Resources for Business Analysts

I was in Orlando for the Rational Software Development Conference June 1-4. This is a great place for me to connect with old friends and to find out what direction IBM is taking Rational.
The focus this year was on teams – to be successful we have to collaborate globally.
The big new thing is the Jazz [...]

No tip today. I know it has been quite a while! My excuse is that I am working in a full-time contract during the day, doing Wyyzzk management tasks in the evenings, and writing a book on the weekends.
I am working on a book for all of you. The current title is “The Art [...]

Author: Geri Schneider Winters
When working on a project, you want to consider what kind of information you have, and what form is the best for documenting that information. These are two different things. A use case is a form of documentation that can be used for a variety of purposes. Sometimes a use case represents [...]

Author: Geri Schneider Winters
As Business Analysts, our job goes far beyond being a note-taker, in other words listening to people talk, writing down what they say and calling it requirements. Notice that the term Business Analyst implies that we analyze. We need to analyze requirements and information and that is some of the skill we [...]

Author: Geri Schneider Winters
Have you noticed the examples of requirements elicitation on my blog? In one case, I had a bit of a contest, using a game to elicit information. You can see this technique by looking in the category Online Game on the blog. Then I had a survey to elicit information. You can [...]

Author: Geri Schneider Winters
With all the focus on Use Cases, it can be easy to forget that they are not the only kind of requirements. Use Cases are very good for some kinds of requirements, but really bad for other kinds of requirements. One of our challenges as Business Analysts is to determine the [...]

I am working on my website here at http://www.writingusecases.com for 2008. Because your input is important to me, I have created a short survey for you. If you have not taken the survey yet, there is still time!
I am getting really interesting feedback. You can see the early results here:
Click Here to See the Results
Taking [...]

I am working on my website at http://www.writingusecases.com
for 2008. Because your input is important to me, I have created
a short survey for you.
This is so easy! It is multiple choice and should only take you
about a minute or so to complete. There are comment fields
throughout where you can give me feedback in your own words.
Just [...]

I came across this article today that talks about the outlook for IT jobs in 2008 (it appears to be just for the US, though the article does not say that specifically). In general, the outlook is good. Even though employees are feeling a bit pessimistic, employers are expected to increase hiring in IT [...]

Thanks to everyone who attended the teleseminar this evening. There were a lot of great questions!

How would you start writing out a test plan?
I want to know the IT skills for a business analyst who is starting as a fresher?
What are the best practices to follow when you start on a new project? [...]