An Expensive Leap How Jumping to a Solution Cost Billions

An Expensive Leap: How Jumping To A Solution Cost Billions And Made The Problem Worse

Originally published in PM Times on May 23, 2016. How would you solve this problem? The US VA has unacceptable wait times for veterans seeking medical assistance. The VA medical centers around the country are overbooked and understaffed. Some veterans have to wait months for appointments and treatment. There has been negative media attention on this …

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, CSM

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, CSM is a consultant and advisor for Watermark Learning/PMA. She has over 35 years of experience in project management and business analysis. Elizabeth has co-authored four books and chapters published in five additional books, as well as articles that appear regularly in BA Times, Project Times, and Modern Analyst. Elizabeth was a lead author/expert reviewer on all editions of the BABOK® Guide, as well as the several of the PMI standards. Elizabeth also enjoys giving presentations, and her speaking history includes repeat keynotes and presentations for national and international conferences on five continents. Elizabeth enjoys traveling, hiking, reading, theater, and spending time with her 7 grandkids.

CBAP and CCBA v2 Exam Changes

CBAP and CCBA v2 Exam Changes

As we get closer to the changes happening to the CBAP and CCBA exams, we can report a few things we have learned. The IIBA is making progress in rolling out their new certification program and are releasing information on it in stages. Deadline. The rollout for version 3 exams has been announced for September 30, 2016. …

Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA

Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, was the founder of and is now a consultant for Watermark Learning. He is a successful entrepreneur with over 35 years of experience in product development, business analysis, project management, training, and consulting. As an internal entrepreneur, Rich led the development of several Watermark Learning online products as a business analyst and product owner. Rich is a frequent speaker at Business Analysis and Project Management national conferences and IIBA® and PMI® chapters around the world. He has contributed as a lead author to the BA Body of Knowledge version 2.0 and 3.0 and was a lead author on PMI’s Business Analysis Practice Guide. He and his wife Elizabeth Larson have co-authored five books on business analysis.

Small Business Leadership Summit 2016 Recap

Small Business Leadership Summit 2016 Recap

Watermark Learning was excited to be selected for the second year in a row as one of more than 150 small business leaders from across the country to attend the Small Business Leadership Summit in Washington D.C.  The Summit, hosted by small business advocacy organization Small Business Majority, provided a unique opportunity for us and …

Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA

Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, was the founder of and is now a consultant for Watermark Learning. He is a successful entrepreneur with over 35 years of experience in product development, business analysis, project management, training, and consulting. As an internal entrepreneur, Rich led the development of several Watermark Learning online products as a business analyst and product owner. Rich is a frequent speaker at Business Analysis and Project Management national conferences and IIBA® and PMI® chapters around the world. He has contributed as a lead author to the BA Body of Knowledge version 2.0 and 3.0 and was a lead author on PMI’s Business Analysis Practice Guide. He and his wife Elizabeth Larson have co-authored five books on business analysis.

Top 5 Reasons Organizations Should Support Certifications

Top 5 Reasons Organizations Should Support Certifications

Originally published in PM Times on April 25, 2016. There will always be a debate about certifications and whether organizations should support them. Some feel they are an essential and growing part of professional life. Others feel a credential does not make a practitioner a better business analyst, Agilist, or project manager. Both sides have a …

Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA

Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, was the founder of and is now a consultant for Watermark Learning. He is a successful entrepreneur with over 35 years of experience in product development, business analysis, project management, training, and consulting. As an internal entrepreneur, Rich led the development of several Watermark Learning online products as a business analyst and product owner. Rich is a frequent speaker at Business Analysis and Project Management national conferences and IIBA® and PMI® chapters around the world. He has contributed as a lead author to the BA Body of Knowledge version 2.0 and 3.0 and was a lead author on PMI’s Business Analysis Practice Guide. He and his wife Elizabeth Larson have co-authored five books on business analysis.

5 More Rules for Project Success

5 More Rules For Project Success

Originally published in PM Times on April 19, 2016. Six years ago, we wrote an article on five children’s rules of world cup soccer and how those rules apply to the world of projects. Our 6 grandsons have grown and acquired new skills, so keeping up with them is a challenge. New rules have emerged—not rules …

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, CSM

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, CSM is a consultant and advisor for Watermark Learning/PMA. She has over 35 years of experience in project management and business analysis. Elizabeth has co-authored four books and chapters published in five additional books, as well as articles that appear regularly in BA Times, Project Times, and Modern Analyst. Elizabeth was a lead author/expert reviewer on all editions of the BABOK® Guide, as well as the several of the PMI standards. Elizabeth also enjoys giving presentations, and her speaking history includes repeat keynotes and presentations for national and international conferences on five continents. Elizabeth enjoys traveling, hiking, reading, theater, and spending time with her 7 grandkids.

