Introduction This article is to help create an awareness of how Business Analysts can be used throughout the project life-cycle. If you are new to the business analyst field it may be useful to read my article The value of business analysis for firms first. It also provides a foundation for this article which starts looking at the more specific… Read More »
Purpose of article: To explain the reason for business process modelling and provide guidance on techniques for doing it. Purpose of process modelling: Required to understand the business processes that need to happen to make improvements for a new process or discover inefficiencies. For example if there is a “as is” process showing many hand offs or duplication… Read More »
The techniques in this article use a NLP technique called the Milton model, which can be used to identify intentions when interviewing stakeholders. When to use: Opportunities and benefits unclear or not yet defined To uncover justifications behind requirements Writing a business case or Vision document If stakeholders go straight into the solution and need a technique to… Read More »
When to write a RFP. RFP stands for Request for proposal. It is written when goods or services are required from an outside supplier where no products or expertise are currently available to meet the needs of the project within the company. Benefits of a RFP. An RFP specifies the needs and allows other companies to bid for… Read More »
Introduction There are 2 main types of software development life cycles (SDLC) that can be followed. The methodologies that follow these are commonly used in IT projects because they manage the 3 constraints of time, cost and scope. The 2 main types are: Sequential Agile Sequential Examples of sequential are the waterfall methodology and the v-model. This is… Read More »
The purpose of this article is to provide guidelines for writing a paper if issues arise during a project and it is unclear how to proceed. A Business Analyst can add value by writing and gathering input for an options paper. It should ideally be a one side of A4 and provide the information required to enable senior… Read More »
Reasons for using story boards To act as an inspiration for other requirements. To increase understanding of the requirements between all stakeholders and the consequences. The system has not existed before. The users have no experience of the system. The users have been doing their work for some time and are stuck in the way they are doing… Read More »
For the purposes of this article the assumption is that estimations and planning are required for gathering system requirements. However it could equally be adapted for business requirements and other areas of the project development lifecycle. A use case model describes: System boundaries are Systems in scope for the project Use cases are The things the system in… Read More »
A entity relationship or class diagram can be used to resolve the problem when stakeholders are interchangeably using different words to mean the same thing. For the purposes of this article a conceptual model of a class diagram has been used. A conceptual model is at class level. A class is a group of data with similar characteristics.… Read More »
The pyramid above is a reminder of the top down approach. The goals need to be defined first, followed by an understanding of the business processes, the business requirements and then the system requirements. It can be very tempting for the business stakeholders to feel like they already know the solution and jump straight to the system requirements.… Read More »