50 Most Dangerous Words for Business Analysts

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As business analysts, it's our primary responsibility to bring clarity to requirements communication. Unfortunately, many words spoken by our stakeholders can be ambiguous. Not understanding these words in their proper context or without adequate information can lead to situations where different stakeholders can have a different understanding of the same word.

One of my very favorite words is Manage. Manage can mean anything under the sun to anyone. For example, managing a schedule to me means creating a schedule, viewing schedule, updating schedule, deleting schedule, importing schedule, exporting schedule, reporting on schedule, and alerting schedule delays. For the developer in my team, managing a schedule could simply mean creating a schedule, viewing the schedule, updating the schedule, and deleting the schedule (The four fundamental operations on data).

Discussing the ambiguous terms with stakeholders will give them the idea that something is also missing from their end. They can do some more research to find how exactly they want the system to behave rather than giving information that is at a higher level. In this blog, I am writing down the top 50 ambiguous words I came across as a business analyst. I want all my business analyst friends to contribute to this list so that we can comprehensively list the ambiguous words.

Any time any of our stakeholders use these words, we would know that there is some ambiguity involved. It's not that the ambiguity is always bad, but it must be clarified before something goes for designing and development. So till the time we are far away from that, it's ok, but as we come closer to the design and development phase, we must find the real concrete information so that the development team can design the solution as per the stakeholder requirements.

Rank The word What makes it dangerous
50 Most appropriate Who decides what's most appropriate?
49 As soon as possible In the next 5 seconds?
48 In future By EoD Tomorrow?
47 ETC Missing details
46 TBD When?
45 Usually Where is the unusual stuff?
44 Generally Non-precise
43 Normally Non-precise
42 To the greatest extent Who decides the extent?
41 Properly Non-precise
40 Where practicable Conditions not specified
39 Supported Passive voice, Actor unknown
38 Handled Passive voice, Actor unknown
37 Processed Passive voice, Actor unknown
36 Rejected Passive voice, Actor unknown
35 Always Assumed certainty which does not exist
34 Never Assumed certainty which does not exist
33 All Assumed certainty which does not exist
32 None Assumed certainty which does not exist
31 Every Assumed certainty which does not exist
30 Earliest Non-precise
29 Latest Non-precise
28 Highest Non-precise
27 Fastest Non-precise
26 Flexible Non-precise
25 Modular Non-precise
24 Efficient Non-precise
23 Adequate Non-precise
22 Minimum required Minimum shall be achieved
21 Minimum acceptable Minimum shall be achieved
20 Better Non-precise
19 Higher Non-precise
18 Faster Non-precise
17 Less Non-precise
16 Slower Non-precise
15 Infrequent Non-precise
14 To the extent specified Non-precise
13 To the extent required Non-precise
12 Very high Non-precise
11 Very low Non-precise
10 Fantastic What is Fantastic?
9 Multiple currencies Which currencies?
8 Multiple languages Which languages?
7 Multiple browsers Which browsers? Even for the same browser, which versions?
6 Robust Non-precise
5 Sturdy Non-precise
4 User-friendly Non-precise
3 Great performance How do you determine that?
2 User All users or specific types of users?
1 Manage

Possibly the most dangerous verb - Can mean anything under the sun

 

What other words would you like to add to the above list?


Author: L N Mishra, Co-Founder, Adaptive US

L N Mishra co-founded Adaptive US, a business analysis skill development organization, working with professionals from 80+ countries in skyrocketing their BA career and staying ahead of the game. He has helped 5000+ BA professionals to achieve better salary and role in their BA career. He is the ONLY trainer who holds all 7 certifications from IIBA (ECBA, CCBA, CBAP, CCA, AAC, CBDA, and CPOA).

LN has authored 12 best-selling books on business analysis. He is also a Versatile trainer, coach and speaker on all IIBA Certifications.

Grab a copy of our best-selling eBook- 200 IIBA Exam Mock Questions with IIBA Exam Info utilized by 1000s of BA professionals to ace their IIBA exam.

LN is also a member of IIBA Question Setting Committee, mentored 100+ global clients and 3000+ Bas. He has 24+ years of working experience as a Business Analyst and conducted 1000+ workshops in business analysis, requirements engineering and agile, project management, requirements engineering and different BA Skilled webinars.

Please write to LN if your thoughts are in sync with his or if they spark a thought in you.

  • Email: [email protected]
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lnmishra-ba-trainer/
  • Website: www.AdaptiveUS.com

 



 




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