The Business Analyst Blueprint® Framework
To be successful as a business analyst, you need a toolbox and a framework. 🎯 A TOOLBOX of techniques that you can pick and choose from, based on the needs of your project and team. …
BA Skill Set
What is Data Mapping?
As a business analyst, you need to have the ability to showcase how data seamlessly flows between information systems, ensuring smooth operations, and avoiding the headaches of data inconsistencies and mapping issues. With data mapping, …
The Power of Wireframes
Imagine using a simple wireframe to create a visual representation of a screen in just a matter of minutes. No, you don’t have to be a UX designer to even aspire to be one. In …
How to Create a System Context Diagram
Looking to master the art of clarifying project scope in a flash? Say hello to the System Context Diagram, your secret solution to project scope! In today’s world, projects are only becoming more and more …
How to Get Meaningful Sign-Off on Requirements
One of the most frustrating challenges on a project is when the developers build a solution that everyone thought the business signed off on only to have significant changes surface during testing or even after …
5 Types of Requirements Documents Business Analysts Create
Strong business analysts know use a variety of techniques and craft specifications for specific project and stakeholder needs. Find the options you have for packaging requirements.
5 Ways to Avoid Repeating Past Project Mistakes
As a business analyst, you want to create the best documentation and models possible. But focusing too much on perfecting those documents early on is actually a big mistake I see a lot of business …
5 Effective Diagramming Tools You Can Afford
Did you know that using visual models can improve communication, reduce misunderstandings, and facilitate collaboration in business analysis projects? If you’re not using some type of diagramming tool in your business analysis job, you may …
These Are the Top Technical Skills that Business Analysts Really Need to Know
Today we’re going to answer a question that comes up quite often, and that’s what technical skills a business analyst needs to be well-positioned in the job market and to be able to have detailed …
These Are the Top Technical Skills that Business Analysts Really Need to Know
What is the Difference Between a Subject Matter Expert and a Business Analyst?
As you explore job roles, are you curious about the difference between a business analyst and a subject matter expert (SME)? Are you unsure if your skills qualify you as a subject matter expert or …
What is the Difference Between a Subject Matter Expert and a Business Analyst?
How to Use ChatGPT (and OpenAI) to Increase Your Efficiency as a Business Analyst
You’ve likely heard about ChatGPT, the free tool released by OpenAI. Imagine being able to expand your thinking, create draft documentation with ease, and streamline your work as a business analyst. This is all possible …
How to Use ChatGPT (and OpenAI) to Increase Your Efficiency as a Business Analyst
How to Build Rapport with Critical Stakeholders
Are you working with new stakeholders in a new company or project? As a business analyst, building rapport with critical stakeholders is one of the best ways to get a new project started effectively and …
How to Manage Change Requests
As a business analyst, you can make a huge difference in how change is managed and save your teams a lot of re-work while neutralizing the negative energy often associated with change. In this short …
How to Analyze a “To Be” Business Process
As a business analyst, it’s your role to analyze the To Be Business Process and help your stakeholders define how work will flow once the new solution is in place. Is your organization rolling out …
How to Analyze an “As Is” Business Process
As a business analyst, it’s your job to analyze the As Is Business Process in your organization to help everyone get on the same page. If customers are getting frustrated with your organization’s level of …
How to Write User Stories
User stories are a way of capturing requirements that are commonly used on agile software development teams. The cornerstone of a user story is a single statement in the following syntax: “As a [user], I …
How to Draw a Process Map
A process map is a visual model that shows how a collection of activities are sequenced together to accomplish work in an organization. One of the great things about process maps is that they are …
What Requirements to Specify for COTS and SaaS Projects
With the vast majority of projects being delivered using pre-built solutions, it is important to understand how to specify requirements for COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) software and SaaS (software-as-a-service) projects. In this video, I am going to …
10 Tips to Engage Stakeholders
Stakeholder engagement is critical to success as a business analyst. Yet, often BAs will face challenges getting stakeholders engaged on their projects. They don’t show up to meetings or don’t provide the input you need …
The Top 5 Elicitation Techniques Used By Business Analysts
Elicitation is the process of discovering the requirements. In particular, elicitation often refers to engaging with stakeholders to understand their needs and expectations when it comes to the scope and detailed requirements of the project. …
Requirements Prioritization Made Simple
Ask your stakeholders to prioritize requirements and you are likely to hear groans. While conceptually we understand that project budgets are limited, and requirements prioritization helps us receive the most possible value for our investments …
Requirements Estimation: How to Create a Business Analyst Timeline
Here’s a scenario you may have run into: You receive a short request from a stakeholder about a new project. It’s been given top priority by your manager and so it’s the next project …
Requirements Estimation: How to Create a Business Analyst Timeline
Dealing with Difficult Stakeholders Who Are Resistant to Change
As business analysts improving business processes, it’s not uncommon for us to encounter stakeholders with a deep-rooted suspicion of IT and the belief that no matter what, the solution is not going to work for …
Dealing with Difficult Stakeholders Who Are Resistant to Change
How to Conduct a Requirements Review
A requirements review or walk-through is a meeting where you gather all of your stakeholders together and walk-through the requirements documentation, page-by-page, line-by-line, to ensure that the document represents everyone’s complete understanding of what is …
