John: "Ranjan, do you know how to play chess?"
Ranjan: "Yes, a bit"
John: " You must plan your future moves.See things ahead. And that's the way systems should we made, today its E2(End-to-end) tomorrow it can be E3,E4 .. You must plan for E7. You have your limitations but keep one thing in mind: Make your systems Horizontally consistent. Symmetrical and modular. What I am trying to verbalize is that call each section as a 'thing' and that 'thing' should have similar properties. Later replace 'thing' by real names: Issues, meetings, Lists, product etc... follow this in UI also."
John is an architect and has extensive exp. of more than 150 systems for wall street companies. We are working together on my current assignments for one of the largest pharma companies. Here I have tried to capture my learning while prototyping the application in this presentation:
Sep 20, 2008
Requirements Lifecycle
A Typical requirements LifeCycle(Click to enlarge)
I have been trying to put together some thing like this since long time. I think the above diagram summaries how a Business Analyst should typically engage in a project. There are very few projects where a BA gets to engage right from strategy to implementation. The crux is whatever the situation you are put in, if not being able to see the bigger picture troubles you..think that you are doing just right. If I am asked to summaries the value a Business Analyst brings in to a situation it will be - Converting and communication a business strategy into system requirements. The ability to see the big picture is imperative in such cases.
The great digital divide.
Human being by nature are not racist, we normally like to mix with people who do not look or think like us. But at the same time we also have a general bias, we tend to prefer the company of people who are like us in some way or the other. People from a same community will live together, people speaking same language feel more at home with each other, people with same political view gel pretty well. Can you imagine a congress politician subscribing to BJP newsletter.
Like everything, In a overall neutral society we have small polarised sections. These formation happen gradually in a real world.
In 1971, economist Thomas Schelling performed a very simple experiment with a very strong result. He began his experiment by drawing a grid of squares on a piece of paper creating a pattern resembling an over sized checkerboard. Each square representing a house lot. He then randomly placed a black and white marker in some of these squares. Black and white representing Black and White people. Assuming the community to be fully integrated now, blacks and white living together with no preferences. He made one assumption now, if the percentage of the neighbors of the same color fell beyond 50% the family would move to nearest square to meet this need. Assuming this he started moving the squares and soon realised the board was totally segregated. All whites on one side and all blacks on the other.
He explained "small incentives, almost imperceptionable differentials, can lead to highly polarized results". Meaning, social realities are fashioned not only by the desires of people but by the action of blind or mechanical forces.
Though this kind of polarization takes a lot of time to happen in the real world where there are many hurdles to be crossed to reach this polarization. A family will look in to hundreds of thing before changing the neighbourhood.
Now, imagine a world where there are no such hurdles, where people can move around at will to there nearest neighbourhood, or even better, where people can create there own neighbourhood.
A world where there are no speed breakers: the web.
With lots of cool things around and Googles, yahoos, amazons, microsofts of the world providing, tracking and encashing on personal needs of the people. We live in communities, where we want to live in. We interact with people who talk like us, think like us...blog like us. The blogs/communities/sites/portals we visit link to places which are similar in nature. The web is moving towards Radical Personalization, and most of the time we don't have any control over the content that is fed to us. Somebody is tracking our behaviour by the clicks we have made in past. Our window is becoming narrower day by day.
Our online communities are polarized, we are able to find like minded people very easily on the web. It is well founded thought that deliberation between like minded people leads to ideological amplification. The more we interact with like minded people, the more radical our ideas become. With no critics around we see the world through a very limited window and through great confidence. The Web 2.o generation is a generation with radical ideas. It is affecting our lives.
We Indians were never radical in our nature, with nations living inside nation, it was always impossible to have polarized nation. We have always interacted with people with various communities and different ideologies and hence were never radical in nature. But things may not be same in future.Examples: What is happing in Maharastra is triggered by relatively young leadership. We are seeing avery radical face of religion and terrorism who hire and operate via web.
Learned form 'The Big Switch' by Nicholas Carr.
Like everything, In a overall neutral society we have small polarised sections. These formation happen gradually in a real world.
In 1971, economist Thomas Schelling performed a very simple experiment with a very strong result. He began his experiment by drawing a grid of squares on a piece of paper creating a pattern resembling an over sized checkerboard. Each square representing a house lot. He then randomly placed a black and white marker in some of these squares. Black and white representing Black and White people. Assuming the community to be fully integrated now, blacks and white living together with no preferences. He made one assumption now, if the percentage of the neighbors of the same color fell beyond 50% the family would move to nearest square to meet this need. Assuming this he started moving the squares and soon realised the board was totally segregated. All whites on one side and all blacks on the other.
He explained "small incentives, almost imperceptionable differentials, can lead to highly polarized results". Meaning, social realities are fashioned not only by the desires of people but by the action of blind or mechanical forces.
