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Entries for the 'Soft Skills' Category

(1618 Views) (1 Comments)

I have been in the business analysis profession for many years and the one thing I have constantly had to challenge myself on is leading without really leading, or what I call leading from the side. As a business analyst, many times we are not in a position of authority yet we have to have significant leadership skills to be successful.

» FEATURED: Eliminating Ambiguity from Your Requirements

(2160 Views) (9 Comments)

From a developer's standpoint, few things are more frustrating than having to make lots of calls and research to learn what to create because the requirements are ambiguous. From an analyst's view, few things are more frustrating than having your requirements misunderstood. Yet so often, requirements are ambiguous to their readers, despite the writ...

» FEATURED: The Art of Professional Pushback

(2556 Views) (9 Comments)

I am not sure if there are many other fields in corporate America that require the finesse necessary to execute the professional pushback as greatly as business analysis. Just by the shear nature of what analysts do, we are constantly uncovering inefficiencies and making recommendations for improvements or enhancements. Sometimes those recommendati...

» The Path to Requirements Elicitation

(2495 Views) (4 Comments)

The path to requirements elicitation is something that analysts are rarely taught. Everyone knows that it involves interviews and research, but within most organizations, exactly how the interviews and research should be conducted is nebulous.

» FEATURED: The Potholes of Office Politics

(2619 Views) (3 Comments)

A couple of months ago, I was driving along a well-traveled road here in town when my headlights fell upon a large pool of standing water. The little boy in me still loves splashing in puddles, whether on foot or in my car. I smiled at the thought of creating a huge spray. Unfortunately, the harmless puddle of standing water was actually a large po...

» The Creative Business Analyst - Part 2, Generating Solution Ideas

(1770 Views) (5 Comments)

The Creative Business Analyst - Part 2, Generating Solution Ideas

A lot of people think that coming up with solutions to business problems is the hardest part about being a business analyst – particularly when working with a client who knows more about the business than you ever will. Don’t believe it, after all you’ve already made considerable progress in understanding the problem – and your understanding is bas...

» Communication Underpins Successful Application Development

(843 Views) (3 Comments)

Where application development is concerned, the ability to produce great code is just one small component of overall success. Just as essential is the ability for the developers to clearly grasp the business requirement – and deliver against an accurate functional specification. Nick McKenzie, technical director at nVisionIT, notes that the proces...

» FEATURED: Find Your Subject Matter Experts

(1804 Views) (0 Comments)

No matter what requirements gathering process you subscribe to-waterfall, unified, or another approach-your discovery will be markedly easier if you can identify the right subject matter experts from the beginning. Whether they exist inside or outside your organization, people who intimately know your project's product or service, its actors, and i...

» How to Truly Partner With Business

(1278 Views) (0 Comments)

Business isn’t going to walk hand in hand with IT until we’re ready to truly partner with them. Here’s how. I’ve had some interesting conversations about the role of business analysts and the best practices most of them use for requirements-gathering. And I’ve noticed a major contradiction between our desire to be effective partners with the busi...

» FEATURED: The Practical Side of Creativity – An Innovative Arsenal For Project Managers

(1891 Views) (0 Comments)

When I’m not consulting or managing projects, some of my time is spent teaching MBA classes at Drake University. The fact that I teach both project management AND creativity for business creates consternation among some of my friends and colleagues. After all, can a project manager really be creative? Aren’t those mutually exclusi...

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Entries for the 'Soft Skills' Category