Tag: Skills

Ten Tips for the Young BA

Written by Kushal Sundhani on June 15, 2023. Posted in Articles.

After ten plus years of working as a business analyst, I wanted to highlight a few things that have tremendously helped me become a better BA and advance my career.

As a young professional, I did not have many special talents, skills, or academic education, but I was not going to let those things hold me back from success. I focused on where I knew I would stand out and organized my thoughts into the ten main points below:

Be on time. For any meetings or working sessions that I was a part of, I made it a habit to be a couple of minutes early. There were life events or uncontrollable circumstances that prevented me from this 100% of the time, but those were one-off occurrences. Generally speaking, I was known to be early and start meetings on time. This showed I was organized and respected the time of others. Additionally, being on time also meant projects and tasks were completed by the time I said they would be. If there were issues that prevented me from hitting a time goal, I would speak up and inform the respective stakeholders in advance so they were aware.

Take ownership. Anytime a project or task was assigned to me, nobody had to worry or consistently follow up on its completion. I communicated statuses and any obstacles or issues that might impact the final result. This was evident no matter how small the task was. Early on in my career, I was responsible for member service requests. Each interaction was a mini-project to ensure the member got the service they required. Taking ownership of all of my projects and tasks helped build trust with my boss and colleagues. It showed I was ready to handle larger projects and more responsibilities because I excelled with the smaller ones.

Be flexible. My ability to be flexible about almost anything shined through. My role in one project may not have been the exact same as another one. Priorities and objectives often changed. My colleagues all had different and unique personalities. In some projects, I was the dominant personality when others did not play that role. In other projects, I was the more analytical one when I realized others were observably dominant. Through it all, I remained flexible. I was known as the go-to person for just about anything.

Nothing underneath me. My first project was a stepping stone to the next one. When I was starting my career, I admittedly was a “yes” person. They could have given me a stamp with “Yes” for my forehead! Before anyone even finished their thought, I said “Yes!”. This helped me get exposure to every single area of my organization and build relationships. Within a short period of time, I could tell you the purpose of each department and why they were necessary for the organization to function properly. I am not saying I could run the department, but I had functional knowledge of their work and what made them tick. I don’t want to give the wrong impression here. As I advanced more in my career, I didn’t have the time to say yes to everything. I learned how to say “no” as my career became more mature. However, when I first started, I wanted exposure to everything and I wanted to show I can handle it.

Recognize and praise others. I don’t remember accomplishing a goal due to my efforts alone. There were always other people involved. Lots of time in discussions was spent with team members to ensure we were doing the right things. I always made it a point to praise publicly and privately where it was legitimately due. I saw first hand all the hard work that my colleagues put into their daily activities and wanted those efforts recognized. Any time I got praise for doing something, it was only because I had a great team of people supporting me.

My first project. I tried my best to stay excited and eager to learn and do more. When I was just a part-time employee trying to make a name for myself, I was hungry for anything that came across my desk. I started to treat everything like my very first project. I would ask lots of questions, show willingness to go above and beyond, seek help where I need it, and work with others. Every project after the first one was treated like my first one. This is much more difficult than it sounds because at times, work did become mundane and repetitive. I had to make a conscious effort to see the bigger picture and maintain my level of excitement.

Open to criticism. I had an open mind if someone gave me constructive criticism. This helped me get better as a professional and build my skills. I actively sought out criticism to ensure I produced things of value to the organization. Long tenured employees, managers, and executives all have different insights into different areas. Their advice helped me see things from a different perspective and ensure I took that into consideration moving forward.

Be courteous. I cannot think of any point where insulting someone, yelling, making sexually suggestive comments, touching inappropriately, or being plain rude was ever welcomed. I paid attention to my tone of voice and ensured my dialogue was objective to the matter at hand. Disagreements are common and objectively addressing them should be the goal, not trying to tear the other person down. Learning about culture, gender, age, race, religion, or any other characteristic that makes us unique, helped me get to the next level of relationship building. Showing common courtesy, being generally kind, and showing basic respect for someone should not require a whole training initiative.