Though this kind of polarization takes a lot of time to happen in the real world where there are many hurdles to be crossed to reach this polarization. A family will look in to hundreds of thing before changing the neighbourhood.
Now, imagine a world where there are no such hurdles, where people can move around at will to there nearest neighbourhood, or even better, where people can create there own neighbourhood.
A world where there are no speed breakers: the web.
With lots of cool things around and Googles, yahoos, amazons, microsofts of the world providing, tracking and encashing on personal needs of the people. We live in communities, where we want to live in. We interact with people who talk like us, think like us...blog like us. The blogs/communities/sites/portals we visit link to places which are similar in nature. The web is moving towards Radical Personalization, and most of the time we don't have any control over the content that is fed to us. Somebody is tracking our behaviour by the clicks we have made in past. Our window is becoming narrower day by day.
Our online communities are polarized, we are able to find like minded people very easily on the web. It is well founded thought that deliberation between like minded people leads to ideological amplification. The more we interact with like minded people, the more radical our ideas become. With no critics around we see the world through a very limited window and through great confidence. The Web 2.o generation is a generation with radical ideas. It is affecting our lives.
We Indians were never radical in our nature, with nations living inside nation, it was always impossible to have polarized nation. We have always interacted with people with various communities and different ideologies and hence were never radical in nature. But things may not be same in future.Examples: What is happing in Maharastra is triggered by relatively young leadership. We are seeing avery radical face of religion and terrorism who hire and operate via web.
Learned form 'The Big Switch' by Nicholas Carr.
Dilbert On Software Requirements
Every Analyst, Manager, developer must have been into these situations...
The most hilarious are the one that happen after these systems are developed.
In one of the projects,the client happened to be a Desi Guy..and we built a really nice rapo with him. So, after the requirements was done, the system was developed... during the acceptance he comes up and say " yaar, kuch maza nahin aaya".
When the manager promptly replied that all the requirements was covered and we have made the system as documented in the requirements document, and she sighted that every thing was approved and signed off by him, she forwarded all the approval emails that he had sent ( you know, we guys always keep these mails... client ko phek ke marne ke liye ).
In his typical marathi tone, he say " yaar, system easy to use nahin hai..ab dekho yeh to assumed hai naa.... bola tha..naa.. poocho....ranjan se poocho(knowing very well that I am not with project anymore)... use pata tha.. tumhe bataya nahin usne...ab document padhne ka time nahin hai naa... I trusted him..!!"
Business Analysis for Dummies- Feature Matrix
Quoting IIBA:
A business analyst works as a liaison among stakeholders in order to elicit, analyze, communicate and validate requirements for changes to business processes, policies and information systems. The business analyst understands business problems and opportunities in the context of the requirements and recommends solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.
Building my thought on the above statement, I thought of building up a "Feature Matrix" for a Business Analyst. The above matrix was the outcome and is plotted against Criticality and Experience.
Here is the discussion for the same:
The four parameters 'Characteristics', 'Skill', 'Tools' and 'Domain' can be used to measure any professional in this world, the order in which they are placed in the graph may definitely differ. Talikng about our profession I strongly feel that character and skill are high priority. The work is so much of comprehension, communication, analysis that it requires the above listed characteristics to justify the job. The outcome often is a requirements document( called as FRS,SRS,URS in CMMI companies), hence a lot of emphasis is on writing and communication. Domain Knowledge will come with experience and is very important for a Business Analyst, it helps you in relating to the business situation pretty quickly.However many people may feel that 'Domain' should be right there at the top, but my argument is, yes, it needs to be there at the top as highly critical feature but the passion and skills are still required to convert knowledge of business into a business usable system. A good domain knowledge is gained over a period of time by building systems and by being 'in the game'.
Knowledge of various tools and process will help in maintaining Quality. These techniques can be quickly learned and doesn't require expertise... to start. But personally I feel knowledge of product life cycle is imperative. Its is good to learn writing use cases, a good use case leads to a good design. The expertise will come with experience and only if you have passion to learn and learn more.
Let me know your thoughts on the " Feature Matrix", does it makes any sense? Can we use it for defining other professions?
Reference:
1. My earlier post:Buisiness Analysis fo Dummies
2.'Characteristics' has been taken from Trials and Tribulation of Business System Analyst, a high recommended blog.
Things I learned In past few weeks.
In future, not companies but their Supply chain will compete.
This is true.I would have loved to discuss this over here but will rather put it in a separate post after exploring a bit more. Examples: WalMarts Vs Any other retailer in the world. But Walmarts is suffering a midlife crisis and its competitor Target is doing much better, what can be the reason? This will determine the future of IT industry. The companies with best delivery model will succeed.