The Agile Business Analyst: 4 Crucial Strategies for Success
Many business analysts feel like their role is not needed in agile. We hear that agile teams don’t want “requirements” and so we assume they don’t want business analysts! Nothing could be further from the …
The Agile Business Analyst: 4 Crucial Strategies for Success
An Introduction to Business Analysis and the Business Analyst Process Framework
One of the most common challenges I see in the business analysis profession is a struggle to help stakeholders understand the value of the BA functions on any type of project, and, quite honestly, gaining …
An Introduction to Business Analysis and the Business Analyst Process Framework
How to Create an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)
An Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is a data model describing how entities (or concepts or things) relate to one another. When created by business analysts or business users, ERDs can be used to understand the …
How to Write a Use Case
A use case is a powerful tool to both analyze and communication the software requirements. If you have a business background, they will help you define what the software needs to do, even if you …
How to Analyze a Business Process
When you are trying to figure out what problem to actually solve before you dive deep into the software requirements, you’ll want to analyze the business process. And to do that, you create both a …
22 Visual Models Used by Business Analysts
Today we’re going to go through 22 different models BAs use in their work. You may not be aware of all 22 of them, so even if you’re familiar with a few, keep your eyes …
3 Diagrams to Add to Your Business Requirements Document
Do you create a traditional Business Requirements Document to capture your business and/or functional requirements? Adding a few diagrams to your BRD can make it more impactful and easier to understand. In this video, I …
Can you really be too business oriented?
Have you been told that you are “too business oriented?” How could that be? As business analysts, we are supposed to figure out what the business wants and needs, right? Yes…and, well, no. Watch this …
User Stories Versus Use Cases
If you are on an agile team, do you write user stories, use cases, or both? My take is that until you know how to think in use cases, you need to write them to …
How to Excel as an Introverted Business Analyst
Do you have an introverted personality as a business analyst and you are wondering how to best leverage your personality to excel at your work? Or perhaps you think because you are introverted, you are …
What Goes Into a Functional Specification?
If you find yourself in a business analyst role on an IT project, it’s likely that at some point you’ll need to create a functional specification – and these can take many different forms depending …
3 Ways to Write Clearer Requirements
Clarity is one of the most fundamental attributes of writing good requirements. Clear requirements are less likely to be misunderstood by business stakeholders and technical implementers. Clear requirements require fewer review cycles to confirm and …
How to Build Engagement with Stakeholders
Stakeholder engagement is incredibly important to successful business analysis. Without engaged stakeholders who care about the project and understand the work you do as a business analyst, you will work harder to discover the right …
3 Tips for Effective Virtual Meetings
Many business analysts are finding themselves working from home right now and needing to elicit requirements and conduct virtual meetings. If you’ve been historically used to working in-person, this can be a huge shift. In …
What Questions Do I Ask During Requirements Elicitation?
Are you looking for a simple way to get more out of your requirements elicitation sessions? Would you like to make better use of yours and your stakeholder’s time? Would you be interested in learning …
The Origin of the Bridging the Gap Business Analysis Process Framework
Hundreds of business analysts have learned and applied the Bridging the Gap Business Analysis Process Framework to make their BA work more effective and successful. And I’ve been receiving lots of questions about how this …
The Origin of the Bridging the Gap Business Analysis Process Framework
Super Effective Meetings: 5 Quick and Easy Tips
Running an effective meeting is a critical skill for business analysts to master. You’ll facilitate all kinds of meetings with all different levels of stakeholders as a business analyst – discovery meetings, requirements review meetings, …
How to Build Confidence
Confidence is a belief – it is a belief in yourself and your ability to achieve a specific result in your life and your career. In my work helping business analysts, I see a lot …
3 Ways to Find Cost-Effective Solutions to Business Problems
One way BAs add value is to find more cost-effective solutions to business problems, saving company time and resources in big projects where small changes might be just as effective. And even for larger projects, …
3 Ways to Find Cost-Effective Solutions to Business Problems
3 Tips for Minimizing Requirements Changes
We know that one of the ways we add value as a business analyst is through reducing rework and requirements churn. We get everyone on the same page about what DONE means, and minimize unnecessary …
3 Situations that are Absolutely Perfect for Use Cases!
A use case is a type of textual requirements specification that captures how a user will interact with a solution, specifically a software solution, to achieve a specific goal. They are a very common way …
Getting Clear Requirements in Agile from Waterfall Stakeholders
We’re going to the dark side of business analysis and agile requirements today, and looking at how we really help out end users who still have a waterfall mindset get clear about their requirements. This …
Getting Clear Requirements in Agile from Waterfall Stakeholders
How to Transition to Agile as a Waterfall Business Analyst
So, you’ve heard the news – your organization is going agile. Or you are looking for jobs, and every single one requires agile experience. What does this mean for you, your career, and business analysis? …
How to Avoid Missing Software Requirements
There are 2 primary reasons that business analysts miss requirements and I cover them in this video. Want to learn more? Watch this short video! And then register here for the free 3-part video training.
