Resources for Business Analysts

I’m happy to see that people are posting questions for Monday’s teleseminar. You can click on the link below to post questions any time between now and Monday at 4pm, you do not have to wait until Monday.
EVENT: Ask Geri a Question
DATE & TIME: Monday, December 17th at 4:00pm Eastern
FORMAT: Simulcast! (Attend via Phone [...]

A lot of people ask me about Business Analysis or the role of the Business Analyst.
So for all of you with questions, I have set up a no-charge teleseminar for you to Ask Me a Question. This will be on Monday, December 17 at 4pm EST.
You can type your questions by clicking on the link [...]

We’ve all seen the surveys that talk about how miserable the industry is in general at doing software projects. Failure rates of up to 85% are commonly sited. Have you ever stopped to ask “What is the definition of failure?”. Scott Ambler did, and once you define failure (or success), you get a much [...]

Here in the US we are celebrating Thanksgiving day November 22. It is a time when we get together with family and share the things we are thankful for in our lives.
Of course I am thankful for my family and my good friends. Their support and encouragement led me to where I am today.
I am [...]

I got this message recently from Lilia Lee and thought I’d share it with the rest of you:
There are two other use case writing software tools that I am intimately acquainted with. They are: CaseComplete by Serlio Software and Visual Use Case by TechnoSolutions. The latter is a really awesome tool that generates the use [...]

Sanjay asks: Please advise an excellent book or training in Facilitation/JAD in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
While I do not know what is available in Toronto, there is a book I like very much for JAD.
“Joint Application Development” by Jane Wood and Denise Silver.
This book is out of print, but available used through Amazon and other [...]

Author: Geri Schneider Winters
I was recently helping a friend staff a fairly large project with a team of very experienced, very skilled people. I mentioned that people were really excited about the opportunity. He asked me “Why are they excited? What is it about this project that makes people want to work on [...]

This past weekend, my dear friend Brian Lyons passed away after being in a motorcycle accident.
I have known Brian since 1992 when we were both at Rational Software. Back then, I found him to be a very funny, warm, and genuine person, who went out of his way to help other folks. He stayed [...]

Author: Geri Schneider Winters
People come to the job of Business Analyst in many different ways. Some people graduate from college and immediately start to work as a junior Analyst for a major corporation. Often a Business Analyst has some years of work experience in some related field before starting to work as an analyst.
You may [...]

Author: Geri Schneider Winters
RUP describes a process for developing software systems. It seems there are so many variations of RUP, how do you know which is best for you and your organization, if any? What do all those acronyms mean? Where are these things coming from?
RUP is the Rational Unified Process. This process is a [...]