https://www.modernanalyst.com RSS feeds for Business Analyst Community & Resources | Modern Analyst 60 https://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/News/tabid/177/ID/1705/Ravenflow-Launches-Business-Analyst-Building-Blocks-Program.aspx#Comments 0 https://www.modernanalyst.com/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=177&ModuleID=832&ArticleID=1705 https://www.modernanalyst.com:443/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=1705&PortalID=0&TabID=177 https://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/News/tabid/177/ID/1705/Ravenflow-Launches-Business-Analyst-Building-Blocks-Program.aspx Emeryville, CA—January 24, 2011—Ravenflow, a leading provider of visual requirements definition software, today announced its six-part Business Analyst Building Blocks webinar series for 2011.  This new education program is designed to help business analysts improve their skills and success with requirements elicitation and management, from initial process discovery to modeling, validation and test.  The program kicks off Feb. 22 with a one-hour webinar, “Getting Started with a BA Center of Excellence.”  “Our customers are constantly looking for ways to provide their BAs with better training, mentoring and support so they can advance their analysis and elicitation skills, as well as adopt and implement best practices,” said Susan Boers, president and CEO of Ravenflow “We’re happy to see the requirements domain maturing.  More and organizations are starting to recognize the important role requirements play in project success – and how critical it is to get them right,” Boers added.  “Whether BAs take part in our free education series or engage us in formal training, we want to empower them with the training and tools to succeed.”   “In recent surveys, more than 6,000 BAs have agreed there is a critical need for improvement in the areas of communication, negotiation, presentation and requirements elicitation skills.  Our BA Building Blocks series will help,” Boers explained.  “Through the course of 2011, we’ll cover everything from enterprise analysis, planning and monitoring to use cases and elicitation skills as well as understanding the requirements lifecycle from process discovery to test.”  The first webinar in the series, “Getting Started with a BA Center of Excellence,” explores the why, when and how of creating a BA Center of Excellence, and provides an overview of prerequisites and potential roadblocks.  This webinar will be held Tuesday, Feb. 22 at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST).  To register, please visit https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/953296385. Each webinar lasts one hour and is complimentary, but pre-registration is required.  The webinars will take place every 4-6 weeks.  “Whether BAs choose to attend just one of our webinars, or all of them, each one will provide the building blocks to advance their skills and pursue the launch of a BA Center of Excellence,” Boers said.  In addition, for those who are ready to establish a Center of Excellence, or improve the one they have, Ravenflow also offers an 18-hour on-site course.  This course can be customized to users’ skill sets or the needs of the company.  The material is aligned with the International Institution of Business Analysis (IIBA) BABOK version 2, and covers the skills identified by the IIBA as being critical to business analyst success. The BA Building Blocks webinar series will be led by Ravenflow’s Marcia Stinson.  Stinson has more than 20 years of experience in formal software development.  She has assisted numerous Fortune 500 companies in developing requirements engineering processes and associated templates, guidelines and job-aids.  She has also helped companies create their information models and standardize their approach to requirements information management.  She has also developed use case and elicitation courses that are certified by the IIBA.  For more information about Ravenflow, or to register, please click the links above or visit www.ravenflow.com/events.    About Ravenflow Ravenflow is the leading provider of visual requirements definition software that allows companies to gain better insight, clarity, and quality in their process improvement and application development projects.  Leveraging a uniquely business-driven and process-based approach, Ravenflow transforms requirements definition by empowering business analysts to rapidly produce clear specifications of their business process workflows, business use cases, and business application needs.  Ravenflow recently was named the fastest growing company in the Requirements market, received the 2010 IBM Rational Jazz Innovator Finalist Award, the 2009 IBM Rational ISV Partner of the Year Award, 2009 Jolt Productivity Award and was selected as a Gartner “Cool Vendor in Application Development.” # # #   All products mentioned in the release are trademarks or registered trademarks of Ravenflow.  All other trademarks, trade names, and/or product names are used solely for the purpose of identification and are the property of their respective owners.     etrimble Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:23:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:1705 https://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/News/tabid/177/ID/1704/New-Survey-Shows-Complexity-Hybrid-Agile-Methods-and-Customer-Demands-Are-Driving-Factors-For-Requirements-Management.aspx#Comments 0 https://www.modernanalyst.com/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=177&ModuleID=832&ArticleID=1704 https://www.modernanalyst.com:443/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=1704&PortalID=0&TabID=177 https://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/News/tabid/177/ID/1704/New-Survey-Shows-Complexity-Hybrid-Agile-Methods-and-Customer-Demands-Are-Driving-Factors-For-Requirements-Management.aspx Recent survey of more than 800 software professionals sheds light on the latest industry trends, challenges and solutions in software development. Portland, OR (PRWEB) January 25, 2011 -- Results from The 2011 State of Requirements Management survey released today show a growing focus and awareness on just how vital requirements management is to the overall success or failure of development projects. Findings indicate the growing use of a hybrid mix of development methods and tools; an increase in the complexity of application development; the critical need to innovate and meet ever-changing customer demands; and the realization that specialized tools are needed to drive improvements throughout the application lifecycle. During a webinar presentation of the findings today, executives from survey sponsors Ravenflow and Jama Software outlined the results of the second edition of the survey. Key findings include: Innovation: Breakthrough new products and apps often steal the headlines, but 88 percent of the survey’s respondents said their goal is to “enhance existing products.” Development teams are working to streamline continuous iterations and the “listen-plan-build-test” lifecycle. Process: A hybrid mix of processes, or as some refer to as “WaterScrumFall,” have become the new reality of enterprise application development. Agile as a development movement has clearly gone mainstream, but the reality is the largest segment of teams, 40 percent, are not purists or follow any one prescriptive methodology. There is no one perfect “silver bullet” process – Waterfall, Agile (Scrum), RUP or otherwise. Instead, teams are using a blend of processes to develop software. Thus, one of the emerging trends in 2011 is toward flexible ALM tools that are easily customizable to support multiple, continuously evolving processes. Complexity: Results from the survey show that application development continues to be more complex and challenging. A combined 75 percent of respondents are managing projects with at least 100 requirements; and 20 percent are managing projects with more than 1,000 requirements. To add to the complexity, requirements aren’t static. On average, more than 70 percent of teams are spending at least 10 percent or more of their time managing changes to requirements. Thus, it’s no surprise that failure rates remain high, with only 17 percent of teams having a success rate of 80 percent or higher. Customer Satisfaction: When looking at the #1 metric for measuring success of development projects, customer satisfaction led the way at 86 percent. Keeping customers continuously happy is vital to business success and a major challenge for development teams. In fact, the biggest challenge facing teams, according to 73 percent of respondents, is “gaining a clear understanding of what customers want,” and the leading source of product ideas and requirements is “feedback from customers and partners” at 82 percent. Tools: Surprisingly, 83 percent of teams still use Microsoft Word or Excel documents to  communicate and manage requirements. However, respondents recognize the growing need for specialized software tools to define and manage requirements. With complexity increasing and failure rates still high, teams are looking to 2011 as the year to invest in specialized software to help with requirements, specifically those that provide collaboration and visualization. This is illustrated by “requirements collaboration and management software” topping the wish list of tools in 2011 at 60 percent, and “requirements modeling and visualization” coming in second at 45 percent. To obtain a free copy of the 2011 State of Requirements Management report, please visit: http://www.jamasoftware.com/media/documents/State_of_Requirements_Management_2011.pdf ### etrimble Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:15:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:1704 https://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/News/tabid/177/ID/1694/RAVEN-CLOUD-SUPPORTS-HP-ALM-11-PLATFORM.aspx#Comments 0 https://www.modernanalyst.com/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=177&ModuleID=832&ArticleID=1694 https://www.modernanalyst.com:443/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=1694&PortalID=0&TabID=177 https://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/News/tabid/177/ID/1694/RAVEN-CLOUD-SUPPORTS-HP-ALM-11-PLATFORM.aspx Automatically Generates Business Process Models for Application Requirements Definition   Emeryville, CA—January 10, 2011—Ravenflow today announced that its RAVEN Cloud process discovery and visualization service now integrates with the recently released HP Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) 11 platform.  