for the business analyst role.
Business Skills
Project Management
Project Management skills can best be described as having the skill and ability to coordinate [...]

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How to choose a business analyst (part 1): common mistakes hiring managers make

January 20, 2010 by BarbaraDavis

Editor’s Note: I discovered Barbara’s post on her CRRSP LinkedIn forum . We’ve communicated a lot here about what makes a great business analyst and how hiring decisions are made. In this post, I am excited to bring you a perspective written as advice to the hiring manager. Whether you are a manager, want to [...]

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Building a transition plan to onboard a new business analyst hire

November 23, 2009 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

Nothing is worse than starting a new job with a set of expectations and you don’t know what they are. When you transition from one role to another, how do you set-up the person taking on your job to be successful? It’s important to impart as much knowledge as possible, along with the context of [...]

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Some key challenges faced by business analyst managers

September 28, 2009 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

We often pine about the challenges of the being a BA. We are a relatively new profession. Our body of knowledge, while amazing, is new and not well understood. Few of us have a steady career history of pure business analyst experience and have instead blended responsibilities, shared job titles, and are still now even [...]

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How do you measure the success of a business analyst?

July 13, 2009 by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg

Ever get a question that catches you by surprise and makes you really think? I’m prepping for a podcast interview with Tom Cagley of SpamCast (Software Process and Measurement Cast) and one of the questions he asked me to think about were various ways to measure and quantify the success of a business analyst.This got [...]

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