Don’t you love clichés? I am sure your immediate thought when you read the title of this post was “Yet another blog telling me I need to listen more”. You’re probably right about half of it, you probably do need to listen more. We all need to listen more. But this thought doesn’t deal with the art of listening; ...

Would you like to be perceived as effective? Want to succeed? Make sure you follow up.   As a BA you are involved in several initiatives at different stages of development.  What separates an average professional from an exceptional one is following up on tasks assigned to others on your projects. I'm too busy,...

Over last 6 years, I have come across more than hundreds of analysts and have conducted almost equal number of interviews. Over this time, I have developed a knack of differentiating best analysts from good and good analysts from bad. If you face this challenge regularly, this post might help you.   So how do you differentiate between g...

Do you want to be an effective BA?   The first step is to make the key stakeholders trust you. As I wrote in my previous post it is the first step in establishing yourself when you're the only BA in your organization.  When I joined and sat down for my first meeting with the project team not only was I met with stares of host...

Background The Agile methodology originated within the software development industry. Since its inception in 2001 – Agile has expanded beyond an initial developer-centric community – to being embraced by multi-discipline teams working across numerous industries. The antecedent of Agile within IT was the Waterfall methodology. The Waterfall framew...

Are you the first and only Business Analyst in your company?  If so, you know how hard it is to survive while doing your job and bringing about organizational change.  If not, you may be frantically thinking "How do I get out?!".  This post is to share my experience in how to not only survive but thrive! I joined a mid-size company...

"Garbage in, Garbage Out" - To elicit accurate requirements, the business analyst must learn to ask the “right” questions “the right way”. The manner in which questions are delivered and the composition of these questions have a direct impact on the usefulness of the responses we receive.   If your questions are properly and thoughtfully fra...

  Its quite a feat of strength to pretend you don’t have any weaknesses. I don’t pretend to be that strong. Its quite a bit easier for me to look for faults, gaps, misses, short comings, imperfections and details that spell out why something is not right. Its a blessing and a curse. Looking at my deliverables in this light is second nature...

Business analysts who are self-avowed social media enthusiasts will tell you that being part of a large, online community where help is only a click away is worth the time and effort. In fact, these professionals suggest that the only problem with a bit of scanning, reading, clicking, or posting on LinkedIn and Twitter every day is finding the time...

Do you know what your business's core competencies are? Is there just one or are there many organizational attributes? If you answered that there are many, how would you describe them succinctly? Core competencies are one or a combination of a few unique or rare abilities; however, a description of core competencies is not simply a laundry list of ...