From the category archives:

Leadership

Leadership as a business analyst takes many facets. Leadership is about enabling others to be successful. We explore the qualities that engender leadership in business analysts.

If your project is a turkey, kill it early

by Adrian Reed on February 1, 2012 · 2 comments

in Engaging the Business,Enterprise Analysis,Leading Organizational Change

Right, I might be branded a heretic, but I’m going to say it. Organizations that deliver every project that they kick off (with the project’s scope intact) are either extremely lucky, extremely risk averse, or extremely misguided. This sounds like a contrarian view, and may even sound a little controversial.  In fact, you might (quite [...]

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BAs make the world a better place

by Ryan Knapton on January 25, 2012 · 0 comments

in Leading Organizational Change,Maturing your BA Practice,Positive Attitude

As human beings, each of our time on this planet is finite. We know that time is precious, and we want to spend it doing things that make us happy. For many of us, one aspect of happiness is the ability to make a positive difference, to help put other people into a better position than [...]

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The Virtual BA: 10 Video Conference Mistakes Exposed

by Joan Davis on January 19, 2012 · 2 comments

in Communication,Effective Meetings,Managing Technology

Video Conferencing Can Bring Focus to Distributed Teams Sign on to a video conference and suddenly the miles between you disappear. Simple as that, you’re working at the same table, just like the old days. Done well, live image streaming centers our online attention and enhances remote relationship building in a big way. According to [...]

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Your lack of planning does not constitute my emergency

by Laura Brandenburg on January 11, 2012 · 5 comments

in Engaging Project Leaders

One day last fall I had a typical BA moment. I received a call, before I’d even had a sip of my morning coffee or opened my email, that came in with a sense of urgency. I was helping an organization interview BAs for a job opening. There was a job interview scheduled for about [...]

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The Business Analyst Bully

by Michelle Swoboda on December 21, 2011 · 5 comments

in Communication,Problem Solving

For today’s post, I’m reaching out to the Bridging the Gap community to share some insight on a situation that I’ve encountered: a business analyst “bully” in the workplace. This person seemingly breaks all of the rules that we try to follow: Listen to the business Ask the business what they want Hear what they say [...]

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Why board members are the wrong people to decide IT vendors

by Ryan Knapton on December 14, 2011 · 4 comments

in Creating alignment,IT Strategy,Solution Assessment and Validation

If I had a dollar for every time I heard a vendor say, “I know the perfect solution, and I just happen to sell it!” I’d be a retired BA. Instead, I’m a practising BA and one of my responsibilities is to help businesses understand that not all vendors are all-seeing and all-knowing. Nik Gebhard [...]

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BA Stories: Good Things Come in Nice Packages (BABOK 4.4)

by Laura Brandenburg on December 12, 2011 · 3 comments

in BA Stories,Communication,Requirements Specifications

There is a distinction between the project requirements and the requirements package. Requirements can be organized, sliced and diced, torn apart, allocated, put back together, assigned attributes,  etc. Packages are finely wrapped presentations of requirements in ways that suit a specific stakeholder audience. Very often we conflate the two, or start with the package before [...]

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Stop the project plan crash. You are the expert.

by Adrian Reed on December 7, 2011 · 16 comments

in Engaging Project Leaders,Roles and Responsibilities,Stakeholder Analysis

Imagine the scene.  It’s 22:30, and an aircraft is preparing to take off for a long haul flight. In the cockpit, the captain and first officer are busy carrying out their final pre-flight checks.  They check the weather, the fuel levels and a whole range of technical dials and indicators.  They start to map out [...]

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The stupid analyst

by Nik Gebhard on November 3, 2011 · 11 comments

in Communication,Effective Meetings

Here’s the scenario: You walk in starry eyed. A fresh start. A new challenge. An opportunity to learn and share knowledge. The introductions fly past and, if you’re lucky, you remember the name of the meeting’s facilitator. Kerryn. Or was it Karin? Ready – set – go! The conversation kicks off. Most of the stakeholders [...]

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The Future of Business Analysis: Innovation and Creativity

by Curtis Michelson on October 27, 2011 · 3 comments

in Leadership,Maturing your BA Practice,Professional Development Strategy

I started this series on “Building BA Maturity” back in January of this year and I’ve really enjoyed all the interviews and conversations with so much of the talent and insight in our community.  From Bob Prentiss to Ellen Gottesdiener.  From Peter Johnson to Thea Turray and James Taylor.  I’ve had a blast and learned [...]

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