Work life integration. I did not seek work life “balance”; where I strictly worked between certain hours and then I strictly lived my personal life during certain hours. My job was part of an overall healthy life; and in order to continue having a healthy life, I needed my job. Sometimes, my best work came from putting in a few hours on a Sunday with some music in the background. Sometimes, I had to handle a personal emergency at the office that took time away from my work. I didn’t get stressed out about those things because I knew the work would get finished and my personal commitments wouldn’t be sacrificed. If responding to an email on a Saturday helped my colleague move on, I did not hesitate to do it.

Always learning. I was always confident I could learn anything that I needed to help in my career. Today, I see the younger generation spend hours upon hours on social media, video games, and YouTube. I challenge anyone to take any topic in the world you want to learn. Spend one to two hours daily focusing on and researching that topic. The same focus you would give to having fun. Come back in a year and tell me that you are unable to explain the general and functional information of that topic. I dare you! I was amazed at how much I learned by giving it enough focus and time and you will be too.

In conclusion, these ten things made such a positive impact in my career and I know they will do the same for you.

The Dilemma of Test Scripts

Written by Kimberly Yoss on May 31, 2023. Posted in Articles.

Mention software testing to 10 people in IT and you will get several different responses.

“That’s what QA is for.”

“Unit testing covers what we need.”

“What do we need to test for? The application works fine!”

“We’re Agile. We don’t need to test.”

“The client’s not banging down my door – so all is good.”

“No, we can’t release to UAT yet. I’m only halfway through writing the test scripts.”

“I don’t have time to test.”

“I don’t know how to test this. I’ll need some guidelines.”

“That’s not in the budget.”

If you work as a BA in an IT department, you have likely heard all of these retorts – sometimes even from those who should know better.

It is also a trigger that can lead down a deep rabbit hole of shortcuts and excuses, with the ultimate result being sloppy code, error-prone software, and possibly tons of rework post-release. Not only impacting you and your team, but also potentially leaving your company with very unhappy customers.

Software testing has several variations, all meant to ensure that the customer is happy in the end and that fewer issues, or bugs come back to haunt the product development team. Unit testing and smoke-testing are two of the most common types of testing. Unit testing is ordinarily done by the engineer as a part of coding and is meant to test the individual functions of the various components of the specific software. Smoke-testing is done after the release of the code into production. It serves as a means to make sure that nothing has been broken by the new code. Another critical form of testing is called regression testing, which focuses on how the new code works with the existing code. Regression testing requires additional planning and visibility of enhancements between releases.

At a bare minimum, unit testing and smoke-testing are essential. They are cheap and easy and require a minimal amount of effort.

The real testing, however, comes in the form of functional tests and acceptance tests. This is how you connect the code that is created by the engineers with the business needs of the customers and the real-life use of the application.

Functional tests validate that the newly designed process aligns with the requirements that were provided to the development team. Functional testing is best performed by either the business analyst or the QA analyst. A distinct benefit is gained here when functional tests are designed and completed by someone who is familiar with both the application and the enhancement requirements. Here is a tip: well written requirements and an experienced QA analyst are your best friend for stellar results!

Acceptance tests (also known as User Acceptance Testing or UAT) validate that the finished product aligns with the needs of the business user. This type of testing allows the end user to touch-and-feel the new process to make sure that it will correctly address the defined business need. An end user is also looking to make sure that the workflow is not made worse. At the end of the day, the user still has a job to do!

A well-designed set of test scripts is the most efficient way to track results, and to facilitate tracing the functionality back to the requirements. A plethora of applications exist that do this for you! Many of these applications can also run the test scripts in an automated fashion, which works great for regression testing. If I have access to an experienced QA analyst, I leave the decision up to that person. I simply provide rock-solid requirements and expectations and make myself available for questions.

That said, I am a big advocate of DIY.

If I am running functional tests myself, I create test scripts the old-fashioned way: Excel spreadsheets. The perception is that this takes too much time. Yes. It can be tedious. However, if you consider that good test scripts can also be used for system and user documentation – a bonus for start-ups – it is an essential task, regardless of the effort. They can be maintained and re-used.

Put your user hat on and give it a try!

Begin with a few basic columns:

Who is the user? What role is the user filling while performing this task?

What is being tested? Describe the function in simple terms.

What are the exact steps to get the desired result?

What is supposed to happen when the steps are completed?