Trick or Treat
Trick or Treat! It’s Halloween here in the United States and so I decided to have a little fun with this week’s video. We’re looking at 3 “tricks” or issues that can trip us up …
How to Avoid Incomplete Business Requirements
There are many reasons that BAs end up producing incomplete requirements, and this can have an extremely negative impact on our job performance. Today we’re taking a question from one Bridging the Gap community member, …
Cloud Implementations: Can You Guess the 3 Types of Requirements that are Still Critical?
As more organizations are working on cloud implementation projects, or leveraging software available in a SaaS (Software as a Service) environment, many business analysts feel that it isn’t necessary to capture requirements at the same …
Cloud Implementations: Can You Guess the 3 Types of Requirements that are Still Critical?
Unrealistic Requirements Deadlines – How to Respond to Your Project Manager
Today we’re talking about an issue that’s more common for business analysts than you might expect. And that’s how to handle the situation when your project manager insists on an unrealistic requirements deadline, even after …
Unrealistic Requirements Deadlines – How to Respond to Your Project Manager
3 Essential Steps to Starting Off a New Project as a Business Analyst
Have you ever been asked to just get started writing the requirements? While it can feel quick and effective to jump right in and start documenting, this habit is likely to lead you down the …
3 Essential Steps to Starting Off a New Project as a Business Analyst
How to Handle Push Back from Your Technology Team
Today we’re talking about a problem all business analysts face – what to do when the developers push back on your requirements. Here are a few key points: Re-frame what the developer means by “that’s …
65 Business Analysis Techniques
The business analyst’s toolbox is chock full of dozens of business analysis techniques. Here is a list of 65 business analysis techniques that are useful to know about. Not that you would use every technique …
Am I doing this correctly?
If you are relatively new to the business analyst profession, you might be wondering if you are actually doing things correctly. The business analysis process appears to be so nice and neat and linear until you …
How to Resolve Feature Battles
Here’s a scenario you might face as a business analyst. The head of the customer service team, we’ll call her Joy, has submitted a project proposal to get a new field added to the contract …
How to Manage a Project Portfolio (And Get Past Barely Managed Chaos)
Project Portfolio Management is a term that’s used to describe how project managers and business analysts organize, prioritize, and show relationships between multiple active and proposed projects for their organizations. Sound portfolio management enables key …
How to Manage a Project Portfolio (And Get Past Barely Managed Chaos)
7 Mistakes Even the Best Make When Writing Use Cases
Do you find your developers have one follow-up question after another about how the system is really supposed to work, even though you documented the functionality in a use case? Worse yet, did your development team …
Missed requirements: how to avoid this BA nightmare
Author: Adriana Beal Some time ago, I received a call from an IT manager from a large NY-based company. This manager (let’s call him John) wanted my help in Phase 2 of a project whose …
Quick tips for managing requirements issues
Today we’re wrapping up our series going into a little more detail on the things I would have liked to have known before I started my business analyst career with an article about how to …
4 steps to finalize a requirements document
One of the things that I wish I’d known when I started out as a business analyst was I would need to take deliberate steps to ensure my stakeholders truly got what they wanted and …
How to get the information you need from your stakeholders
If you’ve ever been told that you aren’t pushy enough to be a business analyst, you are going to want to read today’s article. Pushy isn’t easy, and it isn’t in our DNA as business …
4 ways to set clearer expectations
If you like the hit comedy show The Office (American version), you might remember when the new boss asks Jim to complete a “rundown.” Not knowing what a rundown is, Jim spends a lot of …
Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis, Part 5: A Project That Switched to Agile in the Middle (That Was Fun!)
Welcome to part 4 of our 5-part Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis series where I’ll walk you through how I’ve handled some of my most interesting business analysis projects using the business analysis process. Part 5 …
Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis, Part 4: Applying the Business Analysis Process to Small Initiatives
Welcome to part 4 of our 5-part Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis series where I’ll walk you through how I’ve handled some of my most interesting business analysis projects using the business analysis process. Part 4 …
Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis, Part 3: How to Survive a Project When Everything Goes Wrong
Welcome to part 3 of our 5-part Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis series where I’ll walk you through how I’ve handled some of my most interesting business analysis projects using the business analysis process. Part 3 – …
Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis, Part 3: How to Survive a Project When Everything Goes Wrong
Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis, Part 2: How to Recover from Newbie Mistakes
Welcome to part 2 of our 5-part Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis series where I’ll walk you through how I’ve handled some of my most interesting business analysis projects using the business analysis process. Part 2 – where …
Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis, Part 2: How to Recover from Newbie Mistakes
Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis (5-Part Series)
Welcome to the 5-part Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis series where I’ll walk you through how I’ve handled some of my most interesting business analysis projects using the business analysis process.
Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis, Part 1: The Project Where I Didn’t Get My Way
Welcome to part 1 of our 5-part Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis series where I’ll walk you through how I’ve handled some of my most interesting business analysis projects using the business analysis process. Part 1 …
Behind-the-Scenes in Business Analysis, Part 1: The Project Where I Didn’t Get My Way
How to Approach the Data Migration for a COTS (or SaaS) Project
When an organization is migrating from a pre-existing system to a new Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) product, planning the data migration is an important aspect of the project to ensure that the right data ends up in the …
How to Approach the Data Migration for a COTS (or SaaS) Project
3 Reasons to Data Model (Even If You Can Design Databases)
If you come from a technical background, you might be wondering if you can skip data modeling and go right to designing and implementing the database. While you could theoretically bypass any of the data …
The Difference Between Data Analysis and Data Modeling
In today’s information-rich world, we are seeing more and more data-related analysis skills in business analysis jobs. We’ve been asked several times whether business intelligence and business analysis roles are really different roles, and how …
How to Blend a Data Dictionary with Use Cases, Wireframes, and Workflow Diagrams
As a business analyst, it would be rare for you to complete a data dictionary on its own. Rather, it’s likely that you’ll be analyzing data requirements in combination with other business analysis techniques. In this …
How to Blend a Data Dictionary with Use Cases, Wireframes, and Workflow Diagrams
Getting Started with Data Modeling (10-Part Series)
Here are 10 articles to help you get started with data modeling. These are perfect if you want to brush up on data modeling or get fresh ideas to improve your business analyst work.
What Software Tools Business Analysts Use for Data Modeling
Are you ready to get started with data modeling, but wondering what software tools you’ll need? Have you seen some of the more complicated-looking models and wonder how you can create these with your business …
When it Works to Create a Data Map and a Data Dictionary at the Same Time
You might be wondering if you need both a data dictionary and a data mapping, or you might want to make these two deliverables part of one simultaneous analysis activity. Data mapping is a special kind …
When it Works to Create a Data Map and a Data Dictionary at the Same Time
How Data Modeling Fits Into the Business Analysis Process
Part of the value the business analyst provides is selecting techniques to ensure the requirements for a project are fully analyzed and understood. Data modeling can be a significant part of the project requirements to rightfully non-existent, even …
How to Data Model Without Getting Too Technical (or the what and the how)
Although data modeling techniques can look technical, you don’t need to know database programming to complete useful versions of the models from a business-facing perspective. Instead, business analysts create data models that describe the what (of …
How to Data Model Without Getting Too Technical (or the what and the how)
4 Data Modeling Techniques that Solve Tricky Project Challenges
Business analysts solve tricky, icky, sticky project challenges using data modeling techniques. There are 4 data modeling techniques you should get to know as a business analyst, so they can become part of your BA …
4 Data Modeling Techniques that Solve Tricky Project Challenges
The Glossary: A Gateway to Clear Requirements and Communication
A Glossary is a deliverable that documents terms that are unique to the business or technical domain. A glossary is used to ensure that all stakeholders (business and technical) understand what is meant by the terminology, …
The Glossary: A Gateway to Clear Requirements and Communication
What is a Data Dictionary?
A Data Dictionary, also called a Data Definition Matrix, provides detailed information about the business data, such as standard definitions of data elements, their meanings, and allowable values. While a conceptual or logical Entity Relationship …
When to Use Email to Answer Requirements Questions
Today let’s talk about email, specifically emailing to discover information related to requirements questions. You as the business analyst sit down and write a carefully crafted email with a very thoughtful question and send it …
How to Use Feedback to Become an Expert in Requirements Documentation
Author: Adriana Beal Participants who complete Crafting Better Requirements may have very different educational and professional backgrounds, but they all have one thing in common: they leave the course with a unique set of strategies …
How to Use Feedback to Become an Expert in Requirements Documentation
3 (and only 3) Reasons to Use BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation)
Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is a standardized notation for creating visual models of business or organizational processes. Those new to BPMN understandably find it overwhelming. There are flow objects, connecting objects, swim lanes, and artifacts. …
3 (and only 3) Reasons to Use BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation)
3 Signs You Shouldn’t Be Writing a Use Case
With all the craze about use cases lately, you’d think that no collection of requirements documentation would be complete without at least one, and perhaps several, use cases. The reality is that while use cases …
How to Make the Requirements Process Faster With Visual Models
Many business analysts mistakenly believe that adding a visual model to a specification – or preparing one specifically for a requirements meeting – means significant extra work. But in reality, using the right visual modeling …
How to Make the Requirements Process Faster With Visual Models
How to Learn About a New Business Domain
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 can be acquired over …
53 Tips For Discovering All the Requirements
Are you wondering what concrete steps you can take to make sure you don’t overlook requirements on your next project? In business analysis, the set of techniques used to discover the requirements is called elicitation. For the most …
3 Elicitation Techniques You Can Do Without Stakeholder Access
Imagine the scene: A significant project is underway, and you are leading the detailed analysis. You create your business analysis work-plan, and decide to start the initial requirements elicitation by meeting and interviewing a few …
3 Elicitation Techniques You Can Do Without Stakeholder Access
How to Put Some Spunk Into Your Requirements
Picture me: young, fresh, and disciplined…leading a very boring requirements meeting where we’re poring over a very laborious requirements document. This was way back when I was too new, too green, to know better. I …
What’s the Business Analyst Role on a Software Project?
Have you ever wondered how a business analyst approaches a software project? Would you be interested in the general phases of work a business analyst completes and what activities are included in each phase? Well, …
What’s the Difference Between a Wireframe, Mock-Up, and Prototype?
