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Latest Articles
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Written by Bob Prentiss
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Leonardo da Vinci has been described as the archetypical renaissance man. He was a man of unquenchable curiosity, unmatched imagination, and is arguably the most diversely talented person who has ever lived. Certainly known for his painting skills (The Mona Lisa, The Last Supper), his appetite for knowledge did not stop there. He branched out into other professions as well: sculptor, mathematician, inventor, writer, engineer, musician, and cartographer to name just a few. I would add to that distinguished list the role of business analyst. I believe there are a few lessons we can learn from Leonardo both in his approach to life and work.
The most obvious connection of Leonardo and business analysis is his documentation. It has been found that he did over 100,000 drawings and 6,000 pages of notes. He was thorough, detailed, and he used a combination of approaches; text, models, diagrams, sequences, stories, prototypes, all things that we do today. Now many might argue that Leo (it is what his good friends call him you know) was a scientist and of course, scientists do these things as well (they wear the hat of business analysis). However, scientist Frtijof Capra did an exhaustive study on Leo’s life and found that what differentiated him from other scientists like Galileo, Newton, and the like was that he integrated the arts – painting, soft skills, humanism. Fritijof stated that Leonardo was a systemic thinker, ecologist, and complexity theorist; a man with a strong desire to work for the benefit of humanity. So what can we, as business analysts, learn from Leo in our work today? Here are four points that I think we should all consider for our futures in business analysis. Leo practiced them and so can we.
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When did Process Improvement start? By Paul Mulvey |
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Written by Paul Mulvey B2T Training
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One of the questions I ask students in my classes is, “When did business analysis start?” Usually, within a few seconds (and some auditory discussion) they get that it has been done since the first business was created. Which brings me to my question for this blog – when did process improvement start? If you read the second sentence, you can probably figure out that it started with the first business in existence needing to improve its process. I have evidence of this from a summer vacation to St Augustine. Yes, I still look at stuff from a BA perspective, even on vacation (it’s a sickness, I know).
I was at the Castillo de St Marcos in St Augustine, watching a historical demonstration of 18th-century fort defense. Part of that was cannon, part was infantry. It was the infantry that attracted and piqued my BA skills. The infantrymen gave a demonstration of how they fired their flintlock muskets. The stated time for the entire process was 1 shot fired every 15 seconds. Now keep in mind the soldiers had to: clean the barrel, drop a charge into the musket barrel, ram it in with the ramrod, drop the musket ball into the barrel, fill the flash pan with gunpowder, cock the hammer, aim the weapon, and only then, fire. 15 seconds? I would be lucky if I could do it in one minute. However, the more I looked at it, the more I realized how they looked at the process to improve it.
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Written by Jeff Martin
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We want to see your passion. We want to hear your thoughts on the practice of business analysis. What is difficult? What has changed since you have been practicing these skills? What is missing in our profession? What is keeping you up at night as you change the organization you are working for? We want to know and we want YOU to tell us! oin the BA Collective and send us a message to
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to become an article contributor. The BA Collective has been created for and is operated by Business Analysts. We want your voice because together we can go much farther and do much more as we change organizations and industries. Contact us today and talk with our community! |
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You Help Companies Change! |
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Written by Jeff Martin, Founder of Collective Genius
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 It's Friday night and your spouse has organized a dinner out with some new friends. You arrive at the restaurant, greet your new friends and sit down. After the small talk subsides and your spouse gets engrossed in a conversation with her/his friend, your new friend looks across the table and asks “So, what do you do?” You pause and think “What explanation do I provide this time? They look smart; they have glasses on, no pencil protector - hmmm.” You choose among your 80 possible explanations from “I work with computers” to the classic novel “Well, I work on the business side of a managed care organization as part SME and part BA, and act as a liaison between multiple business units and the BI IT group providing requirements documentation and analysis on processes and new technology applications to ensure we build the right solutions internally within our organization allowing management the right reporting visibility." Typically your new friend will smile and say "So you work on computers, huh?" My former response was… “I am a Gladiator”, get a laugh then give the midsized explanation leaving them clueless and getting a similar response "Oh, your company works on computers?" So answer the question already. What do you do? |
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Maintaining and Keeping Your Edge: 5 Tips to Landing a Job |
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Written by Renee Saint-Louis
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 In 2001 I found myself "in-transition". A year prior I had accepted a position with a small Internet start-up firm in New Jersey. As the Dot Com bubble burst, I found myself without a job, as the company I worked for headed towards shuttering it's doors. I was let go on September 5th, 2001. Six days later, I watched in horror as terrorists attacked our country. During this time I had traveled across country to re-settle in Seattle, WA. Little did I know, at the time, that Seattle would suffer with some of the worst unemployment in the country following the 9/11 attacks. My unemployment lasted a full 8 months. I was at a complete loss as to how to respond to the constant rejection as I applied for jobs, interviewed, and was dismissed. I found that my resume was average, my interview skills lacking - there was not anything that made me stand out from the plethora of resumes that stream across a recruiter's desks. That time was very similar to today’s job market: many people are competing for a handful of desirable jobs. If you are employed, you feel fortunate to have a job. If you are "in-transition", you may feel as if you will never find a job again. You will. It may, like me, take much more time than you anticipated.
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