Benchmarking is a valid, powerful and concrete way to compare a new system or process to the current, “as-is” state OR to compare multiple systems in a vendor selection process. To ensure each of those adjectives (valid, powerful and concrete) are met here’s some suggestions: Valid – ensure a level playing field in all systems… [Read more…]
April 21, 2011 by David Kohrell
Problems, issues, bugs, defects, action items, punch list, clean up tables – so many synonymous terms for the same underlying concept – tracking known “stuff” and making sure it gets resolved before a product or service is released. While risk management concerns the known- unknown, management reserves address unknown -unknown, problem tracking is smack dab… [Read more…]
March 22, 2011 by David Kohrell
SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) is a venerable mainstay of management and MBA curriculum. While it’s typically applied at the organization level for strategic management, SWOT analysis can be a helpful technique for understanding the business perspective for a set of requirements or a project. It’s described in 9.32 of the BABOK™ A… [Read more…]
January 20, 2011 by David Kohrell
Step Two of Resolving Virtual Team Conflict is to treat it as a potential risk. The advantage of looking at team conflict as a risk is it’s an easier to say “hey let’s treat team conflict as a risk element, something that might happen” rather than “gee, we’re conflicted and at each others throat, upper… [Read more…]
January 11, 2011 by David Kohrell
Virtual teams are geographical dispersed teams (GDT) who are formed for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the virtual team is formed as a result of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), or a collaboration among organizations may trigger it, perhaps a key employee moves or a company wishes to get some “boots on the ground” in a… [Read more…]
January 10, 2011 by David Kohrell
Schedule (Activity Duration or Activity Resource) and Cost estimating are two lynch pins for business analysis and project management. The most common estimate techniques are: analogous, bottom-up, parametric and three-point – PERT. For those pursuing a CBAP® or PMP® how to use them and whether those are mutually exclusive can become a bit confusing. The… [Read more…]
January 2, 2011 by tapuniversity
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow. Crunchy numbers A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats. About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was… [Read more…]
January 1, 2011 by Adrian Reed (UKAdrianReed)
Asking the right questions and framing problems carefully is an important part of project definition and organizational change. Often organizations frame problems in a way which constricts or constrains potential solutions, and this can lead to a poor outcome or the wrong tactics being employed. Spending time consciously defining a problem can pay dividends in… [Read more…]
December 29, 2010 by David Kohrell
The International Institute of Business Analysis was founded just a few years ago in 2003. In terms of professional associations it’s a new kid on the block. Yet in a short time it’s made a profound impact on the discipline and profession of business analysis. One success factor of The IIBA for making a swift… [Read more…]
December 2, 2010 by David Kohrell
Weaving throughout the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK), ISACA content & CobiT, Lean Six Sigma best practice and the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) / PRINCE 2 is the concept of proactively managing risk. Risk is based on a probability of an event occuring (positive and negative) and the impact should that even… [Read more…]
August 8, 2010 by David Kohrell
In a Request For Proposal selection process or project a flexibility, well defined rubric is critical. That rubric is more commonly known as score sheets, scales and weights. The best practice is to define that rubric prior to issuing the RFP – the selection committee needs to know 1) what they are selected and 2)… [Read more…]
July 27, 2010 by tapuniversity
A Request For Quotation is a seller selection process where the buyer knows what they need and specifies quantity, terms, even target price. It is a companion, complimentary seller/vendor selection tool to the Request For Proposal. You might use a RFQ at your work place and not even realize it. For example purchasing 100 copies… [Read more…]
July 24, 2010 by David Kohrell
A Request For Proposal (RFP) is a common way to select for a vendor based solution or product. They are used when what is needed can be identified and described, but a detailed step by step method may not be known. RFP’s may result in a fixed bid or cost plus performance contract awarded to… [Read more…]
March 29, 2010 by tapuniversity
A Feasibility Study investigates whether a potential project is feasible. It asks questions such as whether the project can be accomplished (is it technically feasible), whether it will be successful and profitable, and how much it will cost. The fourth edition PMBOK® (Project Management Body of Knowledge) has little to say on Feasibility Studies. It… [Read more…]
December 15, 2009 by tapuniversity
The User Stories technique is one of 34 techniques described in the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK®). Business Analysts may use this technique to get a general understanding of the functionality that stakeholders want in a solution and why this functionality is important. User Stories are a brief, textual description that consists of three… [Read more…]
October 5, 2009 by tapuniversity
The Business Analysis Approach document describes how business analysis will be handled for a given project. It sets the stage at the beginning for the manner in which a project’s business analysis will be played out, and it provides broad descriptions that lay the foundation for further refining the necessary business analysis activities through subsequent… [Read more…]
October 2, 2009 by tapuniversity
The Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) contains six knowledge areas of business analysis—Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring; Elicitation; Requirements Management and Communication; Enterprise Analysis; Requirements Analysis; and Solution Assessment and Validation. Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring concerns deciding which business analysis activities are needed. This includes identifying the stakeholders. Elicitation concerns obtaining requirements from… [Read more…]
October 1, 2009 by tapuniversity
At the heart of business analysis is requirements. The business analyst will plan how to elicit them, elicit them, manage them, communicate them, analyze them, validate them, and verify them. But what exactly is a requirement? There is debate on how to exactly define them, but the BABOK® 2.0 defines a requirement as: “(1) A… [Read more…]
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May 27, 2011 by David Kohrell
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