Would you be interested in learning more about how to visually represent your requirements, even if you have little to no technology skills? Have you been seeing the terms “wireframe”, “mock-up”, and “prototype” in BA …
What’s the Difference Between a Wireframe, Mock-Up, and Prototype?
7 Questions That Will Get Even More Information Out of Your Stakeholders
We put a lot of burden on ourselves as business analysts to get as much information as possible as early as possible in the process. The questions we think to ask are critical to getting …
7 Questions That Will Get Even More Information Out of Your Stakeholders
8 Ways to Be Less Irritating and Minimize Follow-Up Questions After Requirements Meetings
Do you find yourself thinking up questions after a requirements meeting that you wish you would have thought to ask? Are your stakeholders frustrated because you come back again and again with more questions? Would …
8 Ways to Be Less Irritating and Minimize Follow-Up Questions After Requirements Meetings
5 Processes Worth Mapping
Business process maps are a growing area within business analysis. But many BAs are cut out from the business process. Others of you aren’t yet in a business analyst role, but would like to get …
Make Your Requirements Atomic!
I have to admit that I have a rather eclectic music collection, with tracks covering almost every conceivable genre. Every time I hit the “Shuffle” button on my MP3 player, there’s a tense moment of …
3 Shortcuts to Create Wireframes in Record Time
While I find that wireframes help me elicit the right requirements and shorten requirements review cycles by giving my stakeholders a visual point of reference, many business analysts resist creating wireframes because they take can …
Secrets of Successful Agile Analysis: How to Make Your Business Analysis Skills Indispensable
Are you exploring a business analysis career in an agile software development environment? Are you concerned about keeping your business analysis skills relevant in an increasingly agile world? Would you be interested in learning how …
Secrets of Successful Agile Analysis: How to Make Your Business Analysis Skills Indispensable
Help Your Stakeholders Leave Their Rank at the Door: 6 Workshop Levelers
A well facilitated workshop can be an extremely good opportunity to bring stakeholders together, brainstorm and discuss potential ideas and requirements. Great workshops are often creative, high-energy and fun. They should provide stakeholders with equal …
Help Your Stakeholders Leave Their Rank at the Door: 6 Workshop Levelers
How to Keep Your Elicitation Session From Going Off Track
Picture yourself leading a requirements meeting early in the project. You show up 5 minutes early, get yourself settled, spread out your notes, and fire up your laptop. You review your agenda so it’s top …
How to Get Your Stakeholders to Stop Repeating Themselves
Do you ever feel like your stakeholders keep repeating themselves? Would you like certain aspects of the elicitation process to go a little faster? In this post, we’ll look at why even when we’re listening …
The Forgotten Art of Document Analysis: 8 Documents That Can Help You Ask All the Right Questions
Elicitation can be a tricky activity. Often when needing to understand the requirements for a particular project, the temptation is to jump straight into facilitating a requirements workshop or holding stakeholder interviews. The challenge, of …
The Forgotten Art of Document Analysis: 8 Documents That Can Help You Ask All the Right Questions
The Second Ingredient That All Successful Business Analysts Possess
I’ve always been a big proponent of relationships and relationship building as the number one factor, at least in my view, for a successful analyst. They are critical to the work we do and require …
The Second Ingredient That All Successful Business Analysts Possess
Requirements Gathering vs. Elicitation
Do you refer to some of your business analysis activity as “requirements gathering”? Are you looking at BA jobs and seeing “requirements gathering” responsibilities and wondering what that looks like? And how do you reconcile …
How to Present Yourself as Capable of Doing Requirements Specifications (Even If You’ve Only Created Informal Documentation)
Many new business analysts are confident in their communication and problem-solving skills but feel held back because they’ve only ever created informal documentation to serve a specific audience or project need. Are you confident in …
5 Ways to End Analysis Paralysis on Your Next Business Process Model
Like writers complain of “writers block,” modelers often find themselves in “analysis paralysis.” When modeling a business process, analysis paralysis occurs when we get stuck on a model and are not able to finish it, …
5 Ways to End Analysis Paralysis on Your Next Business Process Model
Michael Scott’s Guide to Facilitating a Meeting
You might not think that Michael Scott of NBC’s The Office has much to teach you about facilitating a meeting. But I disagree! If you’ll take a closer look with me, you’ll discover that Michael does just …
How to Validate Requirements (BABOK 6.6)
Did you know that requirements can be perfectly well documented and verified, but completely useless? This is why business analysts not only verify requirements, but also validation them. In the BABOK Guide, the purpose of Requirements …
How to Avoid 7 Common Workshop Pitfalls
OK – I admit it. One of my favourite parts of the BA role is facilitating workshops. I love being able to coax ideas out of people’s unconscious mind and I love the co-operation, creativity …
How to Expand Your BA Experience Even if You Aren’t a Business Analyst
Our grocer recently introduced pasture-fresh eggs from a local farm and I’ve been eating a lot of eggs lately. Fresher eggs than I’ve ever had on a regular basis in my life. The kind you’d …
How to Expand Your BA Experience Even if You Aren’t a Business Analyst
The Dwight Schrute School of Business Process Improvement
You might not think you have much to learn from Dwight Shrute from The Office. Why, with the fact that he’s been given a dizzying array of job titles, never with the accompanying salary or …
How Do I Get Feedback on a Requirements Document Without Sounding Too Demanding?