During requirement gathering, pay a lot of emphasis of business process. A little haze in the process will bring thunderstorm during development.
This statement is said by the great ranjan jha :))
This is my personal exp, a little gap or the little voice that you ignored will get louder down the line. clarify each and everything, one thing will lead to another, its better to bring everything on the table right in front. Stakeholders do not like tough questions, but a BA bust asks ugly questions.
Companies with content oriented website and not so complicated requirement must consider Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007(MOSS 2007) to build there extranets
I have written a Case study on it... will love to share it with you guys...mail me :)
Analyzing the role of Business Analyst
The need of having a Business Analyst for IT project might have came up when more and more business problems were addressed by the software companies. The outsourcing and offshore phenomenon may have made the need even more urgent.
Software Services organization still fail to understand the role of Business Analyst, or do they? Projects fail because the requirements are not done properly, the expectations are not set up right at the very start. Let me put it in different way, projects fail because the vendor or the services company is not able to understand the business of the client. A business analyst should not only do the requirements but should be involved through out the lifecycle of the project and should be the owner from the business side. More of a clients representative then a vendor's representative. As Babcock put his concern nicely:
In his article Finding a home for Business Analysts he beautifully explains the roles a BA must play. He points out that the Business Analyst should be more involved in developing a Business Case then playing an IT role. This is so true. He further explains
I have experienced the above myself, pretending that they understand technology. The Stakeholders ofter define the technological platform they are going to use. These decisions are rarely taken after a thought process. The decisions are often taken because, the technology is "cool" or the competitor is using that, or Gartner has kept it on the top right corner of there magic quadrant. Not because its going to serve the business need, no body has time to do this. These decisions should ideally have taken place after the business case is developed by the Business Analyst, this not only gives a BA a lot of freedom to analyze without thinking about implementation when the technology is defined.
So what does the future hold? As Babcock opines:
Whatever the future holds a Business Analyst will play a very important role decision making process both on the client and the vendor side.
Related Articles: Business Analysts: SME’s or Generalists?
Software Services organization still fail to understand the role of Business Analyst, or do they? Projects fail because the requirements are not done properly, the expectations are not set up right at the very start. Let me put it in different way, projects fail because the vendor or the services company is not able to understand the business of the client. A business analyst should not only do the requirements but should be involved through out the lifecycle of the project and should be the owner from the business side. More of a clients representative then a vendor's representative. As Babcock put his concern nicely:
Is the role of business analyst an IT role, a business role, or both? How can the BA role be used to the greatest benefit of the organization?
In his article Finding a home for Business Analysts he beautifully explains the roles a BA must play. He points out that the Business Analyst should be more involved in developing a Business Case then playing an IT role. This is so true. He further explains
Business stakeholders sometimes fail to realize (in part due to the BA or Project Management Organization’s failure to articulate) that the great value of a BA is not just in the ability to crank out documents translating business-speak to tech-speak, but to help business stakeholders through the processes of identifying and prioritizing true (not necessarily perceived) business need
I have experienced the above myself, pretending that they understand technology. The Stakeholders ofter define the technological platform they are going to use. These decisions are rarely taken after a thought process. The decisions are often taken because, the technology is "cool" or the competitor is using that, or Gartner has kept it on the top right corner of there magic quadrant. Not because its going to serve the business need, no body has time to do this. These decisions should ideally have taken place after the business case is developed by the Business Analyst, this not only gives a BA a lot of freedom to analyze without thinking about implementation when the technology is defined.
So what does the future hold? As Babcock opines:
I do feel that the role will continue to require business acumen and technical literacy, and I know that every company will continue innovate and build on past lessons to address their needs for the role as they see fit. In many smaller budget operations we’ll likely continue to see the systems analyst/business analyst hybrid. In other scenarios we’ll see the breakout..
As I indicated above, I think that organizations will realize the most value from the business analyst as he/she is included earlier and earlier in the business decision making process, and becomes more of a fixture within the business. Whatever the case, though, I trust that the market will properly guide the evolution of the business analyst role
Whatever the future holds a Business Analyst will play a very important role decision making process both on the client and the vendor side.
Related Articles: Business Analysts: SME’s or Generalists?
Another way of capturing Requirements
Many times a situation comes in where the business requirements are to be captured but not any of the defined process seems to be the right way to do so.
The business problems where there aren't any complex process to be automated. For example, a company wants to migrate its commercial website to a better technological platform. There are definitely certain requirements that are to be captured. Mostly these requirements are on the look feel side. How will a business analyst capture requirements in this situation. Writing use cases certainly isn't the best Idea.
I am currently working on one of these website migration projects and this is how we captured the requirements:
1. Most of the time requirements are very clear, the technology is defined. But still a sign off is needed, so you need to capture requirements in some way.
