Many organizations are scratching their collective heads over how to build and mature a business analysis center of excellence (COE). Where do we start? What does a business analysis COE look like? Who owns it? How does it evolve? This article, an excerpt from ESI’s white paper of the same name, outlines the standard operating practices necessary f...

Requirements Risk management could be a useful approach to requirements analysis, and lead to better requirements management.

High level the idea goes like this:

Risk management is an important part of project management
Requirements management is also a critical part of the puzzle
Should we be running a requirements risk management process on our projects?
The purpose of this article is to introduce the topic of Requirements risk into the Requirements Management discussion. Feedback and commentary is welcome and can be provided at ModernAnalyst.com

Requirements Simulation is a technique used to visually define and model business, user and technical requirements. The value proposition of most tools in the marketplace today is to bridge the communication gap between business and IT by empowering the Business Analyst to completely, and clearly define application requirements. Since specialized ...

Whether you call them Systems Analysts, Business Analysts, Systems Engineers, or Enterprise Architects, it is very encouraging to see this vital function being reintroduced to companies. As far as I am concerned, it was inevitable. I guess companies finally figured out you cannot satisfy your systems problems simply by using better programming tools and techniques.

Business analysis is about more than software development. It can help business leaders to understand the business and develop resourcing, training and IT strategies. Through careful analysis of workflows and business processes you can identify opportunities for increasing efficiency and profitability. You can use business analysis techniques to help you identify potential processing bottlenecks or under-utilisation of costly resources.

Business analysts go by many titles one of them being Management Consultant.  In this article, Tony Jacowski talks about the management consulting career.

Author: Tony Jacowski

In the first two installments of this series, we saw why BPMN is important to the Business Process Expert and got an overview of the notation. In this part, we’ll look beyond the spec to suggest some best practices for making your BPMN models most effective. The art of effective process modeling depends on what you are trying to do. Unlike traditi...

In the first installment of this series, we saw why BPMN is important to the Business Process Expert. In this part, we’ll look at the notation itself. In BPMN there are only three first-class diagram elements, or flow objects:  Activity, a rounded rectangle, representing work performed in the process  Gateway, a diamond, r...

Business process management (BPM) is an emerging discipline that looks at the enterprise in a radically new way. Instead of trying to automate and optimize individual functional units, like sales, supply chain, and customer service, in isolation, BPM views your company from the perspective of end-to-end cross-functional processes – exactly the way ...

What Is A Functional Specification? Functional specifications (functional specs), in the end, are the blueprint for how you want a particular web project or application to look and work. It details what the finished product will do, how a user will interact with it, and what it will look like. By creating a blueprint of the product first, time an...

Agile analysis is being spoken of more and more frequently in the world of business analysts. This form of analysis is becoming more and more popular as the next generation of business owners comes into play. It is a more hands on approach to the business analysis. There is more communication. Face to face discussions occur more frequently. E-mails and faxes are becoming few and far between. So what is agile analysis?

Author: Tony de Bree

The qualified business analyst wears many hats. He or she is a negotiator, a skilled listener, a motivational speaker, and a team leader. His or her title may include that of systems analyst, requirements analyst, or project manager. The business analyst may or may not have a degree in business analysis. He or she may not be able to write code. However, the business analyst is educated in the process necessary to produce the code. He or she may even come from an IT department. But what is it they do?

Author: Tony de Bree

There are several key points one needs to understand before deciding whether or not to become a business analyst. You may be qualified to do the job you were hired to do. Yet is it the job you wanted to do? Some analysts find themselves locked in a cubical writing reports all day, only to find the report was not used or even read. They realize they are in a dead end job going no-where fast. This is not the usual dream one has when becoming a business analyst.

Author: Tony de Bree

A use case study is designed to describe a situation in which the program is being utilized by the end user. It will tell a story of sorts describing how the program works and the input of the user. It does not tell how the program was developed. The details of the programming are not included in the use case study. You are trying to express the concept behind the creation.

Author: Tony de Bree

The role of a business analyst can be very difficult. He or she must wade through the mass of information presented to determine the underlying problems. This information may or may not be correct. The business analyst much research to comprehend the true situation of the business. The information supplied to the business analyst is given from many perspectives. Opinions can influence how one perceives the related issues. At times, the opinions can add unrelated information which only complicates the role of a business analyst.

Author: Tony de Bree