John Fraser brings an energy and commitment to all his projects that truly compliments and builds upon his years of experience in strategic business process improvement. In short, you know …
A Product Lives By Its Principles
Values are powerful. They reflect what is important to us and they define who we are, the decisions we make and, most importantly, they drive our future. Understanding our values …
Avoiding the “Solution Illusion” with Pre-Project Problem Analysis
This article was written in July 2020, in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The past few months have acted as a catalyst for change in most, if not …
Creating Synergies Between Business Analysts And Project Managers
At first glance it may seem that project managers and business analysts have conflicting objectives with one focused on project delivery and the other on solution delivery. But by unlocking …
Story Telling For BAs
I am a big advocate of storytelling as a way of getting your message across and whilst this is a method usually associated with speeches and presentations I believe it …
Organizational Debt — A Necessary Evil
Regardless of their state of growth, all companies face a certain level of organizational debt, which can paralyze them if it’s not kept under control. Alina Ghiarasim, Lead Business Analyst, EndavaAlina …
Presenting Over The Web
It is a feature of our new reality that we are increasingly communicating through disembodied means (I’m talking web rather than Ouija board here) and this can cause problems for …
3 Simple Creative Habits That Will Change Your Career
If you work in a company, that you aren’t part of the “creative team” or don’t have a position that is suited to creativity, this is definitely for you! Most …
How Will It Work? The Future How Viewpoint.
In a previous article Business Analysis Viewpoints we discussed a number of ways of looking at systems. The intention of these viewpoints is to make it easier to see and …
Unaccustomed As I Am To Public Speaking Part 5
This article in my series on Presentation Skills I am going to look at something that all presenters have to face and overcome… I’m talking about nerves, stress, the heebie-jeebies, …
The Danger Of Jumping To A “Solution” And The Importance Of Pre-Project Problem Analysis
We’ve probably all worked in situations where the word ‘problem’ is seen as a dirty word. This is understandable to some extent—after all, discussing a problem situation seems a lot …
Unaccustomed As I Am To Public Speaking Part 4
In my last post I discussed crafting the structure of a presentation. In this post I’m going to take you through some of my thoughts regarding how your deck should …
Exploring The Bond Between Business Analysis & UX At The Business Analysis Conference Europe 2019
I recently presented a workshop at the Business Analysis Conference Europe 2019 by the industry group International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) where an illustrator created this image summarizing the …
Process Improvement – Its All About The Benefits
How about if you could easily see the benefits of your process improvement work? Would that help your organisation make better changes? Andrew Sanford, Director, We Are Lean And AgileWe …
Business Analysis Viewpoints
There are an infinite number of ways of looking at any system. This article examines useful viewpoints that help Business Analysts to understand the real problem and come up with …
Once Upon a Narrative: A Case for Story
“There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen”Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are My two-year-old son is a big fan of Maurice Sendak’s …
Building Your BA Career
The world of work is becoming more and more competitive, and much of the work that specialist technical professionals do is continually being assessed for either automation or the application …
Unaccustomed as I am to Public Speaking….. Part 3
We are now at the stage where we have provided our one page synopsis and are now creating the deck that will deliver it. As a reference point, here is …
Death of Attention – No time to think.
YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE!!Look around you and everywhere you go; restaurants, the subway or even a walk in the park, people are staring intently at the small screen in their hands. …
Business Analyst & Product Owner – How Mindfulness helps you keep the Balance
“Be mindful, even if your mind is full” – James De La Vega (artist). Today’s BA is a chameleon, adapting to circumstances and fulfilling many roles in any project or …