Archive for the 'Project Lifecycle' Category

Dealing with Poor Requirements

Of all the challenges faced by a business analyst, Poor Requirements, Changing Requirements, Scope Creep, Changing Deliverables, Changing Expectations, I believe that poor requirements are probably the most severe issue that can be faced by a project. Continue reading ‘Dealing with Poor Requirements’

Embracing the Change Request by Patrick Bowe

Change Requests are the inevitable consequence of trying to document requirements and to fulfill the needs of others. Minimising the number of change requests on any given project is an admirable goal, but eradicating them all together is never going to happen and is probably going to be detrimental to your project. Continue reading ‘Embracing the Change Request by Patrick Bowe’

What does a Business Analyst do? – by Patrick Bowe

Something that I’ve actually been asked while pitching for work is “What does a Business Analyst actually do?”. While I won the work in that instance, I was never happy with the answer that I gave at the time. I managed to babble something out about how a BA was the bridge between IT and the business and while this is true, it hardly demonstrates what I could do to impact the bottom line of a project.

Since then I’ve relayed this story many times, only to discover that it wasn’t just my erstwhile interviewer that was unsure of what a Business Analyst actually does. Very often it’s not until a BA has delivered on a piece of work that the business that they are working for appreciates exactly what it was that the BA did for them, even then I suspect they would find it difficult to define exactly what it was that the BA did. Continue reading ‘What does a Business Analyst do? – by Patrick Bowe’