Hello from the COE Blogosphere! BobtheBA is here ready to scratch the surface of the Competency Center. And before I get started I want to give a big shout out to Angela Wick and committee that did such an amazing job on the IIBA Competency Model. You should really check it out on the IIBA website!
ProjectBrief Blog
For Business Analysts and Project Managers
What do you need to make your projects a success? Read, share, interact, and learn tips and ideas. Our goal is to help you extend and reinforce your project management and business analysis training and skills.
BACOE Blogisode #4: The BA Competency Center – Do you need one? OR… Competent is as Competent does.
Posted: July 22nd, 2010 by Bob Prentiss. Comments »Scenarios and Use Cases – Useful Techniques
Posted: July 9th, 2010 by RichLarson. Comments »In continuing to cover all 49 BABOK® techniques, this entry is about scenarios/use cases.
UC Diagram-Training Example
Since most people refer to these as use cases, that’s the name I’ll use. They are a great way to elicit, analyze, and model interaction requirements. Plus, they help generate related requirements for interfaces, data, process, and business rules.
I gave a use case training class last week, so it’s fresh in my mind. It also influenced me to put this explanation in question and answer form.
Q. What is a use case?
Scrum vs. Waterfall: The Fight Continues
Posted: July 6th, 2010 by ElizabethLarson. 4 Comments »
Last month we began our “fight” by exploring two estimating techniques that are often used on both Scrum and Waterfall projects. The first was relative sizing (one kind of analogous estimating) and the second Delphi (called Planning Poker in Scrum). Scrum won both rounds (barely) because although both techniques can be used on both types of projects, their usage in Scrum seems easier to understand, learn, and apply. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the terms Analogous and Delphi I think academics and hard work. When I hear about tee-shirt sizes and planning poker, I think fun.
Are You My Sponsor?
Posted: June 28th, 2010 by Andrea Brockmeier. Comments »
In the popular children’s book A Mother for Choco, a baby bird goes looking for its mother. He stops and asks Mrs. Giraffe, Mrs. Walrus, and others “Are you my mommy?” But to no avail. None of these potential mommies looks like Choco and so he is left alone and very sad and begins to cry, “Mommy, mommy, I need a mommy!”
BACOE Blogisode #3: BACOP or BACOP? Community or Center OR… My Community won’t Practice what it preaches!
Posted: June 18th, 2010 by Bob Prentiss. Comments »Felicitations, Bloggers! BobtheBA (https://twitter.com/BobtheBA) is here ready to talk Center of Practice and your opportunity for success. 
State Diagrams: They Don’t Just State the Obvious
Posted: June 6th, 2010 by RichLarson. Comments »In my continuing coverage of BABOK® techniques, I plan to comment on all of the general and task-specific techniques. This week’s entry is about state diagrams, a fairly specific technique you may not be familiar with, but could be a source of CBAP® exam questions. It’s also a practical tool. Hopefully my word puzzle on the right makes sense. Minnesota is a state, plus the word diagram = State Diagram. (Hokey, I know.)
What’s On Your Sponsorship Short List?
Posted: May 28th, 2010 by Andrea Brockmeier. 2 Comments »
What is it with sponsorship? If I had a nickel for every story I heard in the classroom about poor or completely non-existent (!) sponsorship, I’d be writing this blog from somewhere more exotic than my cube. Sponsors who aren’t available for meetings. Sponsors who don’t have time to read reports. Sponsors the project manager never sees. Ever. Who is driving the project train here?
If an organization really wants their projects to succeed, and if you’re not convinced of that you’re really in trouble, then why is good sponsorship so elusive? As a project manager, is there anything you can do to improve the chances of a real partnership with a sponsor? That partnership is, after all, one of the top indicators of project success.
BACOE Blogisode #2: Maturity is easy, it’s the getting started that’s hard! OR… How I learned to stop worrying about BA maturity and love the bomb!
Posted: May 17th, 2010 by Bob Prentiss. Comments »
Salutations! BobtheBA https://twitter.com/BobtheBA here. Are we ready for another BACOE blogisode? Let’s go!
So in my last blogisode I talked about the many paths to Business Analysis maturity and the need for you to first start with root cause analysis to determine why you think you need a BACOE. Did you go through your Five Whys exercise? If so, you may have found that your organization lacks standards, and the root cause for that might have been something like insufficient budget to document or the previous attempts at standardizing failed so we can’t do that again! Or perhaps you have some standards and you found out that your organization lacks the ability to measure Business Analyst performance effectively. That might have had a root cause like dispersed management in a matrixed environment. Whatever the reasons, both make sense to move forward with a full blown BACOE model, right? Well hold a minute! This is why I say getting started is hard.
Data Modeling – Why is that Technique in the BABOK?
Posted: May 12th, 2010 by RichLarson. Comments »(In my continuing coverage of BABOK® techniques, I plan to comment on all of the general and task-specific techniques. This week’s entry is about data modeling, a technique you may or may not be familiar with, but a sure source of CBAP® exam questions.)
The impetus for this blog comes from having just taught a successful training class in Data Modeling to a mixed group
of BAs, BI specialists, technical architects, and business SMEs (subject matter experts). What made it successful was not only the learning that took place, but also the students’ willingness and eagerness to apply this technique back on their jobs.
A Heavyweight Fight–Scrum vs. Waterfall: Estimating Part 1
Posted: May 7th, 2010 by ElizabethLarson. Comments »
I think people like a good fight. Certainly the media seems to, not only in the world of politics, but also in the worlds of sports and entertainment to name a few. In the world of business analysis the current fight seems to pit Agile methods against the Waterfall approach. For the next several blogs we’ll have a Scrum vs. Waterfall match. In corner #1, representing the Agile methods, we have the Scrum framework. In corner #2, representing Waterfall, we have the “traditionalists.”
Round One
Relative sizing of user stories (Scrum)
