Posted by James King on February 17, 2012
I stumbled on a letter from Mark Twain where he comments on “the interview”:
Controversially, he claimed that interviews are appalling and should be completely abolished … which would seem to be a strong position for a business analyst to take these days. But then Mark Twain was around at the beginning of last century and we have learned a lot since then. Maybe he just didn’t know any better.
Posted in Idea management, Investigation, Observations, Reflection | Tagged: business analysis; interview; agile; requirements | 1 Comment »
Posted by James King on February 14, 2012
A long time ago I used to do production support as part of my role (I was a Unix administrator/DBA/system analyst).
In those days requirements were really easy for me: people would come to my desk and ask for something, or they would email me or maybe even leave a scribbled note on my desk. There were no standard formats, no formality and (usually) no problems.
But even back then I had to work with vendors and sometimes that was when the trouble started. Some were happy with my “give me a call” approach to requirements, while others required a ticket and some even required a complicated work request form.
Now days, some production support teams are more professional that I was and they actually have real requirements or (if they are agile) stories. And most of them seem to be flooded with vendors.
So, do stories work with vendors? The obvious answer is YES. For example, if you receive a story in the following format then it should work for you and also for your vendor:
But what about complaints and bugs?
Posted in Implementation, Idea management, Agile development | Tagged: pieces of the puzzle, system analyst, work request | Leave a Comment »
Posted by James King on February 14, 2012
I have encountered Use Cases on several occasions, sometimes they seem like a simple tool that can be used to better understand how a system behaves from a users perspective, while at other times people describe them as terrifying monsters that have murdered people and led to the destruction of entire projects. So I am going to recommend only using the good kind.
But what is a use case? It is simply an example of how a system (or business service) could be used by someone.
Posted in Implementation, Idea management, Agile development | Tagged: agile, use case, scenario test, regression test | 1 Comment »
Posted by James King on February 8, 2012
Before I worked in IT and even knew what testing was, I knew people made mistakes. But I didn’t know there was an international standard you should comply with when you want to make a mistake.
Then I worked on a project with a mining company and one of the consultants explained human factor analysis to me in simple terms. He told me that mine sites can be dangerous and part of his job was to “stop people killing themselves when they are stupid”.
I suggested he stop hiring stupid people but he told me that they tried that and it didn’t work. Apparently you can be really intelligent on a mine site 800 days in a row but then be stupid for 10 minutes one day and be in an accident and then be killed.
“Luckily we have a standard for being stupid though” he said
Posted in Implementation, Idea management, Agile development | Tagged: agile, testing, regression testing, human factor analysis, UAT | 1 Comment »
Posted by James King on February 6, 2012
I have been creating a couple of blogs on context recently. The idea is that if you know a bit about your users and the product that you are building. Both can take months or years, but I like to think we can even spend an hour or less to understand our project.
Posted in Agile development, Idea management, Implementation, Leading change | Tagged: agile, managing ideas, project charter, project launch | 5 Comments »
Posted by James King on July 3, 2011
Force field analysis is a good way to analyse the constraints and the drivers of success when leading change, delivering projects or problem solving in general.
Posted in Idea management, Investigation, Risk | Tagged: Analysis techniqes, problem solving | Leave a Comment »
Posted by James King on May 1, 2011
I have my own favourite set of questions to ask at the beginning of any assignment or project. I call this my “question compass” because the questions help me to find my way at the ambiguous beginning of most of my projects.
People often write the questions down when I explain them, so I assume they like my question compass too. But often a senior BA will listen politely and then reveal that they have their own “question compass” that works better for them than mine does.
Posted in Idea management, Investigation | Tagged: questions to ask a stakeholder, Starting a new project | Leave a Comment »
Posted by James King on April 28, 2011
I have always believed that a good business analyst will be able to work on any project because he or she will ask good questions. At the same time though I have always believed that different projects need different approaches and therefore potentially different skills.
Which begs the question – should our approach to starting a project be based on the type of project or on a generic set of questions aimed at understanding the problem to be solved (or the opportunity to be seized)?
Posted in Idea management, Investigation | Tagged: questions to ask, starting a project | Leave a Comment »
Posted by James King on April 24, 2011
If we don’t know why we are doing a project, then maybe we shouldn’t be doing it. But on many projects, if you ask the team “what will be different when we finish?” they look confused and start talking about the tasks they are performing.
But the tasks being performed should be moving toward some goal, which should be based on making something different to the way it is now (or would be without the project). Otherwise, to quote my grandmother:
How do you know you are not mistaking activity for progress?
Posted in Idea management | Tagged: benefit realisation, Project portfolio selection | Leave a Comment »