A reader asks: I am awaiting feedback from a client on a Requirements document. It has been 3 weeks and I haven’t gotten any response. I have already sent an email reminding them. How do I …
How Do I Get Feedback on a Requirements Document Without Sounding Too Demanding?
How Do Business Analysts Verify Requirements? (BABOK 6.5)
Requirements verification ensures the intrinsic quality of the requirements. Although it would be a significant waste of time outside academic circles, I could verify requirements for a solution that had zero business value and that …
Let Your Stakeholders Know You Heard Them (BABOK 3.3, 3.4)
While we’ve already talked about the importance of Preparing for Elicitation and Conducting Elicitation Activities, it’s not enough to stop there. The next two (and IMHO, critical) tasks in the Elicitation Knowledge area are Document Elicitation …
BA Stories: The Value of Reusable Requirements (BABOK 4.3)
When I first started my consulting business, I intended to focus solely on understanding the capabilities of legacy systems. Unearthing requirements had become a bit of a pet passion of mine and I realized that …
Oh Where, Oh Where Does This Requirement Belong? (BABOK 7.2)
Do you think that you as the business analyst should be involved in figuring out how the solution is put together, even though you are not responsible for designing it or implementing it? Do you …
Oh Where, Oh Where Does This Requirement Belong? (BABOK 7.2)
Good Things Come in Nice Packages (BABOK 4.4)
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 …
BA Stories: Business Analysts Plan to Plan (BABOK 2.3)
I am a planner. I like to see what’s in front of me and understand what it will take to accomplish my objectives. I’d expect this is true of many business analysts. Our requirements are, …
The Business Analyst’s Role in Designing the Solution (BABOK 7.1)
Are you responsible for the solution? If you read the BABOK closely, you might be surprised to learn that the answer is a resounding “yes.” Of course, the BA is not responsible for delivering the solution …
The Business Analyst’s Role in Designing the Solution (BABOK 7.1)
BA Stories: Mind the Gap – The Capability Gap (BABOK 5.2)
Assess Capability Gaps is one of those tasks that we almost all do, but when we read about it in the BABOK we might wrinkle our brow. It seems so obvious that we may not …
It’s Not “All Requirements” – Assumptions and Constraints Matter Too! (BABOK 6.4)
As BAs we very easily get wrapped up in our requirements. That is the bulk of our work – business requirements, stakeholder requirements, solution requirements, etc. Everywhere we look, requirements, requirements, requirements! However, in the …
It’s Not “All Requirements” – Assumptions and Constraints Matter Too! (BABOK 6.4)
The BABOK Might Not Be a Methodology, But the BA Still Needs One (BABOK 2.1)
Perhaps even more than planning for elicitation, planning the business analysis approach will set a mature business analyst apart from the crowd. The purpose of ‘Plan the Business Analysis Approach’ is to select an approach …
The BABOK Might Not Be a Methodology, But the BA Still Needs One (BABOK 2.1)
3 Steps to Preparing for an Elicitation Session
It’s difficult to even think about being a business analyst without elicitation. Yet, it’s so core, it’s often difficult to abstract from the other BA tasks as well. It seems we are almost always eliciting …
Do You Define the Business Need? (BABOK 5.1)
The business need is one of the most fundamental aspects of business analysis. Yet, I know many BAs do not consider themselves part of defining the business need. Today, I’d like to challenge your assumptions. According …
BA Stories: Evaluate Solution Performance (BABOK 7.6)
The purpose of this Evaluate Solution Performance (BABOK 7.6 – the last task included in the BABOK Guide) is: “Evaluate functioning solutions to understand the value they deliver and identify opportunities for improvement.” This task …
How Do I Extract Business Rules from Legacy Systems?
We have two readers ask similar questions of our Help A BA! staff concerning extracting business rules from legacy systems; so let’s help them both out. Reader 1: As rules are mostly hardcoded and code …
Laura’s CBAP Journey: Settling into a Study Rhythm (Weeks 6/7)
This journey has had its ups and downs. Like any new venture, it started with buoyancy – or maybe better, that feeling you get when you are heading up the first big hill of a …
Laura’s CBAP Journey: Settling into a Study Rhythm (Weeks 6/7)
Why Terminology is Important
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 …
Investing Some Time in Stakeholder Analysis
One often-overlooked aspect to avoiding missing requirements is stakeholder analysis. Stakeholder analysis ensures you have the right people involved in the requirements process. Often, requirements are missed simply because stakeholders are missed – and so …
Why Writing a Software Requirements Specification is a Valuable Analyst Skill
Author: Adriana Beal If you are a BA working on the IT space, you may be responsible for creating multiple deliverables, many of them intermediate documents such as meeting minutes and as-is/to be business models. …
Why Writing a Software Requirements Specification is a Valuable Analyst Skill
How Do I Approach Requirements for a Business Intelligence Project?
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 …
How Do I Approach Requirements for a Business Intelligence Project?
