BobtheBA here and the last time I blogged, we briefly took a look back at 2011. The New Year is a time when people make predictions, resolutions, and plans with the hope of change and improvement. It can be a very exciting time with anticipation to see if the predictions come true, resolutions are met, or if the plans were effective. What resolutions and plans have you made for 2012? I have to tell you though, I am not a big fan of New Year resolutions. More on this shortly.
Estimating and Planning Posts
A New Year’s Resolution?
Posted: January 23rd, 2012 by Bob Prentiss. Comments »
My B.A. Holiday Wish List for You
Posted: November 15th, 2011 by Bob Prentiss. 2 Comments »
Hello there – BobtheBA here wishing you fantastic Holidays in advance. Yes, it really is that time of the year again! Where did the time go? Seems like yesterday when 2011 was full of plans, promise and new projects. Now, with less than 7 weeks to go everyone will be busy cramming (whoops – I meant implementing) projects and of course focused on family and friends during the Holiday(s) of your choice. So whatever you are celebrating be it Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, Boxing Day, Kwanza, New Years, or something else, I thought I would share my B.A. Holiday Wish List for you. Many of you may not know (my students and some of my colleagues do) that I am actually the Santa Claus of Business Analysis. That’s right, I will know if your requirements have been naughty or nice so here are my top 5 things I wish for you during the Holidays (to remain on the nice list of course).
On day 1, we look great. It’s day 2 that kills us!
Posted: March 22nd, 2011 by Andrea Brockmeier. Comments »
I heard this from a project team member in a training class recently. He was referring to the schedules for the projects he works on. What he was getting at was that the team really doesn’t have a chance from the get-go. They are behind on projects before they even begin, and it doesn’t take long for that to be evident.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
Project managers know they should be getting input from the team on planning and the estimates for their work. And they often do. It’s what happens after that that’s problematic – namely, the input is ignored.
Critical Path Method – Valuable Techniques in Practice
Posted: December 16th, 2010 by Andrea Brockmeier. Comments »
The Minnesota Department of Transportation, Mn/DOT, recently completed the biggest project in its history: 3 ½ years and $288 million. And get this: It finished weeks early and was completed within 2% of original contract value. I visited the project manager, Steve Barrett, a couple of months ago and he showed me around the project site and answered questions I had about how Mn/DOT manages projects. I wanted to see what project management looked like and how it worked on really big projects, and what better example of “uber” project management than the Interstate 35/Highway 62 exchange project in Minneapolis.
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)
Five Tips for Estimating Requirements
Posted: February 10th, 2010 by ElizabethLarson. 2 Comments »Years ago I worked on a large effort to reengineer a distribution
center for a large retailer. We provided an estimate for both the business analysis work and for the entire project, which would involve the organization’s first use of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), new business processes, many software changes, and the purchase of new barcode scanners. The business analysis effort took far longer than we anticipated, and at the end of it we refined our estimate for the total project. When we reported the new estimate to the president of the company, he literally pounded his fist on the table and asked, “How did we get to this point? Why didn’t we know sooner? You’ve already spent all this time on the project and what do we have to show for it? Nothing!. Absolutely nothing!”