2. The owner of the dotcom of any company is the marketting department and often the VPs and directors... who wont have much time to spare.
3. The important thing is to get the look and feel approved first, the templates and all.
4. Provide the entire site as wireframes...best to have a expert UI designer to work the new look of the site, frame by frame and get it approved by the business.
5. The next thing that is left is content and navigation.
6. We made PPTs...took the wire frame and provided the content editing areas on the slides and provided it to the business to edit.
7. This gives the business a good idea of how the new site is going to look like.
8. Next, get the sign-off on the requirements and without wasting much time get ahead with the design and development.
Actually these projects are very boring for an Analyst, I am doing one. I learned a new way to do requirements which helps in breaking the mindset that OOAD is not always the best way to do things.
The business problems where there aren't any complex process to be automated. For example, a company wants to migrate its commercial website to a better technological platform. There are definitely certain requirements that are to be captured. Mostly these requirements are on the look feel side. How will a business analyst capture requirements in this situation. Writing use cases certainly isn't the best Idea.
I am currently working on one of these website migration projects and this is how we captured the requirements:
1. Most of the time requirements are very clear, the technology is defined. But still a sign off is needed, so you need to capture requirements in some way.
2. The owner of the dotcom of any company is the marketting department and often the VPs and directors... who wont have much time to spare.
3. The important thing is to get the look and feel approved first, the templates and all.
4. Provide the entire site as wireframes...best to have a expert UI designer to work the new look of the site, frame by frame and get it approved by the business.
5. The next thing that is left is content and navigation.
6. We made PPTs...took the wire frame and provided the content editing areas on the slides and provided it to the business to edit.
7. This gives the business a good idea of how the new site is going to look like.
8. Next, get the sign-off on the requirements and without wasting much time get ahead with the design and development.
Actually these projects are very boring for an Analyst, I am doing one. I learned a new way to do requirements which helps in breaking the mindset that OOAD is not always the best way to do things.
Blog added to modernanalyst.com
Last Night I recieved a mail from Adrian Marchis Publisher, Modern Analyst saying that he has added my blog to modernanalyst.com.
Check it out!
And I promise I will write more about business analysis
Check it out!
And I promise I will write more about business analysis
Is Business Analysis the road to the Top of Your Organization?
I have been thinking a lot about my career as Business Analyst. What if I plan to go ahead on the BA path? the biggest prob is that I cant forsee where it will lead to.
I am not at all clear about the career path of a Business Analyst.Inquizitive, I came accross this article:
This doesn't answers all the questions but is definately a moral booster.
Related Links:Its good to be a Business Analyst.
I am not at all clear about the career path of a Business Analyst.Inquizitive, I came accross this article:
In the next few years I think we are going to see more and more Business Analysts move into executive level positions in both business and IT organizations. Many individuals holding these positions currently have strong business analysis backgrounds (whether or not they ever had that job title). The progression of a Business Analyst into executive management is very logical and smart from a CEO's perspective. BAs understand the core business and understand how to solve business problems. We are very good at looking at business areas from a strategic perspective and recommending forward thinking solutions. Because we understand what technology can do, we can see possibilities for future growth in our organizations and can see a path to get there.
My confidence in our ability to move up the ranks was reinforced when I was reviewing the results of a new survey of CIOs. The survey was conducted by Ziff Davis CIO Insight magazine entitled The Role of the CIO. http://www.cioinsight.com/ One of the questions was Top IT Exec's Most Important Personal Attributes. The top answers were leadership ability (50%), strategic thinking (39.9%), business understanding (39.5%), and communication skills (31.6%).
While most of the CIOs prior responsibilities were IT management (82.3%), many have consulting backgrounds (51.2%) and business management (38.1%). When asked what prior tasks/experiences were most helpful in their current positions they consistently listed work like strategic planning, negotiation, consulting experience, along with financial experience.
Technical work was further down the list indicating that even though CIOs are responsible for the technology group, they report that their current most important responsibilities are working with other executives on contributing to their company's strategic direction. So if you are interested in moving up the corporate ladder, becoming an excellent BA is a great step.
This doesn't answers all the questions but is definately a moral booster.
Related Links:Its good to be a Business Analyst.
Business Analysis for Dummies.
Its very crucial for success of any project that the requirements are gathered properly and precisely. Its takes a lot of pains understanding the business process of the client, proposing improvements actually,documenting them and actually being the customers shoe.
When I started by first project as an Analyst I had different perception and plans of how I am going to carry out this assignment and even ended up writing an post on it. It didnt actually went how I planned because each and every day was already planned by my ever efficient PM and I had little chance to change. Anyway, here I will be sharing my exp. on how to carry(and not to carry) out Requirement anlaysis.
A good approach is to tackle the complexity smartlly. Looking at the system from birds eye view and gradually getting into detail and ultimately deep diving into it.
