Is it enough to say that the BA is the “universal translator” between business and IT?

I often hear that we need a business analyst to translate what the business people say, so that technical people understand them. Then, I am told we need the BA to then translate what the technical people say, so that the business people understand them. I guess it goes something like this: It sounds good, […]

Can I still use a use case on my agile project – even if the cool kids don’t use them anymore?

I have been told that use cases are very old fashioned now and that all the cool people have moved onto agile user stories. But I am old school and I still like to pull the old approaches out every now and then and take them for a spin. I found myself explaining use cases […]

The humble trade-off matrix

I have been doing some business analyst training recently and I spoke about a “trade-off matrix” a couple of times. A couple of people have asked for a good link to explain what one is and why they are so cool. So I looked on the web and couldn’t find anything decent enough to send […]

Analysing stakeholders – beyond the basic communication plan

A basic map of our stakeholders Quite some time ago, I wrote an article on “creating a basic communication plan” and for many projects that is all you need. But sometimes it is worth analysing your stakeholders in more detail. This article explores a couple of approaches that I like to use when I need […]