After a long silence, here I start my first blogging…
Even though the blog heading is QA Heaven, never discussed the QA issues on this forum…
Most of the local vendors utilizing the term QA in wrong way…
Who ever test an application gets the two letters in front of their designation and becoming QA Engineers…
And the selection criteria for the QA Engineering position also got degrade throughout the years…
If you lack the coding standards but can test the applications to catch visible errors, then you can become a QA Engineer in this country… That is easy as that…
Those ridiculous practices lead to many of the organizations from good to bad and bad to worst and created chaos…
As a direct result of these practices, customers came up with 1001 defects even after the UAT (user acceptance testing)…
I am not going to talk much about those issues here… but taking my time to criticise some of the practices at a process savvy IT company in Sri Lanka…
I am not going to reveal the name over here since it might be the practice and the cost cutting mechanism at most of the local vendors…
Not only local vendors, there can be hundreds of thousands of companies around the globe doing the same mistake…
Yet again a something which is outside from the QA but this is the right time to build a constructive criticism on so called best practice at that organization…
This company tends to hire resources to undertake both the Business Analyst and the Project Management role in parallel…
Hmm… two one has to show the two sides of the coin at the same time…
While I was browsing through the web, found this interesting interview and sharing the same for your informational purposes…
Here the author Michelle Davidson presenting a summary of interview with the Barbara Carkenord, who is the author of "Seven Steps to Mastering Business Analysis”.
Business analysts must have certain skills and must understand the many software requirements techniques out there, says Barbara Carkenord, author of "Seven Steps to Mastering Business Analysis."
What made you decide to write your book, "Seven Steps to Mastering Business Analysis"?
Barbara Carkenord: The reason from a business analysis perspective is that there really haven't been any books written specifically for people doing that type of work. There are a lot of books on techniques and analysis techniques, but not anything that says here's everything you need to do analysis work. There are people just coming into the role who really don't know what they need to do, and this book is for them.
If someone is considering becoming a business analyst, what skills are considered necessary?
Carkenord: I would say the number one thing is communication skills -- both verbal skills and written skills -- documentation -- because the main job is to be a liaison between two groups who don't communicate well.
They also need skills around understanding how technology can solve business problems, which means they need to know about the business and what's technologically possible.
They have to be people who can logically break down problems and think things through -- just very analytical.
What challenges should new business analysts be prepared to face?
Carkenord: I think the biggest challenge when you're assigned to a project is really trying to figure out how to get started. There's a lot available to you and a lot you need to find. You need to figure out whom to talk to in order to get the information you need.
When it comes to software requirements elicitation, elaboration, and validation, what are the biggest problems business analysts have?
Carkenord: The biggest challenge is business people don't always recognize what they need or what is capable for them. So they have trouble communicating with IT. And IT doesn't understand the business side, so they give them an elegant solution that doesn't do what they need.
Business analysts need to help business people figure out what they really want. The BAs really need to sit down and talk with them.
I think the development environments continue to be more and more productive. Developers can build things very fast, but we don't know what we want them to build. They can build a lot of things, but are they meeting business needs?
What techniques and strategies serve business analysts best when it comes to working with stakeholders?
Carkenord: We have a lot of techniques. There are actually hundreds of analysis techniques. Part of the challenge is learning which works, because each project might necessitate a different way.
For a new BA starting out, we encourage using a real structured scoping technique to get the business people to agree what the objectives are. You can determine what are we doing and what are we trying to accomplish.
Data requirements are also very important. And we encourage new BAs to use Entity Relationship Diagramming (ERD) to structure data. It's a really good way to elicit requirements of what the needs are of the business.
Use cases are a very popular requirements technique right now. We also do prototyping and storyboarding.
In your book you talk about business analysis certification. Do you think that type of certification is necessary?
Carkenord: It's become popular because the role of the BA is very challenging to define, and companies don't have good job descriptions. So, they're looking to certification to help them figure out if this person really knows how to do this work.