6 Tips to Keep Writing UAT Scripts Fun
I am sure that any business analyst who has written user acceptance scripting can confirm that script writing is super detailed, critically important and mind numbingly boring. But is it important – yes it is. …
Identifying Hidden Project Stakeholders by Connecting the Relationships
When beginning work on a project – whether joining an existing effort or helping to plan the kick-off – the competent BA looks around at the players to identify the Stakeholders in this initiative and …
Identifying Hidden Project Stakeholders by Connecting the Relationships
How Do I Get Stakeholders to Come to My Meetings?
Reader Question: I am working at a rapidly growing company as a BA. Sometimes I really find it hard to catch my stakeholders and other interested parts at their places and to make an appointment …
What a BA Should Know About the UX Profession: Interview with Patrick Quattlebaum
We are looking for possibilities through the lens of the user. Editor’s Note: This relationship started when I queried on Twitter for some help planning a usability study. Leslie Shearer led me to Patrick Quattlebaum, …
What a BA Should Know About the UX Profession: Interview with Patrick Quattlebaum
8 Provocative Questions that Encourage Lateral Thinking
At the start of many projects we are in a state of natural ignorance, as we don’t yet know what we don’t know. This is especially true when defining a problem or strategy or eliciting …
How to Use a Process Walk-through to Validate Requirements for a New System
When I began my latest consulting job, one of my first deliverables was to assist the stakeholders with a process walk through. The purpose of the walk through was to identify gaps in the ‘to” …
How to Use a Process Walk-through to Validate Requirements for a New System
How Do You Collect Requirements for a Reporting System?
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 …
How to Elicit Requirements from Distributed Teams? Virtual Brainstorming!
In my last article on Bridging the Gap, I introduced some key concepts for planning virtual meetings: Consider the focus of the meeting or workshop; Minimize duration & maximize value; Involve everyone – create a collaborative …
How to Elicit Requirements from Distributed Teams? Virtual Brainstorming!
How to Capture Stakeholder Concerns
As you begin eliciting information about the requirements, it’s very likely that you’ll discover information that’s not quite a requirement and not quite a business need either but is important information that has relevant project …
Attending the Right Meetings and Avoiding Unnecessary Ones
Anne, a young business analyst for a financial company in New York, arrived late for the meeting. I had been at the company for two days of a week long engagement and had been attending …
I’m Letting Go of the Big Thick Requirements Document. Are You?
Some recent posts across the blatherverse have highlighted some considerations that we as good business analysts must employ when developing and delivering our documentation and deliverables. These got me to thinking about my own very …
I’m Letting Go of the Big Thick Requirements Document. Are You?
Akk! The Developers Won’t Use My Requirements Specs!
Let me share one of my more humbling experiences as a business analyst. To be perfectly blunt, the developers did not like my requirements specifications. It was hard to realize that I had failed to …
Use Cases: A Personal History (and a bit of a love affair)
Can you really have a love affair with a document? Don’t tell my husband, but the answer is “yes”. For me, the love of my business analysis professional life has been use cases. In what …
Managing ambiguity – a key business analyst competency
Author: Adriana Beal Among the many competencies that business analysts need to develop in order to advance their careers, the ability to manage ambiguity is undoubtedly a critical one. The rapid changes that happen internally …
Technical Specifications and System Documentation Can Take Different Forms
Do you demand that your documentation serve double duty as a technical specification and a system document? While in the past I’ve done exactly that, my recent forays into more agile practices forced me to …
Technical Specifications and System Documentation Can Take Different Forms
10 Ways to Communicate More Effectively on IT Projects
Great business analysts are great communicators. We communicate in meetings, through elicitation, via email, and through our requirements documentation. Verbal and written communication are key competencies for the successful business analyst. I’ve collected together some …
How to Groom the Product Backlog for Improved Sprint Planning
In an agile environment your week-to-week and day-to-day focus quickly can become integrated with what the development team was working on each sprint. If you go into a sprint planning session without a properly-groomed backlog, the …
How to Groom the Product Backlog for Improved Sprint Planning
How to Become More Confident in Requirements Elicitation
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 …
How to a Use a Stakeholder Request List to Facilitate Scope Definition
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 …
How to a Use a Stakeholder Request List to Facilitate Scope Definition
How to Interrupt Someone in a Meeting
Have you ever been holding your breath waiting not-so-patiently to get a word in edgewise while one participant dominated the discussion? You see one stakeholder after another begin to check out while “that” person drones …
Do You Have the Key Business Stakeholders Involved in Your Project?
If customers are not receiving what they ask for in a project deliverable, what causes that? Where would everything fall apart to the point that requirements were not being carried out through implementation? Chances are …
Do You Have the Key Business Stakeholders Involved in Your Project?
How I Take Meeting Notes and Facilitate the Discussion Without Driving Myself Crazy
In many organizations, the leader of the meeting must fill multiple roles. You probably created the agenda, are guiding the discussion, and also responsible for taking the notes. Over the years I’ve developed some habits …
How I Take Meeting Notes and Facilitate the Discussion Without Driving Myself Crazy
If a Project is Approved, Do You Need To Do a Business Case?
