Jonathan's Comments

Practical Analyst : Be an Unselfish Business Analyst!

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 22:10:02 +0000

Appreciate the comment, John. And the suggestion!

Practical Analyst : Seven Steps and a Nice Little Process Template

Sat, 8 May 2010 00:32:29 +0000

Rachana, Thanks for the kind words! It's always good to hear of people getting some use out of the content I post here. Regarding your question on availability of data, I think that depends on the process and the situation you find yourself in. I can certainly see the historical data consideration potentially showing up as an item in the "additional notes" section, or even as a rule in the rules section.. If it is a common enough question for all of your processes, you might even add it in its own little space on the template. Depending on circumstance, you might even add a column to the data table to indicate whether you needed historical data and how many months, etc. Hope that helped. If not, let me know. Always glad to help when I can!

Practical Analyst : Free Desktop Tools a Business Analyst Should Know About

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:21:02 +0000

Sudhi, A while ago I posted a list of open source data modeling/UML tools. You might want to take a look at there.

Practical Analyst : Seven Steps and a Nice Little Process Template

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:07:08 +0000

Ginny, I'm not sure what is causing that. Several others have been able to download just fine. Tell you what, if you'd like to send me an e-mail via my contact form (there's a link to it at the top of this page), I'll send the template to you directly.

Practical Analyst : Free Desktop Tools a Business Analyst Should Know About

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:14:04 +0000

Haha! I thought the same when I first came across it!

Practical Analyst : Free Desktop Tools a Business Analyst Should Know About

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:11:10 +0000

Nice catch, and thanks for bringing it to my attention. Link should be there now.

Practical Analyst : Free Desktop Tools a Business Analyst Should Know About

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:10:28 +0000

Thanks for the tip! I wasn't aware of Freeplane. I'm going to check it out. I did see that Freemind had a new release candidate just a week or so ago, though.

Practical Analyst : On Schedule, As Designed and the Stakeholders are Thrilled!

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 01:24:15 +0000

Thanks for the kind comments, everybody. Sure appreciate them!

Practical Analyst : Give 'em Pictures!

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:08:14 +0000

I'm with you, Doug. It's important to have the detail because skimping on the detail can get you in trouble in other ways. It's just that I think there is a lot we can do to make our deliverables more - palatable - not to mention more easy to understand. One of my team members has tried screen mock-ups with text call-outs for some of the details. They have been very well received by business stakeholders, and are easier for the BA to speak from in terms of describing the functionality. The mocked-up screens with call-outs adds seems to add a needed dimension of context/color to the "BTD".

Practical Analyst : Time Travel for Context-free Use Cases

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:00:09 +0000

Thanks, Tami, and you're right about the banks. It's interesting to contemplate how different fulfillment of services and functions we take for granted may change and how much of our lingo is tied to terms for tools and technology used for fulfillment. I'm thinking about "dialing numbers" for example.

Practical Analyst : McDonald's Burgers and High-Quality Business Analysts

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:46:14 +0000

Thanks for commenting, Leroy. I definitely get your point that sometimes your best might just not be good enough to meet, let alone exceed customer expectations. I think that might be one of the areas where what's true for burgers doesn't necessarily hold for the complexities of business analysis. At the same time, I think that it is incumbent on us - as individuals and solution delivery teams - to set and manage expectations to minimize occurrences where we do our best yet "can't win for losing." I think we can reasonably reach a point where we know what we can give on a regular basis, and our customer has a good idea what they'll get. Hopefully the situation would be rare where we just aren't good enough to get the job done.

Practical Analyst : 5 Pillars of Successful Business Analysis

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:41:04 +0000

Thanks for commenting, Doug. I agree that a good analyst can be successful in any business or technical domain, but when it comes right down to it, if I'm considering hiring one of two BA candidiates, with all else equal, I'll take the one that either has more depth of knowledge of the industry or of the technology (whichever I happen to think more important in that particular instance). At the same time - and as I said above - I don't really think there are many BA's out there that have been on the job for long that don't have a certain level of expertise dealing with the industry and technologies. I've always been of a mind where I want to learn as much about every business/industry and technology I have the good fortune to work with because it's that knowledge that enables me to recognize the patterns in those areas that will help me be more efficient in my work. The one thing I don't like about the common notion that a BA doesn't need domain knowledge is that it might encourage a BA to ignore it, which, in my mind, would be a shame.

businessanalystmentor.com: destination site for business analysts : eBook on Becoming a Business Analyst update

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:40:59 +0000

Looking forward to that book, Alex!

Practical Analyst : Business Analysts: Domain Experts or Generalists?

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:42:01 +0000

I think of specific systems expertise and general "possibilities of technology"-type knowledge as different rungs on the same ladder. And I absolutely think it is incumbent on the BA to be able to break down the possibilities of technology in terms that business folk can digest. And to be able to do that, obviously, we have to have some of that knowledge ourselves.

Practical Analyst : Business Analysts: Domain Experts or Generalists?

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:56:47 +0000

I hear what you're saying on the domain shifts, David. I think there's a certain degree of technical know-how that you just pick up by working with systems in general over time, too. Regardless of the industry, you're well served by having a fundamental understanding of architecture, and the way systems work. The analysis skills are the ones we can't do without, though. I think that's a great suggestion for an upcoming topic, too. I think the vendor/software experience has a lot to do with multiple factors including - consultant vs. perm. BA for a company; consultant in a specific field or technology vs. general business analysis/project management consultancy, etc. It is a conversation I think it'd be interesting to have. Just need to get my thoughts together on it, first.

Practical Analyst : Structured Analysis & Big, Thick Documents

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:53:19 +0000

You're most welcome. Thank YOU for providing all the great material. I love the wiki idea.

Practical Analyst : That's my girl!

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:51:51 +0000

Funny! Yeah, the little ones love the youtube videos, too - chimpanzee riding on a segway.. Cat flushing the toilet, etc... What did we do without 'puters growing up, anyway?

Practical Analyst : Patterns and the Evolving Business Analyst

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:01:14 +0000

Thanks for your comment, Suzanne. Thrilled to hear from you! I'll gladly second the recommendation of Mastering the Requirements Process. It was one of the first books in my BA library and definitely provides some additional insight into requirement patterns. I wasn't aware of the "Adrenaline Junkies & Template Zombies" one, though. I'll be sure to give it a look.

Practical Analyst : That's my girl!

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:24:43 +0000

I don't think so, Craig. I tried telling her some user stories at bedtime once, and she just wasn't that into them.

Practical Analyst : Bright Idea on Requirement Character Limits?

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 05:32:20 +0000

Good stuff, Adam. Great idea on the initial article. It's been fun following the conversation here and over on your blog. I'll look forward to the new feature in Bright Green Projects!