Certifications are very popular. So I suspect this will be as popular as, say, the PMP [Project Management Professional] certification.
Certification in many IT industries, such as testing and project management, is a controversial topic with many saying certifications don't guarantee a level of expertise. Does this controversy seep into the business analysis realm?
Carkenord: I do think there's always going to be that challenge of whether the certification really means something. The IIBA [International Institute of Business Analysis], which certifies business analysts, is aware of those kinds of issues and has worked really hard to design a program that would assess people's ability to do the work rather than just pass a test. The work experience aspect is very high, and the questions are very analytically based. You need to think analytically to answer the question.
What's the difference between a project manager and a business analyst, as a lot of project managers have been responsible for requirements?
Carkenord: We see them as two completely separate roles, at least on large projects. I think the personality traits for project managers are different than BAs. PMs are managers; they push things forward, and they get things done. BAs are analytical and like to explore, but they can get stuck. They'll get all the details up front to make sure they don't miss anything.
If you have both on your team you're covering all your bases. If you have that team, your likelihood of success is much higher.
Many organizations trying to combine these two practices in to one and trying to utilize a single resource to cover both these aspects.
They never understand the importance of both these practices and neglecting a one. Pressure comes from the top management on cost cutting might be the direct reason for this.
As a direct outcome of this they never understand the value of BA and adding extra effort on project management and expect the resources to add higher effort on project management and controlling practices.
The role of the business analyst is an important one, and, sadly, one that is underutilized by many organizations around the world. In essence, a business analyst acts as a translator or liaison between the customer or user and the person or group attempting to meet user needs. But, that’s just speaking generally. At the same time, allotted resources failed to capture proper and accurate resources due to management pressure and the extra workload from the project management practices. This leads to failures in projects in the long run and generated frustration on both the customer’s end and the in house.
That doesn’t sounds that project manager should not carry any BA expertise but the roles has to be separated from one person and assigned to two or more resources based on the requirement.
That will improve the productivity as well as the efficiency and increase the correctness of the data or the requirements as well.
Even though the blog heading is QA Heaven, never discussed the QA issues on this forum…
Most of the local vendors utilizing the term QA in wrong way…
Who ever test an application gets the two letters in front of their designation and becoming QA Engineers…
And the selection criteria for the QA Engineering position also got degrade throughout the years…
If you lack the coding standards but can test the applications to catch visible errors, then you can become a QA Engineer in this country… That is easy as that…
Those ridiculous practices lead to many of the organizations from good to bad and bad to worst and created chaos…
As a direct result of these practices, customers came up with 1001 defects even after the UAT (user acceptance testing)…
I am not going to talk much about those issues here… but taking my time to criticise some of the practices at a process savvy IT company in Sri Lanka…
I am not going to reveal the name over here since it might be the practice and the cost cutting mechanism at most of the local vendors…
Not only local vendors, there can be hundreds of thousands of companies around the globe doing the same mistake…
Yet again a something which is outside from the QA but this is the right time to build a constructive criticism on so called best practice at that organization…
This company tends to hire resources to undertake both the Business Analyst and the Project Management role in parallel…
Hmm… two one has to show the two sides of the coin at the same time…
While I was browsing through the web, found this interesting interview and sharing the same for your informational purposes…
Here the author Michelle Davidson presenting a summary of interview with the Barbara Carkenord, who is the author of "Seven Steps to Mastering Business Analysis”.
Business analysts must have certain skills and must understand the many software requirements techniques out there, says Barbara Carkenord, author of "Seven Steps to Mastering Business Analysis."
What made you decide to write your book, "Seven Steps to Mastering Business Analysis"?
Barbara Carkenord: The reason from a business analysis perspective is that there really haven't been any books written specifically for people doing that type of work. There are a lot of books on techniques and analysis techniques, but not anything that says here's everything you need to do analysis work. There are people just coming into the role who really don't know what they need to do, and this book is for them.
If someone is considering becoming a business analyst, what skills are considered necessary?