Ok, let me put my experiance as Do's and Donts of Business Analysis for MBA freshers.
Do's
1.Prepare yourself for the assignment, gather as much information as possible about the customer, their business and the business process which will be automated.
2.Learn the theory, go back to books , read what is UML and how to write use cases.
Search for Alistair Cockburn, Martin Fowler visit omg.org.
3.Learn the difference between URS/BRS Vs SRS/FRS and how to write them.
4.Meet a senior business analyst, learn from him/her the tricks of the trade... this is highly recommended.
5.When you are there(at the customers premises) and the show is about to start. A very important thing: Dress well, appear smart and confident and maintain an extrovert profile... and be yourself.
6.The requirement gathering involves a lot of client involvement. There will be plenty of requirements meeting. Lead these meetings, be an anchor.
7. Understand the business process ask as many question as possible. Make sure that you are clear about the current scenario and why they want to move ahead to new system.
8. Keep on summarizing the discussion,'confirm' you understanding,
9. Document the business process very clearly. The business/user requirement specification is used to document the business process for the proposed system. Use diagrams(Swim lanes, flow charts, state transition diagrams) and most import learn how to use Microsoft visio, its an amazing tool.
10. Identify the actors of the system.
11.Document high level requirements of the system in the URS. These requirements will be detailed in the FRS.
12.A business analyst is the liaison between the technical team and the business owners. Have business owners(customers) review the documents and technical people understand the business process.
13. Slowly move towards details. Focus on the data, what information is coming and going out at each and every step.
14. Prepare FRS.
15. Make sure that all requirements of URS are covered in FRS. Here the knowledge of use case and UML is very imperative.
16. Review the documents with customers, walk them through the documents, explain them the process that the system will automate. Document the risk and feasibility issues.
17. At each and every step involve the customer.
Dont's
1. Most Important: Don't expect customer to know what they want.I did this mistake. After the understanding the business process. I asked the group "tell me what are your requirements?". All I could hear was " we want everything to be automated, faster better and reliable system".
2. Its a BAs job to figure out requirements. The business process will give you the high level requirements of the system which will be detailed in the FRS. The transition happens automatically. Use customers for clarification, verification and validation.
3. Don't get into implementation. Focus on what has to be done rather than how it will be done.
4. Make sure that the technical team is in sink with your understanding, use them to do feasibility analysis.
5. There is always a lot of "politics" on the customers side. There will be people with different opinion and since thing will be changing with new system some are benefited and some are at loss. Don't get involved.Watch, listen if asked suggest.
I am still learning and there are plenty to be shared. I realised that I am still not clear about what is the best way to write use case. How should I write use cases so that the UI designer can make the screens easily? What all should be captured in a use case? How much should be captured in a single use case?
I think after this project I will have to go back to training and confirm my understanding ...there is still a plenty to be learned and more to be shared.
Spring is here in New Jersey and the trees are turning green...looks like they are getting up after a long nap.
When I started by first project as an Analyst I had different perception and plans of how I am going to carry out this assignment and even ended up writing an post on it. It didnt actually went how I planned because each and every day was already planned by my ever efficient PM and I had little chance to change. Anyway, here I will be sharing my exp. on how to carry(and not to carry) out Requirement anlaysis.
A good approach is to tackle the complexity smartlly. Looking at the system from birds eye view and gradually getting into detail and ultimately deep diving into it.
Ok, let me put my experiance as Do's and Donts of Business Analysis for MBA freshers.
Do's
1.Prepare yourself for the assignment, gather as much information as possible about the customer, their business and the business process which will be automated.
2.Learn the theory, go back to books , read what is UML and how to write use cases.
Search for Alistair Cockburn, Martin Fowler visit omg.org.
3.Learn the difference between URS/BRS Vs SRS/FRS and how to write them.
4.Meet a senior business analyst, learn from him/her the tricks of the trade... this is highly recommended.
5.When you are there(at the customers premises) and the show is about to start. A very important thing: Dress well, appear smart and confident and maintain an extrovert profile... and be yourself.
6.The requirement gathering involves a lot of client involvement. There will be plenty of requirements meeting. Lead these meetings, be an anchor.
7. Understand the business process ask as many question as possible. Make sure that you are clear about the current scenario and why they want to move ahead to new system.
8. Keep on summarizing the discussion,'confirm' you understanding,
9. Document the business process very clearly. The business/user requirement specification is used to document the business process for the proposed system. Use diagrams(Swim lanes, flow charts, state transition diagrams) and most import learn how to use Microsoft visio, its an amazing tool.
10. Identify the actors of the system.
11.Document high level requirements of the system in the URS. These requirements will be detailed in the FRS.
12.A business analyst is the liaison between the technical team and the business owners. Have business owners(customers) review the documents and technical people understand the business process.