Reader question: “If a project is approved, do I still need to do enterprise analysis as defined in the BABOK? Do I need to do a business case?” This question got me thinking about the …
If a Project is Approved, Do You Need To Do a Business Case?
Requirements Templates: What To Do When You Must Start From Scratch
While you may have a formalized processes and sets of documentation requirements for your software projects (this can be helpful or hurtful), you might be starting with no process or set way of specifying requirements. …
Requirements Templates: What To Do When You Must Start From Scratch
STOP! You Are Being Too Detail-Oriented!
Imagine you are running a meeting, probably about software requirements for a project, and someone in the room gets squirmy. Maybe they are shuffling their papers. Maybe they are bored and checking their emails. Or …
How to Reach Across Organizational Boundaries to Create a More Successful Project
Whether an analyst resides on the business or IT side, he or she is ALWAYS in the middle. For a Business-side analyst to be effective, there must be an understanding of how to interact with …
How to Reach Across Organizational Boundaries to Create a More Successful Project
Using Wireframes or Prototypes to Elicit, Analyze, and Validate Software Requirements
We’ve all heard that a “picture is worth a thousand words”. It’s absolutely true when it comes to building good software requirements. In the case of building a software application, even the most rudimentary prototypes …
Using Wireframes or Prototypes to Elicit, Analyze, and Validate Software Requirements
Making it Work Between Business and IT: Why and How to Reach Across Boundaries to Dissipate Potential Attitude Issues
As long as customers have been seeking solutions from the computing industry, there has existed a barrier between those who need a technological solution and those who provide one. That barrier has morphed from basic …
How to Create a User Interface Specification
A long, long time ago while working on a web-based product, a colleague of mine came up with this idea of writing a user interface or screen specification. The purpose of this requirements specification is …
What To Do When a Developer Says “That’s Impossible”
We have all been here. You’ve defined just the right feature or solution to solve a specific business problem. It’s elegant. It’s simple. It’s even got a hint of beauty about it. When you get …
How to Define Scope in an Epic
Agile teams typically differentiate between “epics” and “user stories.” In most cases epics are just really large stories that sit far down on your product backlog until the team is ready to flesh them out …
How to Create a Business Domain Model
When you reach that point of the project where your head simply hurts from how hard you are thinking, you’ve spent hours in meetings rehashing the same concepts, and yet you and your team members …
How to Prepare a Requirements Document in 4 Steps
So, you’ve met with your stakeholders and elicited information about their business processes, business needs, or how the system works today. How do you actually turn this into requirements documentation? In what follows, I’ll share …
How to Keep a Big Picture Perspective on an Agile Project
Based on my experience analyzing requirements in user stories, I’m convinced that a fundamental challenge for the agile business analyst or product owner is to maintain and communicate the “big picture” while also detailing out requirements in …
Your Technical Team Needs Business Context Too
Let’s assume you’ve done your homework and scoped a project that meets specific business needs or objectives. It’s easy to take a deep breath, kick back, and relax…waiting for the implementation of these great ideas …
How to Interview a Subject Matter Expert
When trying to uncover the functionality of an existing system or discover what a new or updated system needs to do to meet the business need, the most critical activity you will perform is interviewing …
Data Feed Requirements – A Template
In today’s climate of content exchanges and web APIs, it’s often necessary for someone with both business and technical knowledge to participate in data modeling activities or building data specifications. Dumping data into your organization’s …
How to Create a Product Backlog: An Agile Experience
The product backlog is really the core deliverable that maintains and evolves the requirements in an agile environment. Ownership by the agile business analyst (or a product owner with BA responsibilities) is critical. A product …
How to Explore the System to Discover Requirements
When you are discovering the current capabilities of a software system, it’s critical that you take time early on to explore the system as fully as possible. Of course, you’ll also need input from stakeholders, …
How to Create Quick and Effective Meeting Agenda
One of my pet peeves is attending a “mystery meeting”. You know the type, vague subject line and no agenda. Maybe you get a brief sentence in the invite saying “let’s meet to discuss XYZ”. …
“The Only Stupid Question is the One You Don’t Ask”
You’ve been there. A question sits on the tip of your tongue but you just can’t, no you won’t, ask it. Pushing back questions that surface in your consciousness is equivalent to painting over mildew. …
10 Ways to Discover What the Problem Really Is
A clear sign of a poorly identified the problem is irrational disagreement. You’ve been in these meetings: one person brings up a great idea, another shoots it down immediately, and participants voice conflicting opinions about …
5 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Technology Project
Many times we are so excited to implement a new idea or solve a recently elevated business problem that we forget to stop for a moment and reflect on the direction we are taking. I …
When are you “done” with requirements?
I have asked this question in nearly every business analyst job interview I’ve conducted and rarely heard the answer I was looking for. The most common (and wrong) answer is “never”. Let’s just be clear …
BAs are Difficult People (And So Is Everyone Else)
It was an eye-opening moment for me. Gordon Ellison stood up and said to a bunch of business analysts “You and I are difficult people to someone.” I had an immediate attack of self-realization when …
An Issue Tracking Template for Requirements Issues
The Issues List is one of the most simple and most effective tools you’ll ever use as a business analyst. The list itself is simple. The ability to maximize its impact is the sign of …