Everyone has been a part of a project, willing for it to be over, disliking the results that they’re getting, and feeling like the project is rigid and they are …
CIO & CDOs: How Does Brexit Impact Your Data Management Strategy?
By now I’m sure you’ve had more than your fill of Brexit analysis, memes, and even a tie-in to the England National team’s exit from Euro 2016 tournament. It’s been well …
Get More Out of Hadoop by Building Your User Community
If you are launching Hadoop in your enterprise, you’ll want to get the most out of its rich data. Users across the enterprise have important roles to play in your eventual …
The Buried Treasure of Enterprise Architecture
Enterprises make architectural investments, whether or not they have an architecture team. Yet, executives can often find it hard to put a value on those investments, or even know which …
An Introduction to Graph Databases
Graph databases are one of the fastest growing categories in data management, yet they remain an enigma to many. What can these workhorses do for your enterprise? If you are …
Architecting Change as a Core Competency
In a recent article for Forbes I wrote that enterprise architects (EAs) should be less agents of change as architects of change. In response, several EAs commented that what they …
The User Story Considered Harmful
Agile techniques have brought us many advantages and good ideas – unfortunately, the user story is not one of them. The user story is a “placeholder for a conversation”, or …
19 Ways to Boost Your Motivation and Personal Effectiveness
How to stay motivated and improve personal effectiveness is an important question to ask yourself as both of these things have a big impact on your results. There are many …
It’s Time To Ditch The Bridge
I suspect many people reading this article will, at some time in their career, have had the challenge of explaining what business analysis is. We’ve all had that dreaded moment …
Business Process Modelling Patterns
Reusable process model fragments for business users. The idea of a pattern language, which originates in a 1977 book about buildings and their architecture, translates easily to other kinds of …
How will Brexit have an impact on the UK’s Data Protection Act?
If you think that the UK’s referendum result will mean the end of the UK’s familiar Data Protection Act, then you are likely to be mistaken. The original Data Protection …
Volere – the Evolution of Successful Requirements Techniques
It is more than 20 years since the first Volere Requirements Specification was launched. Since that beginning so much has happened and so many people in so many industries have …
Information – the Next Natural Resource
I’ve spent my career looking at how large quantities of complex information affects every part of our lives and this is the most exciting time to be doing that. Information …
Business Analysis – The What, The How And The Why – A South African Perspective
Saratoga’s Mohamed Bray is a business analyst who wears many hats. From consulting with other analysts and project managers to contributing to the establishment of the profession in South Africa, …
5 Reasons Cloud MDM Will Save you Money, and 5 That Will Save Your Business
The benefits of cloud computing have been written up and proven in every way imaginable. You need only to look at the rapid growth and ascension of popular consumer sites …
Themes from a Chief Data Officer Forum – the 180 day perspective
Time flies as Virgil observed some 2,045 years ago. A rather shorter six months back I attended the inaugural IRM(UK) Chief Data Officer Executive Forum and recently I returned for …
I’m Not a Business Analyst – I’m a Business Analyst Designer
For many years I have been calling myself a Business Analyst. But recently I’ve been feeling somewhat awkward in my own skin. I’ve noticed that I don’t do things in …
When will the EU Data Protection Regulation enter into force?
I am making an assumption that regardless of whether the UK votes in the referendum on 23 June to stay in or leave the European Union, the EU Data Protection …
Taking Reality Seriously – Towards a More Self-Regulating Management Model at Statoil
At Statoil, we try to take reality seriously, not just a dynamic and unpredictable business environment, but also all the competent and responsible people in the company. It sounds obvious, …
Architecture Is Architecture Is Architecture
In 1980, we were having difficulty transforming the Enterprise Strategy into implemented systems, the instantiated Enterprise, because the strategies tended to be articulated in a somewhat abstract form like “Make …