13. Slowly move towards details. Focus on the data, what information is coming and going out at each and every step.
14. Prepare FRS.
15. Make sure that all requirements of URS are covered in FRS. Here the knowledge of use case and UML is very imperative.
16. Review the documents with customers, walk them through the documents, explain them the process that the system will automate. Document the risk and feasibility issues.
17. At each and every step involve the customer.
Dont's
1. Most Important: Don't expect customer to know what they want.I did this mistake. After the understanding the business process. I asked the group "tell me what are your requirements?". All I could hear was " we want everything to be automated, faster better and reliable system".
2. Its a BAs job to figure out requirements. The business process will give you the high level requirements of the system which will be detailed in the FRS. The transition happens automatically. Use customers for clarification, verification and validation.
3. Don't get into implementation. Focus on what has to be done rather than how it will be done.
4. Make sure that the technical team is in sink with your understanding, use them to do feasibility analysis.
5. There is always a lot of "politics" on the customers side. There will be people with different opinion and since thing will be changing with new system some are benefited and some are at loss. Don't get involved.Watch, listen if asked suggest.
I am still learning and there are plenty to be shared. I realised that I am still not clear about what is the best way to write use case. How should I write use cases so that the UI designer can make the screens easily? What all should be captured in a use case? How much should be captured in a single use case?
I think after this project I will have to go back to training and confirm my understanding ...there is still a plenty to be learned and more to be shared.
Spring is here in New Jersey and the trees are turning green...looks like they are getting up after a long nap.
How I Plan to carry out my first assingment as BA.
Its been almost 9 month since I have joined this company but the ride have been amazing perticulary in terms of variety of work I have done. So here is my new assingment and a big responsibilty comes along. The new project I have been assinged is for a US based pharma giant and I will be working on requirement analysis .... alone and later after one month will be joined by a UI designer for prototyping and design.
Puzzeled by the kind of responsibilty shouldered to me by the Genral Manager, the project manager who happens to be a very sweet lady just returned after getting married, asked me to share my plans of How I plan to carry my first assingment as a Buisness Analyst?
So here is the summary of the discussion that took place between me and the manager:
1. The goal is to automate all the form based business process of the company using Adobe's LiveCycle.
2. So my homework will be understanding Adobe LiveCycle fully and knowing its capability, I am already on it(thanks to Sangeeta, the tech lead, it going good!).
3. The requirements needs to be captured using use case model and requires use of Rational Rose, understanding the tool is my other assingment and whatever Parag Sir tought me in Symbi is going to come handy. I am also reading Cockburn's book on the same.
4. The moment I am at the client's premises I plan to gather full understanding of the 'As-IS' process first. This will be done by reading documents and with interaction with users.
5. The outcome has to be a document which clearly states the 'As-iS' process.
6. After understanding the 'as-is' process , I will come out with set of questions which needs to be answered.
7. After this I plan to hold series meetings with stakeholder(which will be identified by the client), condition being all the stakeholders need to be present together in the meeting so that their isn't any conflict of thought later on.
8. These meeting will be used to clear doubts, listening to there pain points, requirements, I wont be talking about technology and feasabilty here.
9. Each meeting will end by me summarizing it and scheduling the next meeting :) and senduing the MOMs.
10. The outcome would be a User requirement specification which contains a high level documentation of the requirement.
11. The next step will be prepration of detail requirements in terms of Use cases.
12. I am Planning to use the pattern suggest by Cockburn to complete this task.
13. Reviews should happen at regular interval.
This is what I plan and explained to Shikha( the PM, by the way I will be working with all female team!) and she seems to be satisfied but I sense lots of gaps in the plan. Though I am planning to have session with a senior business analyst here I will appreciate if people can help me plan better.
I will be writing more on this as the process starts and I learn more.
Puzzeled by the kind of responsibilty shouldered to me by the Genral Manager, the project manager who happens to be a very sweet lady just returned after getting married, asked me to share my plans of How I plan to carry my first assingment as a Buisness Analyst?
So here is the summary of the discussion that took place between me and the manager:
1. The goal is to automate all the form based business process of the company using Adobe's LiveCycle.
2. So my homework will be understanding Adobe LiveCycle fully and knowing its capability, I am already on it(thanks to Sangeeta, the tech lead, it going good!).
3. The requirements needs to be captured using use case model and requires use of Rational Rose, understanding the tool is my other assingment and whatever Parag Sir tought me in Symbi is going to come handy. I am also reading Cockburn's book on the same.
4. The moment I am at the client's premises I plan to gather full understanding of the 'As-IS' process first. This will be done by reading documents and with interaction with users.