A Project Managers Guide to Use Cases Part 3

A PM’s Guide to Use Cases Part 3: Use Case Narratives

Originally published in PM Times on December 8, 2015. As promised, this is the fifth article in our modeling series and the third on use cases. We’ll start with a short summary of the main concepts covered previously. SUMMARY OF PREVIOUS ARTICLES Here are the highlights of the requirements modeling articles written to date: To get …

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, CSM

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, CSM is a consultant and advisor for Watermark Learning/PMA. She has over 35 years of experience in project management and business analysis. Elizabeth has co-authored four books and chapters published in five additional books, as well as articles that appear regularly in BA Times, Project Times, and Modern Analyst. Elizabeth was a lead author/expert reviewer on all editions of the BABOK® Guide, as well as the several of the PMI standards. Elizabeth also enjoys giving presentations, and her speaking history includes repeat keynotes and presentations for national and international conferences on five continents. Elizabeth enjoys traveling, hiking, reading, theater, and spending time with her 7 grandkids.

What's New in our CBAP v3 Training Materials

What’s New in our CBAP v3 Materials

Watermark Learning has started launching new CBAP v3 materials prior to IIBA’s changeover of the v3.0 exams in September. The new BABOK 3.0 has new certification levels, changes to most Knowledge Areas, and the addition of 16 new techniques. The BA Core Concept Model™ (BACCM) and an all-new section containing five perspectives on Business Analysis has also been added. With that …

Watermark Learning

This is the corporate source for Watermark Learning posts. Watermark delivers engaging and practical training and coaching in Business Analysis, Project Management, Agile & Scrum, Business Process Management, and Influencing Skills since 1992.

A Project Managers Guide to Use Cases Part 2

A PM’s Guide to Use Cases Part 2: Use Case Diagrams Explained

Originally published in PM Times on November 10, 2015. This is the third article in our requirements modeling series and the second article in our use cases series. We had promised that in future articles we would show examples of use case diagrams, explain how to build them, and describe why we should create use case …

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, CSM

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, CSM is a consultant and advisor for Watermark Learning/PMA. She has over 35 years of experience in project management and business analysis. Elizabeth has co-authored four books and chapters published in five additional books, as well as articles that appear regularly in BA Times, Project Times, and Modern Analyst. Elizabeth was a lead author/expert reviewer on all editions of the BABOK® Guide, as well as the several of the PMI standards. Elizabeth also enjoys giving presentations, and her speaking history includes repeat keynotes and presentations for national and international conferences on five continents. Elizabeth enjoys traveling, hiking, reading, theater, and spending time with her 7 grandkids.

A Project Managers Guide to Requirements Modeling Part 2

A PM’s Guide to Requirements Modeling Part 2: Concurrent Requirements Modeling

Originally published in PM Times on March 30, 2015. This article is the second in a series on requirements modeling with the emphasis on why PMs should care about modeling requirements. In our first article, we spoke generally about models, the benefits of modeling requirements, and introduced the relationship between the iterative nature of eliciting requirements …

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, CSM

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, CSM is a consultant and advisor for Watermark Learning/PMA. She has over 35 years of experience in project management and business analysis. Elizabeth has co-authored four books and chapters published in five additional books, as well as articles that appear regularly in BA Times, Project Times, and Modern Analyst. Elizabeth was a lead author/expert reviewer on all editions of the BABOK® Guide, as well as the several of the PMI standards. Elizabeth also enjoys giving presentations, and her speaking history includes repeat keynotes and presentations for national and international conferences on five continents. Elizabeth enjoys traveling, hiking, reading, theater, and spending time with her 7 grandkids.

Realizing Value the Latest Trends

Realizing Value – The Latest Trend or Here to Stay?

Originally published in PM Times as 2 parts on February 22, 2016 (Part 1) and March 7, 2016 (Part 2). In January, we published our annual article about the seven trends in business analysis, project management, and agile. If we examine these trends, we see that they have one thing in common—they are all about value. We …

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, CSM

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, CSM is a consultant and advisor for Watermark Learning/PMA. She has over 35 years of experience in project management and business analysis. Elizabeth has co-authored four books and chapters published in five additional books, as well as articles that appear regularly in BA Times, Project Times, and Modern Analyst. Elizabeth was a lead author/expert reviewer on all editions of the BABOK® Guide, as well as the several of the PMI standards. Elizabeth also enjoys giving presentations, and her speaking history includes repeat keynotes and presentations for national and international conferences on five continents. Elizabeth enjoys traveling, hiking, reading, theater, and spending time with her 7 grandkids.