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 …
Plan Your Business Analysis Approach
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 …
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
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 …
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
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 …
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
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 …
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
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 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)
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
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, …
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
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 …
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 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)
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
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
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 …