Top Blog Posts for Business Analysts: Week of September 28, 2015

Looking for some great reads on business analysis? Here is a roundup of the top blog posts I found this week. I hope you find them helpful!

1.The Golden Circle of BA Toolkit – Part 1 of 2: Yaaqub Mohamed discusses the “Golden Circle” and how it can apply to the Business Analyst’s toolkit.

2.Why Should Business Analysts use BPMN: Stephanie Anderson explains what Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is, and the pros and cons of implementing it.

3.Strategy Mapping for Business Analysts:  In this article, Matt Fishbeck introduces the BA technique, strategy mapping, and the different elements and principles that go along with it.

Editor’s Note:

Want to know how Accompa helps Business Analysis teams at 100s of companies (from Fortune 500s to growing startups)? Check out FREE 30-Day trial of Accompa or Sign Up for a Demo.

Top Blog Posts for Business Analysts: Week of June 8, 2015

Business Analyst blog posts of the weekLooking for some great reads on business analysis? Here is a roundup of the top blog posts I found this week. I hope you find them helpful!

1. 5 Ways to Avoid Repeating Past Project Mistakes: Laura Brandenburg discusses how to ensure you don’t repeat the same mistakes as in past projects.

2. What is Your Business Analyst Brand: Aaron Whittenberger stresses the importance of creating a brand for yourself as a BA, just as any other organization would.

3. How to Resolve Conflicting Requirements with Stakeholders: In this post, The Analyst Coach shows different situations in which requirements can conflict, how to fix it and why it is so important to do so.

Editor’s Note:

Want to know how Accompa helps Business Analysis teams at 100s of companies (from Fortune 500s to growing startups)? Check out FREE 30-Day trial of Accompa or Sign Up for a Demo.

Top Blog Posts for Business Analysts: Week of April 13, 2015

Top BA Blog Posts (Red)-3Looking for some great reads on business analysis? Here is a roundup of the top blog posts I found this week. I hope you find them helpful!

1. How do you decide?: In this post by Ieuan Wickham, Business Analysts are encouraged to get involved in stakeholder decisions before a project arrives, in order to prevent failing projects.

2. Agile is a Cultural RevolutionAjay Badri compares switching from Waterfall to Agile with changing your workout regime; it seems easy, but can prove to be tougher than you thought.

3. The Fuzzy Line between Requirements and Design: Karl Wiegers distinguishes between consumer need and how to fulfill that need.

Editor’s Note:

Want to know how Accompa helps Business Analysis teams at 100s of companies (from Fortune 500s to growing startups)? Check out FREE 30-Day trial of Accompa or Sign Up for a Demo.

Requirements Management: When Should You Write User Interface (UI) Specs?

rooster-early2In my last blog post, I discussed why the User Interface (UI) specifications should be an integral part of requirements.

If you agree (fully or partially) with my take on this, the next question to consider is as follows: At what stage of the requirements management process should we write the UI specifications?

My answer for this is surprisingly simple, yet difficult to implement in most projects. But that is not bad news.

What is the answer, and why is it not bad news? Read on… [Read more…]

Requirements Management: Should User Interface (UI) Be Part of Requirements?

old-comp-with-terminalSince the advent of the software industry, User Interface (UI) has been an afterthought – for the most part. UI is something the teams building the software slapped on the software at the end of a project.

Kinda like a coat of paint after the house was built! 🙂

The conventional wisdom (especially in B2B software) was that customers did not buy the software for the UI, they bought it for the functionality.

From this piece of conventional wisdom, another one followed: UI should *NOT* be a part of requirements. Rather, UI is something added after the requirements (use cases or functional requirements) were defined.

Is this still true? Read on for the answer… [Read more…]