Exhausted but inspired, information overload but great ideas to experiment, implement and imbibe…. this was my feeling at the end of the Business Analysis Conference Europe 2017. What an amazing …
How A Business Analyst Can Help Identify and Fix Problems With Your Company’s Business Processes
As a company, you need business processes. With them, you can define the set of activities that’ll be required to be completed to achieve your business goals. Not only that, …
Making Chaos Visible, in Order to Solve It.
As borders are eroded and the speed of business, as well as change increases, it can often feel like a struggle to find dedicated time to untangle the complex problems …
What Is Disruption?
Over 74% of CEO’s see their companies as disruptors… but what does disruption mean? In a recent KPMG survey 74% of CEO’s saw their companies as disruptors. Today the word …
Why Presentation Skills Are Important for Business Analysts
I’m delighted to be presenting at the upcoming European BA Conference in London on a topic that is dear to my heart; Presentation Skills. This is a topic that would …
Business Analyst of the Year Award 2017
The search for 2017’s Business Analyst of the Year is almost complete with the closing date for this year’s entries now reached. The Award is sponsored by AssistKD and IIBA …
10 Ways Your Business Customer Can Damage Your Project (and what to do about them)
I’m excited to be giving a talk at the Business Analysis Conference Europe in September. I enjoy giving talks, sharing knowledge and ideas, and the discussion in the Q and …
Harnessing Emotional Intelligence to Perform Business Analysis
Back during the industrial revolution, the focus was on “output” – everything made by machines and people working like machines too. They clocked in hours to create quantity all day …
The Art of Collaboration
For the last five years I have traveled this wonderful journey of learning Ryukyu Kempo Martial Arts. It’s an Okinawan, Japanese style of martial arts with a focus on self …
Business Analysts Can Enable Innovation
“If I had asked my clients what they wanted, they probably would have said a faster horse.” Henry Ford, Founder of the Ford Motor Company This infamous Henry Ford quote …
Rules Of Work
I have a piece of card on my desk with the following words on it: Think without any dishonesty Forge yourself in the way Touch upon all of the arts …
Business Analysis: Turning Gloop into Concrete
Business analysis is often seen as a technical skill. The business analyst builds process and data models, writes precise requirements, makes requirements traceable, estimates the effort involved, and so on. …
You Must Become a Disruptor
We have seen more change in the last 18 months than in the previous ten years. It feels as if the time to implement change has dropped to almost nothing …
BA Communities of Practice – Sweet Success Cannot be Achieved Alone
The term “Communities Of Practice” has not been around for that long in comparison to the word “Community” for sure, and the notion of the latter has been prevalent long …
Paper on the Case of Customer Recruitment Processes: Dynamic Evolution of CRM Resource
This study is borne from a concern that organisations continue to invest significantly in CRM systems that are redundant by the time they are launched. This is because these systems …
Traceability is Vital in Harsh Conditions!
Adam and Ben, the two CIOs from rival companies eyed each other head to toe as they entered the main conference hall from two different entrances, not deliberate but a …
The Optimal Path to Success is Via Failure
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …