During the early stages of a project or change assessment one of the challenges is getting the time and information you need from stakeholders so you can elicit, document and gain consensus of the processes and requirements from them. Reasons why this can be difficult is: You might not be their manager and they don’t have to report… Read More »
In a previous article A comprehensive guide to the major Business Analyst deliverables one of the first deliverables in a project or before a project is agreed is known as a business case. Other names that are used with similar content to a business case are Vision document or Feasibility study. The latter tends to have more detail in… Read More »
You have the vision of what the project is about and some high-level objectives. If not refer to the article around how to identify scope. The correct stakeholders have been identified and have turned up for the meeting with you to discuss their requirements. However in the meeting you aren’t getting much information and nothing has been written… Read More »
It is important to ensure traceability throughout the lifecycle of the project. See diagram below for some of the main reasons for this. Traceability has several lenses that occur throughout the project lifecycle. Here is a list of some of lenses to be considered for ensuring traceability: Business Requirements trace back to the scope, objectives, problem statement and… Read More »
The risk of changes to requirements can be minimized by having a robust requirements gathering process. For various reasons requirements could still change and it is important to have a process in place to manage these changes when they happen. Changes need to be prioritised, documented, communicated and implemented if approved. The main steps and questions to answer… Read More »
There are different roles within business analysis. Below lists some of the different job titles encountered and the differences in job description and skills required. Because of this the roles may sit in different teams. Some companies may separate out these roles whilst others may be more blended. Business Architect (other job titles may include Lead Business Analyst)… Read More »
This article is written from my personal experience. It’s been really great to hear about so many people with an interest in this area and wanting to go into this career as their profession. I hope that sharing my experience will be useful to others at the start of their journey. I chose to do a degree in… Read More »
When is the technique applicable If gathering requirements for an IT system then inevitably some of the requirements will mean storing data or doing something with data. A logical data model can be a technique for gathering these. It is very useful because it enables a diagram to be drawn up which can be discussed to improve the… Read More »
The term agile has become a popular term and approach for delivering solutions. It is an alternative to the traditional waterfall approach. Its key focus has been to deliver faster, greater collaboration between stakeholders and more adaptable at incorporating changes. It does this by breaking the work down, prioritising items of highest value and getting output in front… Read More »
The previous article How to elicit high level requirements by identifying use cases explained how to identify the scope of the solution and how to define use cases. This article explains what questions to ask and how to document solution requirements in more detail using UML (Unified Modelling Language). A great benefit of this technique is that it… Read More »