What actually happened when the steps were completed? Ideally, you would want this to be the same as what was supposed to happen. Many times, it is not.

Did the test Pass or Fail?

Add more context for tracking and tracing back to the requirements, like test IDs for each test and date tracking to facilitate repeat testing. Add a column for additional comments so that the person who is running through the tests can add additional observations about what was experienced during the test.

In short, product quality drives customer satisfaction. Complete and consistent testing and retesting is one of the best ways to drive customer satisfaction with new products and product enhancements. It’s well worth your time and effort.

Happy testing!

Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Business Analysts and BA Jobs

Written by Ananya Pani on May 25, 2023. Posted in Articles.

Artificial Intelligence is no longer a buzzword, and it has been making waves in the tech industry. We are experiencing AI in our day-to-day life in the form of chatbots, Voice assistants in serving customers’ requests, forecasting market trends, detecting possible future ailments, and much more. In recent years, businesses have begun adopting AI to improve their operations and gain a competitive edge. But what does this mean for business analysts and BA jobs? With the rise of AI, will Business Analysts become obsolete, or will it create new opportunities? Let’s dive into how artificial intelligence affects business analysis and explore what the future holds for those in this field.

If you are a business analyst, you need to be skilled to leverage these technologies as an added advantage to your capabilities to deliver continued value to your organization.

So, are you geared to make the most of it or see it as a threat, or are apprehensive of losing your job to AI?

AI is your new superpower

As a business analyst, you have access to a wealth of data to help you make better decisions for your company. But what if you could tap into the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to supercharge your decision-making process?

With AI-powered business analytics tools, you can get insights that would otherwise be hidden in your data. For example, you can use predictive analytics to identify trends and patterns in your data and then use those insights to make better decisions about where to invest your resources.

AI can also help you automate repetitive tasks so that you can focus on more strategic work. For example, you can use natural language processing (NLP) to automatically generate reports from unstructured data sources like social media or customer feedback surveys. Using these opportunities helps us converse with customers about new possibilities.

In short, AI is your superpower when it comes to making better decisions for your business. So why not put AI to work for you?

Use AI to have more control over your time and use it more efficiently –

Let AI do all your routine, monotonous/repetitive jobs that free up more time and energy for Business Analysts.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used to automate low-level tasks, freeing time and energy for Business Analysts. This allows Business Analysts to focus on more strategic tasks, such as identifying new opportunities, analyzing data, and improving processes. As AI continues to evolve, it is expected that even more mundane tasks will be automated, further freeing up time for Business Analysts to add value to their organizations. Let the easy and monotonous tasks be taken up by AI, leaving the complex and the more challenging tasks to humans. Having said that, it requires us to grow and sharpen our skills.

BAs add significant value to the organization with their cognitive abilities

BAs add significant value to the organization in many ways that AI can’t take up.

They:

Perform a pivotal role in bridging the gap between business and IT.
Help/collaborate with stakeholders in prioritizing the requirements, helping them refine the requirements, and eliciting them using various techniques.
Influence/assist stakeholders in moving towards the unified project goal by communicating effectively.
They understand the business domain and processes and translate them into technical requirements.
They often apply out of the box solution approaches to solve business problems where a straightforward solution may not be available.

All these skills are essential for the success of any project or organization but cannot be replaced by AI.

Here is a detailed analysis of skills/tasks that currently are not possible to be taken up by AI.

Problem-solving

BAs help in Problem-solving – For impediments faced in the process or by the team:

Artificial intelligence has altered the role of business analysts and BA jobs. In the past, BAs were responsible for gathering requirements and documenting them. However, with the advent of AI, business analysts now need to be able to solve problems that may arise during the process or by the team.

This is where AI can be beneficial. With its ability to identify patterns and correlations, AI can help business analysts understand why specific problems are occurring and how they can be solved. Additionally, AI can also help BAs predict future problems that may arise and recommend solutions accordingly. As a result, BAs are now able to provide more value to their organizations by helping to solve complex problems.

Out of box thinking

Organizations are under constant pressure to do more with less. As a result, they need their employees to be creative and come up with innovative solutions to problems. This is where out-of-the-box thinking comes in.

Business analysts are in a unique position to help with this. They are trained to think critically and creatively, and they have the analytical skills to back up their ideas. BAs can help organizations see problems from different perspectives and come up with new solutions that they may not have considered before.