5. The outcome has to be a document which clearly states the 'As-iS' process.
6. After understanding the 'as-is' process , I will come out with set of questions which needs to be answered.
7. After this I plan to hold series meetings with stakeholder(which will be identified by the client), condition being all the stakeholders need to be present together in the meeting so that their isn't any conflict of thought later on.
8. These meeting will be used to clear doubts, listening to there pain points, requirements, I wont be talking about technology and feasabilty here.
9. Each meeting will end by me summarizing it and scheduling the next meeting :) and senduing the MOMs.
10. The outcome would be a User requirement specification which contains a high level documentation of the requirement.
11. The next step will be prepration of detail requirements in terms of Use cases.
12. I am Planning to use the pattern suggest by Cockburn to complete this task.
13. Reviews should happen at regular interval.
This is what I plan and explained to Shikha( the PM, by the way I will be working with all female team!) and she seems to be satisfied but I sense lots of gaps in the plan. Though I am planning to have session with a senior business analyst here I will appreciate if people can help me plan better.
I will be writing more on this as the process starts and I learn more.
Putting up a business case for SOA.
According to a survey the most jargoned word in the Industry today is SOA i.e the Service Oriented Architecture. Now, putting up a business case for SOA is very tough perticulary when you are trying to sell it to CIOs and CTOs as they feel that SOA is again addressing the same age old problem of 'Integration'. Integration here refers to the problem of making discrete system talk to each other. Integeration has pained the industry for more tha 30 years now, the other problem is the lack of communication among department. The problem is we keep on building the systems over and over which provide similiar services, Why? Because my HR dept. doesnt tell me whats services there systems provide or the finance is too busy to share their services with others. The problem here more than Integeration and communication is 'agility'.
SOA address this issue of business agility. If your organizations departments are rigid you systems will be rigid. As IT is the digital implemetation of business strategies. Organizations seize to exist because they stop transforming, for transformation you need business agility and to agile you need agile systems. Many mergers and acquisitions have failed because the systems failed to integrate. It impeded business transformation.
SOA makes your systems agile. Its not a new thing it existed always, the diffrence is the SOA concept has better implementers now, the technology related to it has matured(Web Services, CORBA etc) , the architects are smarter now. SOA is an architectural approach to building applications and enables rapid development and deployment of new services to meet business needs. The philosophy is to break solution into a number of discrete services and then organise the services into an end-to-end solution and reuse them.
To servive you need constant transformation, to transform you need to be agile and SOA makes you agile!
SOA address this issue of business agility. If your organizations departments are rigid you systems will be rigid. As IT is the digital implemetation of business strategies. Organizations seize to exist because they stop transforming, for transformation you need business agility and to agile you need agile systems. Many mergers and acquisitions have failed because the systems failed to integrate. It impeded business transformation.
SOA makes your systems agile. Its not a new thing it existed always, the diffrence is the SOA concept has better implementers now, the technology related to it has matured(Web Services, CORBA etc) , the architects are smarter now. SOA is an architectural approach to building applications and enables rapid development and deployment of new services to meet business needs. The philosophy is to break solution into a number of discrete services and then organise the services into an end-to-end solution and reuse them.
To servive you need constant transformation, to transform you need to be agile and SOA makes you agile!
Web 2.0 - A discussion
My job keeps me on toes and thats the only place where anything desired even subconsciously comes true. I have been hearing a lot about Web 2.0, wondered what the hell is it? And as usual I was given the task to find the answer. My next assingment was to find out how Web 2.0 can benefit a client in his ECM( Enterprise Content Management) framework that we are suggesting(thats the primary task). My previous post was on AJAX and believe me I didn't had any clue about Web 2.0 while I was putting up the post though both the subjects are so much related. So here we go, I wished I could put the whole doc I had prepared but I hate long post as it reduces readability. Web 2.0 is a collection of services that allow, among many things, greater community participation, content syndication, advancements in Web-based user interfaces, and a new breed of Web services that create an entirely new application platform. Here is how Tim O'Rielly(he coined the term) defines Web 2.0. The term is very much ill-defined and its easier to described it by associating it with the companies or product that embodies it, like:
- The most common of Web 2.0 applications are those deriving power from Human connection and network effects that Web 2.0 makes possible, growing in effectiveness as more people use it. Example: eBay, craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, Orkut, dodgeball, and Adsense.
- The next set of application are those which gained by going online, like Flickr, which benefits from its shared photo-database and from its community-generated tag database.
- Applications which are available offline but gain features while online, like Writely and iTunes.
- The next set of example of Web 2.0 application are those which work well offline like Google Maps, MapQuest, Yahoo!Local
The essence is to create Web as a participation platform. The most popular features of any Web 2.0 based application are : Blogging, Podcasts, Wikis, Tagging, Advertising, Perpetual Beta(the orkut or any google application gets updated), Mashups(many web services mixed to give a single product), RSS ..and few more.
