IT Business Analyst

CEO & IT

2009-09-09T19:38:00.000-07:00

Hi There,

What are the Requirements of CEO? Here are couple of pointers.

How can I standardize my IT Governance, Execution and Approval processes to gain
Transparency into IT proposals, Prioritization of initiatives, Project management lifecycle and investments to optimize the business value delivered by IT
Reduction in cycle time with continuous improvements in processes , Communicating effectively with business partners and other stakeholders to create transparency, accountability, and ownership
Financial visibility and governance throughout the IT lifecycle, enabling organizations to run IT like a business
Execute Projects with Control and Predictability. Maximize the Return from resources by effective resource capacity planning and analysis
Resource Forecasting and planning for optimum use of skills in the organization
Current Portfolio visibility and Future projections
Guides right investments via Comprehensive Portfolio/Investment Planning and Analysis in a single integrated system
Demand prioritization as per business requirement
Demand and Idea management help avoid missed business opportunities and identifying areas of investment that bring greatest value to organization
Compliance
Deploy Best Practice Methodologies across the Enterprise, Lowers the cost of compliance with regulations by automating processes, implementing required controls and generating comprehensive reporting

As a Business Analyst, Can we come up with something to address all the above issues?

Thanks
Shiva

IT alignment to Business

2009-08-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

Hi Guys,

Lets talk about IT alignment to Business.

CIO and CTO’s main concern for the forthcoming years is aligning IT to Business objectives and goals. As a Business Analysts we are supposed to Map existing Business Process and find out avenues where we can suggest Business on the possibilities of aligning IT to business Processes more efficiently to gain Business strategies and Objectives.

IT in traditional mindset-
- Automate Processes
- Economic way of doing things
- Labor arbitrage by outsourcing
- Keep the lights on

IT & Business Alignment
- IT alignment with Business should result in improved financial performance and Market competitiveness. (for eg:- Time to market reduction using IT, Low cost of ownership of Business processes, Business Applications.)
- New Product research and Development
- Keep the lights on / Keep the shop running.
- Cycle time reduction of Business Processes.
- IT investments should have Business Metric associated to it apart from IT metric.

Next time, I will try to dwell upon the process of how to align IT to Business Strategies and goals.

Till then Enjoy and Have fun.

Regards
Shiva
shivabotchu@gmail.com

CTO's view about IT

2009-08-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hi Guys -

I am back after a hectic schedule.....

Offlate, I was reading on CTO's view of future of IT and here is my deduction-
- Gone are the days of labour arbitrage.
- Client is more concerned about IT and Timely Delivery.
- The next biggest things that will rule the forthcoming years in IT are:
a) Cycle Time reduction.
b) Aligning IT to Business Processes and Product Development.
c) Software development cycle has to be smaller and has to be done in smaller functional & logical pieces and bug free releases are expected.

I am looking for a debate on aligning IT to Business Processes and product development. We shall explore more about this topic in the forthcoming posts. Mail me your thoughts.

Thanks
Shiva

Requirements Documentation

2009-07-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Dont's while capturing a requirement

- Do not leave any requirement open ended.
- Do not use subjective terms like Seamlessly, beautiful.
- Do not leave anything for users imagination. I mean to say do not assume that this is obvious. for eg:- Do not assume that your user will be using PC and IE6. If your application has limitations, mention it in your requirements doc.
- Do not write any technical terms / jargon which user will not be able to comprehend or can be comprehended in any other fashion.
- Do not let the user go beyond system scope and define requirements for you.

Hope the above tips will be of use to you guys.

Thanks
Shiva

Conducting Requirements Gtahering Sessions

2009-07-14T17:57:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

I am back.....

Do's before / while conducting a Requirements Gathering session:-
- Identify Key stakeholders
- Make sure that stakeholders that you will be inviting to the sessions have appropriate decision making authority
- Publish Agenda to the Audience well in advance
- Send any relevant material or documents to the meeting audience for reference
- If you have anything visual (like screen mock-ups) to show in the meeeting, that would ease your life.
- Talk business Language with the stakeholders and not system language
- Keep the discussion within the scope of agenda
- Finally, After the meeting send MOM (minutes of meeting) and set up follow up meetings with the users.

Hope these tips will help you conduct a good requirements session.

Thanks
Shiva

Learning 1 for BA's– Business Case

2009-06-15T18:25:00.000-07:00

Hi Guys,

I am back.

Most of our the lads in our fraternity (IT Business Analysts) jump the gun once there assigned a systems analysis task. I have been a strong proponent of Analyzing the Business case before taking up any Systems analysis task.

How does studying a Business Case help us:-
1.It helps us know the business objectives for running the project
2.It helps us know the business problem for which the project has been initiated.
3.It helps us know the potential opportunities that the client / business is trying to tap
4.It helps us know the expected Business value (monetary), ROI, project risks, Mitigation plan.
5.It helps us know the level of seriousness of the business to run the project.
6.It helps us know the leadership team and the project team and their roles in the project
7.It helps us know the infrastructure, budget, resources that are tentatively allocated to the project.

I suggest all the budding Business Analysts to first try to find the Business case for the project on which they are working, analyze it and then plan for the next steps viz – a – viz requirements gathering and so on.

Keep reading guys!

Take care and Have fun.

Thanks
Shiva
shivabotchu@gmail.com

New Generation IT Business Analysts from Management Schools

2009-06-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

Hi Guys!

I am back again.

There is an advent of MBA's into this field of IT Business Analysis. Its a trap that most of the fresh MBA's fall in for. This area of analysis looks lucrative and easy from a distance but it is not, I bet you.

First timers non-technical background tend to take IT easy. They falter at requirements planning and elicitation phase. They tend to think only about the business process they are automating and forget to visualize the impact of automation on other processes and the need for integration with other processes and systems. IT Business Analysis is all about understanding clients Business and Systems landscape before coming up with a functional solution.

An IT Business analyst should be aware of the capabilities of technologies that the client is working on and the technologies that we are proposing as a consultant. We should be well equipped with UML, Documentation, QA, Project management , Presentation tools. It is a continuous learning job and I like it much.

Have a nice weekend guys......

Thanks
Shiva
shivabotchu@gmail.com

IT Business Analysis - How Did it happen to me!

2009-06-11T19:33:00.000-07:00

Hi Guys!

Computers have been my passion since my school days.... It started in 1992, when I was in 8th grade and was introduced to computers in my school. It was love at the first sight with computers for me and it is increasing at a mach speed for me day by day. There was this acquaintee of mine who had a monochrome computer at his home during those days. I used to show up at his place and fiddle with his computer, used to write some programs in basic and enthuse myself.

Later in 2003, post my MBA I joined an european bank's credit card division as an analyst. It was for the first time, I was introduced to mainframe based enterprise applications. At that moment, I thought this is worth doing and got started with Analysing the existing applications for design issues and ultimately got involved in designing and conceptualization of new applications for the same business unit. I got so involved in IT Business solutioning and analysis that I used to spend most of the time in office devising new ways to do things the IT way.

Since 2003, I have designed more than a dozen applications for global companies in banking, Real Estate and Publishing.

Got to go now... See you next time.

Have a good one!

Thanks
Shiva
shivabotchu@gmail.com