AI is only going to increase the demand for out-of-the-box thinking. As AI capabilities continue to grow, businesses will need employees who can think outside the box to keep up. BAs who can provide this critical thinking will be in high demand.

Critical decision making

BAs help in coming up with the best possible solution from the various alternatives.

BAs help organizations to make sense of all the data they collect and to use it to make better decisions. With the help of artificial intelligence (AI), BAs can now do even more to improve decision-making. AI can help BAs to identify patterns and correlations that they might not be able to see with their human eyes. AI can also help to automate some of the tedious tasks that BAs have to do, such as gathering data from multiple sources. This frees up the BA’s time so that they can focus on more strategic tasks.

AI is also helping BAs to come up with better solutions from the various alternatives available. With AI, BAs can test out different scenarios and see which one is most likely to succeed. This helps organizations to make better decisions and to avoid costly mistakes.

Overall, AI is having a positive impact on the job of the BA. With AI, BAs are able to do their jobs more effectively and efficiently.

Stakeholder collaboration –

BAs play a critical role in validating and prioritizing needs.

In any business, it is essential to have a good understanding of what your stakeholders want and need from you. This can be difficult to do without the help of a business analyst. Business analysts are experts in stakeholder collaboration. They can help you validate and prioritize the needs of your stakeholders. This is important because it ensures that you are meeting the needs of your stakeholders and that your business is able to run smoothly.

Bridging the gap between tech and users

As the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to grow in businesses around the world, the role of the business analyst (BA) is evolving. BAs are uniquely positioned to help bridge the gap between technical teams and users, and workshops are one way they can do this.

Workshops help BAs understand the needs of users and translate them into requirements for technical teams. They also help technical teams understand the capabilities of AI and how it can be used to solve business problems. By facilitating communication between these two groups, BAs can ensure that AI is deployed effectively and efficiently.

What’s more, as AI becomes more complex, the need for BAs who can navigate its increasingly murky waters will only grow. With their deep understanding of both business and technology, BAs are essential partners in helping organizations realize the full potential of AI.

Data analysis –

Deriving intelligent insights from the data to facilitate business decisions.

A Business Analyst (BA) is responsible for analyzing an organization or business domain and documenting its business or processes or systems, assessing the business model or its integration with technology. They also help in data analysis and derive intelligent insights from the data to facilitate business decisions. Data analysts use statistical techniques to examine data and draw conclusions from it. They help businesses to make better decisions by taking into account a wide range of factors, including cost, time, resources, risk, and objectives. The role of a BA has become even more critical in recent years as organizations strive to become more data-driven in their decision-making.

With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), there is ample opportunity for BAs to leverage AI technologies to improve their efficiency and effectiveness in data analysis. AI can help BAs to automate repetitive tasks such as data collection and cleansing so that they can focus on more strategic tasks such as identifying trends and patterns in data. AI-powered tools can also help BAs to make better recommendations by providing them with real-time insights based on large volumes of data.

In order to take advantage of these opportunities, BAs need to upskill themselves in AI technologies. There are many online courses and resources available that can help BAs get started with learning about AI.

Ethical and responsible use of confidential customer information

As business analysts, we are constantly working with confidential customer information. It is our responsibility to use this information ethically and responsibly.

Here are some ways that we can do this:

Be transparent about how we will use the customer information.
Get explicit consent from the customer before using their data.
Keep the customer information secure and protect it from unauthorized access.
Only use the customer information for the purpose it was collected for.
Dispose of the customer information securely when we no longer need it.By following these guidelines, we can ensure that we are using confidential customer information in an ethical and responsible manner.

To sum it up, keep your skills chiseled, use your cognitive skills to deliver value, keep your learning on, and leverage technology to keep you in demand.

Best of BATimes: 10 Best Business Analysis Books For Beginners

Written by Theresa Cofield on May 18, 2023. Posted in Articles.

Corporate analysis is a discipline in which business requirements are defined, and solutions are identified for business issues.

For an organization to thrive and function successfully, some things need to be placed during its foundation. Here are some books that can be of assistance.

