This is the presentation for BABOK version 2 that Kevin Brennan of the IIBA gave in San Diego.

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Jennifer deJong from SDTimes wrote an article on the business analyst role.

"Of all the roles associated with developing software, perhaps none needs a makeover as badly as the business analyst. Intended as a pivotal position that translates business needs to software requirements, the role varies widely across organizations."

This presentation was originally made at the Silicon Valley IIBA Chapter meeting in June 2008 by Kathleen (Kitty) Hass from Management Concepts (www.managementconcepts.com).

Kitty is also a new board member at-large for the IIBA.

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These are the slides from Carey Schwaber's webcast for the Catalyze Community on June 12, 2008.

"It’s no secret that in the battle to bring effective business software to market on time and on budget, business analysts are on the front lines. What can business analysts do to improve requirements definition practices and make a difference in project outcomes? Join us as Forrester Senior Analyst, Carey Schwaber, shares a set of 10 practical tips that you can immediately put into action in your organization." 

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Here is a blog post that "suggests a minimal way to gather requirements, one that produces a (minimum) requirements document in an iterative and agile manner.

Nick Malik blogs for the Inside Architecture blog on MSDN.

From Scott Ambler -

"Many organizations have an IT role called analyst, and will often differentiate between various types:

• Requirements analysts who are responsible for requirements elicitation
• Systems analysts who are responsible for analyzing the requirements to determine the system needs to fulfill those requirements
• Business analysts who are responsible for understanding the business and making recommendations for improvement
• Business system analysts whose responsibilities are a combination of those of a requirements analyst, business analyst, and a system analyst.

The focus of this discussion is on business system analysts (BSAs) even though many of the issues (or flavors thereof) are pertinent to the other analyst types.  BSAs typically have experience in a wide range of techniques, including interviewing, structured meeting approaches such as Joint Application Development (JAD), modeling sessions, and model reviews.  Good BSAs have a good understanding of the business domain and are typically “people persons”.  This article covers:

1. Why Have BSAs?
2. The Traditional Activities of an Analyst
3. Business Analysts Gone Awry
4. Towards Agile Analysts
5. BSA as Product Owner?"

From the ESI Horizons May 2008 Newsletter:

"How do the professions of project management and business analysis create their work synergies? It’s all about process. The process of successful project execution is reliant upon the business analyst providing the correct inputs to the project that the project manager uses to manage the entire delivery of the project. In short, the business analyst (BA) provides the input (via requirements) for which the project manager (PM) uses to manages the “triple constraint” of a project."

From the IIBA website:

"The public review draft of version 2 of the BABOK is now available for download. This document represents a complete draft of version 2 of the knowledge areas contained in the Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge®. The IIBA would like to thank the many volunteers who have contributed their time and energy to the development of this material since the release of Version 1.6 in 2006.

This draft is being made available to the business analysis community to gather feedback on the content and quality of this material in order that the IIBA™ may assess the current state of the draft and make decisions about which changes should be included in the final release of version 2. The public review will be conducted between March 31, 2008 and May 15, 2008.

We ask that members of the business analysis community or those with an interest in business analysis, whether or not they are members of the IIBA, provide the IIBA with feedback regarding the quality and content through an online survey. The survey will request that you provide us with a rating of the quality of each task, technique, and competency, and provide you with an opportunity to suggest additional tasks and techniques that might be missing from this draft. You may also provide feedback directly to bok@theiiba.org, although we regret that we will be unable to respond directly to such feedback.

Following the completion of the public review, the IIBA will conduct additional surveys to assess the importance of each task and technique to the business analysis community in order to make a final determination of the content that will be included in the final draft. In conjunction with the public review, we are conducting practitioner and expert reviews which will provide us with additional qualitative feedback on the content and quality of this release. When all of the reviews are complete, we will begin revising the text of the BABOK to include the changes suggested by the community, with the final release of version 2 targeted for the third quarter of 2008. The CBAP™ exam will continue to be based on version 1.6 until the final release of version 2. Once version 2 is generally available, the IIBA will announce a date for conversion of the exam.

Thank you for helping us ensure that the BABOK serves the needs of the business analysis community."

From the IIBA website...

"The fiercely competitive twenty-first century business environment poses challenges at every turn. Both public and for-profit organizations must be flexible and adaptable to remain competitive. It is through successful projects that organizations manage change, deliver new business solutions, and ultimately, achieve their strategies. However, we continue to struggle to manage complex business change initiatives. Organizations around the globe are striving to improve their business analysis capabilities to: (1) drive changes from strategic goals; (2) invest in the most valuable projects – those that deliver the highest value at the lowest cost and risk; and (3) execute projects optimally to achieve business benefits from the new solutions as quickly as possible. This paper explores our disappointing project performance track record, the nature of twenty-first century projects, the need for a central focus on business analysis as a critical component of organizational transformation, and the role of a business analysis center of excellence in organizations."

From SoftwareMag.com - a Journal for IT Professionals.

"Successfully addressing requirements management from a more iterative approach requires aligning business with IT; open communication is key"

This is an article by Lana Gates on the importance of requirements to business.

This month's content includes:

• IIBA Blog SPotlight
• CBAP Exam schedule for 2008
• International Spotlight

Working virtually has become so common these days; one probably doesn’t even realize how often he comes into contact with virtual colleagues. Globalization and technology have definitely changed the landscape of today’s work environment. Outsourcing, offshoring, nearshoring and homeshoring are becoming a common part of our occupational landscape.

As a Business Analyst in today’s working environment, it’s important to understand the dynamics, challenges and best practices of the classic office and how they compare with those of the virtual office.

These are the slides used in the webcast delivered by Barbara Carkenord from B2T Training on February 14, 2008.

Barb showed us how to think through communication needs before gathering requirements – and how these communication planning techniques can be used on any project.

You can either view the slides below or download as a PDF.  The recording of the webcast can be found here.

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This is a recording of the webcast delivered by Barbara Carkenord from B2T Training on February 14, 2008.

Barb showed us how to think through communication needs before gathering requirements – and how these communication planning techniques can be used on any project.

This is a copy of the January 2008 newsletter from the IIBA.  Included in this month's edition are:

• The annoyance of bad terminology - by Kevin Brennan
• Business analysis trends
• The Software Requirements Memory Jogger - reviewed by Carol Deutschlander
• Endorsed education provider update