How can an organization develop its business analysis function? What actions can encourage, support and grow the business analyst mindset of the practitioners who play a pivotal role in enabling successful changes in an organization? Introduction Any business organization that needs to change and evolve will benefit from having a business analyst or a team of analysts supporting analysis of
Time to take a fresh look at business rules. What problems do they address? Why are they still so relevant? How will they relate to AI and machine learning? Introduction Business rules cover a very broad space. Across the entire space, there is one central idea — business logic should not be buried in procedural programming languages. Call it rule
It is essential to develop a plan for data mapping in advance of the project to ensure success in ETL, data integration, and business intelligence / analytics efforts Introduction Planning is arguably the most important stage of the entire data mapping project. Documentation needed for a project’s sources should include data maps and data dictionaries to deliver a complete definition
What makes a business analyst exceptional? Although skill competency is important, the business analyst mindset plays a crucial role in the success of any business change. Introduction Business analysis is widely acknowledged as a profession and a critical competency required to define, plan and implement business changes. Much has been written about business analysis tools and techniques, modelling notations and
Every organization needs a business architecture – the blueprint that explains the structure of the enterprise capabilities, business processes, and information exchanges, connecting strategy with execution Introduction A Business Architecture describes the business processes and functions needed to support an enterprise’s business strategy. It consists of requirements, principles, and models of the enterprise’s business processes. The goal of the Business
The Business Analyst is confronted with the stakeholder’s desire to modify features, functions and requirements “just because” resulting in scope creep. Why are the stakeholders asking for changes and what can a Business Analyst do about it? Introduction Project scope defines the extent of the project; “scope creep” is the tendency to add features, functions, business rules or other requirements which expands
Every business analyst should know the optimal tools and techniques to use in any situation. Having this skill reduces stress, improves performance, and enables better results Introduction Chaos! Stress! Everyday mess! Isn’t this an everyday situation for a business analyst (BA)? If not, either you have reached job satisfaction or you have not been introduced to the real world of
An extended data dictionary can provide business requirements analysts with the ability to catalog and use many more attributes and metadata than an standard data dictionary Introduction One of the key goals of business analysis is to obtain complete solution requirements. Among the solution requirements, possibly the largest share falls to user interface requirements, since most applications have significant user
The Business Analyst meets with stakeholders, but does the Business Analyst manage stakeholders? The successful BA should engage in stakeholder management to ensure the correct user provides requirements. Introduction A stakeholder is an individual who has an interest in your application and provides requirements, processes, or other information. The Business Analyst (BA) has the sometimes difficult task of eliciting the
The Business Analyst plays “Truth or Dare.” Does Dare accept the challenge of an impossible task and possibly discover hidden opportunity or accept the conventional truth and bypass the challenge? Introduction In the game Truth or Dare, a player either responds to a question by telling the truth or is dared to complete a difficult task. Often, the Business Analyst