Organizations can benefit from this, as Dion Hinchclife puts it:
"Many organizations can benefit from new business process, communities and business models enabled by Web 2.0, there are benefits from Web 2.0 that may prove as crucial to an organizations success"
Like:
Lessons from Web 2.0 community and social networking success stories can be leveraged in enterprise for more-efficient knowledge worker collaboration and overall employee satisfaction and Web 2.0 Communities can be used for new product feedback, shortening product development time and targeting valuable marketing resources. Bloggers and other influential web user can be targeted for improving organization image and Make web-based marketting for a norm.
The benefits are more and but there are certain security issues while implementing the features mentioned. Also lack of standard takes away interoperability and there are some more issues but these will be taken care as technology related with it matures.
As Gartner puts it :
“(Web 2.0) in its current form, it does not pay sufficient attention to issues regarding security, business continuity, truly global content and full-scope mobile applications. This will change, however, if Web 2.0 is to have a long-lasting effect. New initiatives will be launched by startup companies and established players to address these limitations. The effect of Web 2.0 on enterprises will vary depending on the organization, its mission, technology base, ecosystem, IT environment and human resources. The long-term impact on enterprises will be as much on organizational structure and governance as on technology and architecture.”
The above is just a brief of what I found out... want to know more ... just mail me.
AJAX is Changing the World!
Work flow softwares( ERPs, CRMs or any software that enable enterprise level communication) changed the way people do business. It became important for enterprises to automate in order to deliver faster and better. While many big companies could afford these systems many couldn't as they come at a price and maintanance is always an issue. Work flow went to another new level as standards came up. Emergence of a new way of coding called AJAX(asynchronous javascript and XML) provided a richer and more sophisticated web based buisness tools that can be used to run a whole company online at very low cost. Running a whole company here means Inventory management, staying in touch with customers , product development, project management, scheduling , budgeting and human resources etc. You can access all these tools on the web, use them on web and store all your business data on the web rather than on your computer and you dont have to worry about maintanace of these tools. I have been reading The World is Flat by Thomas L. Freidman and he sites the example of salesforce.com while talking about this. For a fee, companies likes salesforce.com gives the user access to a library of web-based business application, these application operate like tradational software programs and can handle wide range of buisness task. What enables workflow at this level is AJAX, a web development technique that allows a complex business application to be enabedded in a web page, then called upon a simple browser and accessed as easily as if you are running it on your own system. Here people are renting the software they would like to use,this concept is very helpful for startups as they dont have to invest hugely into IT and still can use work flow tools. As the companies matures they can come up with customized solution and you can offer your solution back to salesforce.com as a tool that other would like to use. Can we see a new a concept of collaboration and renting coming up together. There are many applications like this running on the web, currently google and yahoo are offering many software on the web for free which microsoft have been selling! Not only this, as Friedman points out: "In time, I think we will see a new equilibrium emerge in which all the different forums of software will have a place: traditional commercial software along with business web model of rent-a-software along with free software produced by funded communities or by inspired individuals." That indeed will change the world!
The 'Lite' Agile
The question is simple "can we implement agile methodology for maintance and enhancement projects?"
This question holds a lot of value as most the companies which are on the services side are primarly engaged in these kind of project. I recently joined a HCL Technology Noida and my first task was to find the the answer to the same question.
The agile menifesto itself makes the agile methodology very rigid.
The most popular implemenation of agile is XP ..scrum and others like crystal are still picking up, but the 12 "rules" of XP is simply not possible to implement in enhancement and mentainance projects...perticullarly in Indian scenarios, may this is the reason why agile practices are yet not very popular in Indian IT industry.
Take for example the pair programming part, which company will waste two resources instead of one fora perticular usecase.
Second, developers acting as BAs: This clause is again debatable, its possible only when the devlopers are hghly skilled and experianced and since most of the devlopers are freshers and lask buisness sense, it becomes a challange.
Lets find out another way...a 'lite' Agile.
This question holds a lot of value as most the companies which are on the services side are primarly engaged in these kind of project. I recently joined a HCL Technology Noida and my first task was to find the the answer to the same question.
The agile menifesto itself makes the agile methodology very rigid.
The most popular implemenation of agile is XP ..scrum and others like crystal are still picking up, but the 12 "rules" of XP is simply not possible to implement in enhancement and mentainance projects...perticullarly in Indian scenarios, may this is the reason why agile practices are yet not very popular in Indian IT industry.
Take for example the pair programming part, which company will waste two resources instead of one fora perticular usecase.
Second, developers acting as BAs: This clause is again debatable, its possible only when the devlopers are hghly skilled and experianced and since most of the devlopers are freshers and lask buisness sense, it becomes a challange.
Lets find out another way...a 'lite' Agile.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)