Carkenord: I would say the number one thing is communication skills -- both verbal skills and written skills -- documentation -- because the main job is to be a liaison between two groups who don't communicate well.
They also need skills around understanding how technology can solve business problems, which means they need to know about the business and what's technologically possible.
They have to be people who can logically break down problems and think things through -- just very analytical.
What challenges should new business analysts be prepared to face?
Carkenord: I think the biggest challenge when you're assigned to a project is really trying to figure out how to get started. There's a lot available to you and a lot you need to find. You need to figure out whom to talk to in order to get the information you need.
When it comes to software requirements elicitation, elaboration, and validation, what are the biggest problems business analysts have?
Carkenord: The biggest challenge is business people don't always recognize what they need or what is capable for them. So they have trouble communicating with IT. And IT doesn't understand the business side, so they give them an elegant solution that doesn't do what they need.
Business analysts need to help business people figure out what they really want. The BAs really need to sit down and talk with them.
I think the development environments continue to be more and more productive. Developers can build things very fast, but we don't know what we want them to build. They can build a lot of things, but are they meeting business needs?
What techniques and strategies serve business analysts best when it comes to working with stakeholders?
Carkenord: We have a lot of techniques. There are actually hundreds of analysis techniques. Part of the challenge is learning which works, because each project might necessitate a different way.
For a new BA starting out, we encourage using a real structured scoping technique to get the business people to agree what the objectives are. You can determine what are we doing and what are we trying to accomplish.
Data requirements are also very important. And we encourage new BAs to use Entity Relationship Diagramming (ERD) to structure data. It's a really good way to elicit requirements of what the needs are of the business.
Use cases are a very popular requirements technique right now. We also do prototyping and storyboarding.
In your book you talk about business analysis certification. Do you think that type of certification is necessary?
Carkenord: It's become popular because the role of the BA is very challenging to define, and companies don't have good job descriptions. So, they're looking to certification to help them figure out if this person really knows how to do this work.
Certifications are very popular. So I suspect this will be as popular as, say, the PMP [Project Management Professional] certification.
Certification in many IT industries, such as testing and project management, is a controversial topic with many saying certifications don't guarantee a level of expertise. Does this controversy seep into the business analysis realm?
Carkenord: I do think there's always going to be that challenge of whether the certification really means something. The IIBA [International Institute of Business Analysis], which certifies business analysts, is aware of those kinds of issues and has worked really hard to design a program that would assess people's ability to do the work rather than just pass a test. The work experience aspect is very high, and the questions are very analytically based. You need to think analytically to answer the question.
What's the difference between a project manager and a business analyst, as a lot of project managers have been responsible for requirements?
Carkenord: We see them as two completely separate roles, at least on large projects. I think the personality traits for project managers are different than BAs. PMs are managers; they push things forward, and they get things done. BAs are analytical and like to explore, but they can get stuck. They'll get all the details up front to make sure they don't miss anything.
If you have both on your team you're covering all your bases. If you have that team, your likelihood of success is much higher.
Many organizations trying to combine these two practices in to one and trying to utilize a single resource to cover both these aspects.
They never understand the importance of both these practices and neglecting a one. Pressure comes from the top management on cost cutting might be the direct reason for this.
As a direct outcome of this they never understand the value of BA and adding extra effort on project management and expect the resources to add higher effort on project management and controlling practices.
The role of the business analyst is an important one, and, sadly, one that is underutilized by many organizations around the world. In essence, a business analyst acts as a translator or liaison between the customer or user and the person or group attempting to meet user needs. But, that’s just speaking generally. At the same time, allotted resources failed to capture proper and accurate resources due to management pressure and the extra workload from the project management practices. This leads to failures in projects in the long run and generated frustration on both the customer’s end and the in house.
That doesn’t sounds that project manager should not carry any BA expertise but the roles has to be separated from one person and assigned to two or more resources based on the requirement.
That will improve the productivity as well as the efficiency and increase the correctness of the data or the requirements as well.
