I like to focus on the positive I m the person who skips right over the headlines about attacks and shootings to get to the stories that make me feel good I figured out a few years ago that if something was really important and world altering somebody in my family would tell me about it hellip
I recently had a thought process that I wanted to share I promise it ends with something useful I was initially reflecting on Earth Day which is coming up soon and thought about how the motto of Reduce Reuse Recycle can be applied to our work our processes tasks and even people My mind hellip
Here s a question related to requirements validation that pops up regularly in the classes we teach How do I know I m not missing any requirements My first response is You don t I know that s not what you want to hear but you have to remember that nothing is perfect Unfortunately as business analysts we typically have
Have you ever been a part of the meeting after the meeting You know the one where colleagues get together to debrief a meeting that s recently taken place The meeting after the meeting MATM typically includes two main agenda items the debrief and the re plan First attendees debrief to try to identify what actually took place or hellip
When you ask an analytical person a question you will rarely get an answer Instead their response will likely be in the form of another question Why is this Answers depend on context Context refers to the framework of a situation or event Even a simple conversation requires context to be understood Consider this dialogue hellip
Maybe it s just me but I frequently find that the most challenging aspect of a project is the people We refer to the people involved in a project as stakeholders Just knowing who your stakeholders are isn t enough We need to analyze stakeholders and develop a thorough understanding of them in order to work effectively hellip
Metrics of the Past Have Taught Us A Lesson Many traditional KPIs can instigate and proliferate bad behaviors in software development In the past programmers have measured their progress by how many lines of code they ve written quality was measured by the number of bugs fixed and user needs were considered met by checking off hellip
What should your metrics tell you about your organization They should tell you Did we succeed with what we did in the recent past Are we succeeding now Will we succeed in the future Traditional metrics often measure outputs not outcomes In an agile world we need to understand if what we are doing is hellip
Twas the night of Thanksgiving And all through the houseAll the dishes were readyThe food was set outAnd while we were eating Just out of the blue It hit the newsletter Oh what do we do Our oldest child does a lot of the artwork and graphics for B2T4U our monthly newsletter While cleaning up after Thanksgiving dinner they hellip
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away there were two Business Analysts that wondered how they could be more than average They wondered what habits they needed to become highly effective and how they could help others become highly effective They thought and they planned They collaborated and communicated across their time hellip
The first step in developing a customer journey map is knowing your customer Sounds basic right It s easy to forget though that there is no such thing as a generic customer for most businesses Before we can understand how a customer will interact with our product or service we have to understand them I recently hellip
As customer experiences become more and more digital we have to change how we interact For most organizations the days of winning over a customer face to face with a hand shake and a smile are over Digital customers are the new norm and are transacting with us all over the world 24 7 independent of a sales hellip <
I have to admit I hate horror movies I m the person who covers her eyes and waits until the scary parts have passed before I can watch again If you re hosting a Halloween party featuring a Friday the 13th movie marathon don t bother to invite me Not gonna happen Nuh uh no way no how Being a
What are business requirements A common answer I get when asking for an example of a business requirement is a sentence like The system shall facilitate the automation of email to the customer Is that a business requirement Well of course it must be The business told me that specifically and in those words It hellip
I really love teaching I guess that s not surprising given that I m at least a fourth generation teacher This is a clip from the 1920 Wyoming Census The first entry on this page Gertrude Shaw is my great grandmother Widowed at 29 with three children to support she taught in a one room schoolhouse in Wyoming Pretty cool
B2T first offered virtual classes in 2009 At the time we were really pioneering the concept of live virtual classes We initially developed our live virtual capability to provide a convenient way for students to attend our public classes without having to travel As time passed we continuously improved our delivery striving to match the hellip
I have recently been teaching and consulting in organizations that have transitioned to an agile framework AND have decided as part of that transition that business analysts are no longer needed In this blog post I would like to note where I think this mentality came from and then argue against it The agile approach hellip
We start most of our classes with introductions Participants tell the rest of the class a little bit about themselves their work and what they hope to learn during their time with us Most students include their job title as part of the introduction Over time we ve noticed that fewer and fewer participants actually have hellip
It s been a year of fresh starts for us here at B2T We ve had the opportunity to assess how we do things and figure out what s working and what could be improved This has allowed us to move ahead with some concrete goals and a clear direction Well run IT organizations also reflect on their results They
It was great to be back at the Building Business Capability conference last month in Las Vegas It s such a terrific opportunity to interact with the BA community I always come away with fresh insights and a renewed sense of purpose after interacting with other speakers and attendees This year one of our instructors Scott hellip
For those of you I haven t met please let me introduce myself My name is Kathy Claycomb and I ve been with B2T since 2005 as an instructor courseware developer and lead expert I m very excited to share that my husband and I are the new owners of B2T Training A little history In 2018 after hellip <