1. Writing Effective Use Cases (Agile Software Development Series) by Alistair Cockburn

Business analysts profit from case studies where they talk about how people use a system. This helps in planning projects and use cases is a crucial feature of business and software systems. The problem is that it is not so easy to write straightforward and succinct cases. Author Alistair Cockburn utilizes modern methods to write case stories in this novel.

You can learn about advanced principles that are useful, whether you are an experienced analyst or a novice. Cockburn presents strong and bad case examples to help you quickly and rapidly understand the difference. The main aspects of situations, like stakeholders, scenarios, etc. Design, moment tips, pre-built templates can be utilized.

2. Business Analysis Techniques: 72 Essential Tools for Success by James Cadle

Every analyst needs the necessary resources to accomplish the job. The work involves solving problems and exploring ideas. You need to know how to solve various types of problems, like identifying project specifications or handling changes.

This book describes these strategies carefully in order to help the reader deliver reliable results in business work. Think about it as a market analyst, a manager, or a student who is learning the trade, as a cheat sheet you can talk about.

3. Project Management Absolute Beginner’s Guide (3rd Edition) by Greg Horine

You have just started working as a project manager? In this book, you can easily and rapidly grasp key concepts by disrupting vital project management activities. You can learn how to organize and manage budgeting, planning, team management, and more. Each phase is outlined so that you can start right away.

The guidelines are simple and convenient. You will discover that the project managers make daily errors to avoid taking the same route. You can also understand what heading projects entail instead of merely overseeing them. If you do not know how to begin your job or your career, take this book to learn what you need quickly.

4. Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling by Harold Kerzner

This is referred to as the Project Management Bible” since it offers practical insight into all facets of becoming a project manager. At all levels of a project, you can learn the techniques and methods to use. But it’s more than tips in this book. This text covers market changes, failure, agile project development, evolving industry topics, and project measurements.

There are just a few components that can limit performance in project management. This book is not a guide to project management, which is easy. There are plenty out there. When you want to know information about project management, quality assurance, and customer cooperation, this is the book you need to collect.

5. Business Analysis for Dummies by Kate McGoey, Kupe Kupersmith, and Paul Mulvey

Business Analysis (BA) is a group of activities that ensures that the company has the best solutions to achieve its strategic objectives. In order to carry out this workforce, it is important first to define the actual objectives and evaluate and propose solutions for a solution that needs to be addressed.

Provide guidelines as to how the market analysis will influence your company. Shows the tools and strategies to be a competent analyst. Provides many examples of how to market evaluations can be carried out irrespective of your position.

6. Adaptive BABoK Study Guide by the Adaptive US

BABOK® summary graphically represented to enable simple, engaging learning of concepts and practices of business analysis. However, a visual presentation and a summary of this information are effective for you to learn. BABOK® guide includes a large amount of structured text information.

7. 3D Business Analyst by Mohamed Elgendy

Three distinct fields of 3D Market Analysis – business analyzes, project management (PM), and lean 6 sigma – with historically different skills and career paths. When, however, the components of these skill sets are analyzed and understood, a simple overlap is generated. When used together, they provide the BA with the required concepts, theories, and ends so that it can interact more effectively with stakeholders in its own language.

8. Agile and Business Analysis: Practical Guidance for IT Professionals by Debra Paul and Lynda Girvan

Agile is an iterative approach to software development that has quickly become the most common replacement for conventional project management in the IT industry. The use of an agile approach will revolutionize work practices for business analysts. It allows for a clearer vision and definition of performance steps, greater participation of stakeholders, and a better understanding of consumers.

This book offers an extensive introduction and discusses Agile methodologies in the sense of market analysis—ideal for companies wishing to learn and understand Agile Practices in an Agile Environment.

9. Business Analysis: Best Practices for Success by Steven Blais

A full overview of the business analysis method in addressing business issues is given by this book. This guide is also full of real-world stores from the author’s more than 30 years of experience working as a market analyst, full of tips, tricks, methods, and guerrilla tactics that allow the entire process to face often daunting political or social obstacles.

It offers strategies and advice to conduct a business analyst’s challenging tasks at times.
Authored by a professional in the sector with 30 years of experience.

10. Seven Steps to Mastering Business Analysis by Barbara A. Carkenord

Business analyzes are now the fastest growing sector in business and both strategically and tactically the position of the business analyses. Seven steps to mastering business analysis illustrate how all these variables, along with many others, are the secret to success.