Specifically, process models created by RAVEN Cloud from natural language text can be imported directly into HP ALM 11, where they can serve as the basis for defining application requirements.   “Like HP Quality Center before it, HP ALM is one of the leading platforms for integrated requirements and test management and is used by many of our customers,” said David Ruiz, Vice President of Products at Ravenflow.  “Once HP ALM 11 supported process models, it became a great fit for us because RAVEN allows business analysts to generate those models automatically and start defining requirements that much faster.”       “Capturing well defined requirements, to better align IT with the needs of the business, continues to challenge applications teams,” said Jonathan Rende, vice president and general manager, Business Technology Optimization Applications, Software, HP.  “The new visual diagrams created between HP ALM 11 and RAVEN Cloud give clients a new progressive capability to envision requirements that align to the business, resulting in high-quality applications.”   The new RAVEN Cloud integration with HP ALM 11 was developed under the HP AllianceONE Partner Program that offers ISVs a proven framework for collaboration on the integration of complementary technologies with HP products, solutions and services.  Ravenflow will continue to leverage HP AllianceONE tools and resources to help its customers speed their time-to-market and produce higher quality products with lower delivery costs.   To learn more about process discovery and process modeling with RAVEN Cloud, attend our complimentary webinar, “Taking Process Discovery to the Cloud,” on Tuesday, Feb. 8 at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST).  To register, please visit:https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/407856593.   RAVEN Cloud is available on a subscription basis at www.ravencloud.com.  A limited use free version is also available for trial.   About Ravenflow Ravenflow is a leading provider of process visualization and requirements definition software that allows companies to gain better insight, clarity, and quality in their process improvement and application development projects.  Leveraging a patented natural language engine, Ravenflow helps companies analyze and visualize their business processes, application requirements, and system engineering needs.  Ravenflow recently received the 2010 IBM Jazz Innovator Finalist Award, the 2009 Jolt Productivity Award, 2009 IBM Rational ISV Partner of the Year Award, and was selected as a Gartner “Cool Vendor in Application Development.” # # #   All products mentioned in the release are trademarks or registered trademarks of Ravenflow.  All other trademarks, trade names, and/or product names are used solely for the purpose of identification and are the property of their respective owners.   etrimble Mon, 17 Jan 2011 13:12:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:1694 https://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/News/tabid/177/ID/1650/Ravenflow-Releases-Next-Generation-Process-Discovery-and-Visualization-Service.aspx#Comments 0 https://www.modernanalyst.com/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=177&ModuleID=832&ArticleID=1650 https://www.modernanalyst.com:443/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=1650&PortalID=0&TabID=177 https://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/News/tabid/177/ID/1650/Ravenflow-Releases-Next-Generation-Process-Discovery-and-Visualization-Service.aspx Emeryville, CA—Dec. 8, 2010—Ravenflow today released RAVEN Cloud, a lightweight, online solution for process discovery and visualization of business process diagrams from plain English text. Designed for business analysts, system analysts, and others who need to analyze and visualize their processes, users simply write their own process narratives or select from a library of template examples, and RAVEN Cloud instantly transforms the text into a high fidelity, error-free process diagram. “Process discovery has become an important part of the project lifecycle because you need to have a solid understanding of how things work today before making changes or pursuing new innovations,” said Susan Boers, president and CEO of Ravenflow.  “Process models are one of the best ways to convey and validate that understanding, and RAVEN Cloud transforms the way those models are created.  RAVEN Cloud allows more people to participate in process discovery, automatically identifying errors or gaps in processes while generating diagrams that can be used in Visio or exported to other modeling tools.  And it does it all in seconds – not hours or days.” Media contact:  Elizabeth Trimble Trimble Marketing & Communications (508) 839-4469 office (508) 523-0899 mobile trimble@etrimble.com  etrimble Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:06:00 GMT f1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:1650