Business Analyst: Build your Credibility
A Business Analyst acts as a face of Customer to the Development team, most of the time. A Business Analyst should be credible enough and the team should have absolute faith in him. Development team should be able to ask any question regarding the system and they should believe in the answers that BAs provide. [...]
Continue reading...Advance From Business Analyst to Business Architect
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The wilderness between IT and business is our realm. We wrestle semantics and drive out definitions. We begin as Analysts and advance to Architects.
We’re not strictly tech and we’re not strictly business. The definition of what we do is usually written in semi-tech language (we write requirements). But how do we write those requirements, what [...]
Customer Rights and Responsibilities
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Software success depends on developing a collaborative partnership between software developers and their customers. Too often, though, the customer-developer relationship becomes strained or even adversarial. Problems arise partly because people don’t share a clear understanding of what requirements are and who the customers are. To clarify key aspects of the customer-developer partnership, I propose a [...]
Continue reading...Building a Requirements Foundation through Customer Interviews
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
“Our customer doesn’t know what he wants,” complained Sandy. “I try to get him to talk about the product and tell me what he wants, but it’s like pulling teeth.”
Whether you are building a brand new product or working on evolving an existing product, understanding customer business needs is the foundation of a marketable product. [...]
Six Sigma and the Business Analyst
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
I began my career at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young where doing business analysis and implementing large scale systems was my job. At that time, I just thought everyone intrinsically knew you had to understand the business and all the requirements before you begin designing a system (whether custom built or off the shelf). When [...]
Continue reading...Transitioning from Technical Writer to Business Analyst
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
With evolving economic and technological needs, career moves are practically universal in today’s job market. Some of these career moves are actually leaps, such as an accountant transitioning to become a nurse, but others are much closer jumps, such a technical writer or documentation specialist moving into the often similar business analyst’s role. Indeed, in [...]
Continue reading...The Rise of the Business Analyst — Again
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
When I got into the IT business years ago, I thought the business analyst was the most pivotal person in the whole profession. That was the person who was the bridge between business and technology, the one who could see and understand both sides and whose goal was to apply technology to support business initiatives [...]
Continue reading...Maintaining and Keeping Your Edge: 5 Tips to Landing a Job
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
In 2001 I found myself “in-transition”. A year prior I had accepted a position with a small Internet start-up firm in New Jersey. As the Dot Com bubble burst, I found myself without a job, as the company I worked for headed towards shuttering it’s doors. I was let go on September 5th, 2001. Six [...]
Continue reading...Objectives of management: mastering complexity
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Do you feel that your work as a manager is getting more and more complicated? You are almost certainly right.
In an increasingly complex world society, the advancing complexity of business management is inevitable. It’s been visible for at least four decades, and no doubt will continue indefinitely. You can follow one cause (and effect) in [...]
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
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