This book offers insight into the ideal skills and features of good market analysts and is the basis for the learning process. This guide also allows you to prepare for enterprise analysis certification by describing the tasks and fields of expertise in the Knowledge Body.

Conclusion

Businesses form an important part of a state. Encouraging young people to venture into business only increases employment opportunities. Through business books, this becomes an attainable goal as they offset with their best foot forward.

Published on December 3, 2020.

Factors Impacting Analysis

Written by Virginie Terry on May 3, 2023. Posted in Articles.

As Business Analysts, we are experts at defining good quality requirements and processes that enable the implementation of solutions which are fit for purpose and deliver the benefits from the business case. We may have several Business Analysis qualifications and many years’ experience working on all types of projects, from simple process changes to complex technical overhauls with multiple integrations, data migration and significant business change elements, and everything in between.

Yet our skills are just one of the many components that enable us to do our job well. There are some other factors which we don’t have much control over but which are also hugely important. We need to be aware of them and should consider them upfront and throughout the delivery of our projects to set ourselves up for success. Unsurprisingly, they can all be grouped under communication within project teams and organizations’ delivery standards and processes.

Consider the delivery model

Are the delivery frameworks from your organization and any third party you are working with aligned? Organizations tend to have slightly different definitions of the same terms, for example “delivery phase”. Does the delivery phase consist purely of coding and configuring what has been defined in great detail in previous, distinct analysis and design phases? Or will the delivery phase also include collaborative sessions at the start where technical teams, BAs and users flesh out these details together?

Consider roles and responsibilities

This is particularly important in organizations which have a high staff turnover, use many contractors or employ staff on short, fixed term contracts. The execution of testing can be a grey area for example, particularly User Acceptance Testing (UAT). Who is expected to write the test scripts? Is it the Tester(s) on your project, the business Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), or even yourself?

Consider the experience from other key roles within the project team

Do the Project Manager and other key roles within the project team have a good understanding of the role BAs play, what we do and don’t do? For example, do they know that BAs need to be present in all meetings with the users and technical team(s) where the scope is discussed? Or that we cannot make an on-the-spot decision about the validity of a change request, such as descoping an area of functionality because of new budget constraints, without assessing the impact on the processes and the integrity of the solution overall?

Consider the project plan

How will the project plan be produced? Do you need to do some “right to left” planning, because the go-live date can’t be moved, which is common on a lot of commercial or regulatory projects, or can you estimate the duration of each phase before agreeing on a go live date?

In the first scenario, you will need to timebox each activity and almost certainly compromise on some elements of your analysis. In both cases you need to really think through any assumptions which are being made around the effort required to produce each deliverable and any dependencies. You should also document any risks you foresee as a result of the approach being undertaken.

One common oversight is the business users’ availability to support the project, which can really hinder progress if not managed effectively. This can range from planned absence, such as annual leave, to having to perform Business As Usual (BAU) activities no one else can backfill, or supporting other projects which have a higher priority.

Consider the project governance

Does your organization have well defined processes to govern the decisions required around the different project milestones and the challenges you will meet in the course of the delivery? For example, are you clear on the documentation that you need to produce, or contribute to, at each stage gate? What is the change control process you need to follow when a new requirement emerges after the requirements catalogue has been baselined?

Consider the Sponsor’s role

Sponsor engagement, and the BA’s access to the Sponsor, are critical to the success of the project. Are you able to have one-on-one meetings where you can speak openly to update them or seek guidance when you are uncertain about the direction you should follow? Does your Sponsor know the level of involvement they need to have so that they support you, the Project Manager, and the delivery of the project, without interfering with the methodology or the due diligence required, for example?

Conclusion

There are no simple answers to these issues. Every organization has its own culture, and each project team has specific dynamics.

However, identifying them as early as possible means that you can prepare for them and address them effectively within the constraints that you operate in, even if it means you’re not able to follow best practice. When dealing with these challenges, regardless of your level of experience, you will achieve something much bigger than the delivery of your project.

This may be learning something new about the way that you communicate, educating your colleagues about the role of the Business Analyst, or even instigating an improvement in the way in which your organization delivers change.