Demand for increased business analyst involvement throughout the system development life cycle has fueled the recognition and growth of the business analysis profession.  As a result you may be considering how to formalize your business analysis practice.  To determine if a Business Analysis Center of Excellence (BACoE) is right for your organization, start with a discovery and planning effort focused on understanding your current situation. We find that discovery and planning is well worth the investment as it provides a clear picture of the organization’s business analysis maturity and the effort it will take to reach a higher level. At Doreen Evans Associates, we help organizations establish, institutionalize and maintain best-in-class business analysis competency. Click here to download a practical approach to determine the need for a BACoE in your organization.

A new report has just been released comparing enterprise-class software requirements platforms targeted for business analysis needs.  This report, authored by Susan Martin of Doreen Evans Associates (DEA) describes the criteria that are important in an enterprise requirements platform and why.   It then identifies those specific products, out of the many available today, that are truly enterprise ready and that are focused directly on the needs of business analysts.   Finally it presents the results of a very detailed product comparison along with recommendations.  The detailed comparison data is also available as a separate download – the link to that is within the report itself.  Click here to get your copy of the report.

At many forward-thinking organizations, recognition of the importance of business analysis skills has fostered a movement toward building Business Analysis Centers of Excellence.   But building a Business Analysis Center of Excellence (BACoE) can’t be done overnight.  It requires commitment and planning.  At Doreen Evans Associates, we help organizations establish, institutionalize and maintain best-in-class business analysis competency.  Click here to download the top five lessons we’ve learned as we’ve helped clients establish their BACoE organizations.

Requirements.net is very pleased to welcome its newest member, Doreen Evans Associates (DEA).   DEA is one of the longest running Business Analysis service firms in the industry.  Throughout their 19 year history DEA has remained true to its vision of providing experienced, high-quality services while enabling clients to be self-sufficient in the discipline of business analysis.  While they’ve remained a smaller-scale and focused business, they are a giant in the space.  We expect DEA to be an active contributor to requirements.net, sharing their expertise and knowledge, so stay tuned!

Leading analyst firm voke is currently conducting a survey whose result will be published in an upcoming voke Agile Market Snapshot.  All information provided is confidential and anonymous, with only the statistical results being reported.  Whether you currently use agile, transitioning to it, or just investigating it, your input is valuable.  Please take a moment to complete the survey here.

The Requirements.net consortium is pleased to announce that the 2011 Requirements Lifecycle Award has been presented to Rick Toothill, Manager and Kathleen O’Brien, Lead Business Analyst both of Merck. Rick and Kathleen were recognized for their continued contributions to advancing the Business Analysis discipline within Merck’s globally distributed IT groups.

Rick and Kathy’s pioneering efforts brought together the Business Analysis community at Merck starting back in 2002. Their efforts have since evolved into the present-day Analysis Skills Center, an essential resource for over a hundred Business Analysis practitioners at Merck. This Community of Practice has been instrumental in the promotion and advancement of Business Analysis best practices and solutions throughout the organization, and they’re now looking to take things to the next level.

Be sure to watch the compelling interview with Rick and Kathy as they tell the Merck story and pass on valuable tips for all who are looking to effect meaningful Business Analysis change in their own organization.

Nominations are now closed for the 2011 Requirements Lifecycle Award. We would like to thank all those who put forward so many excellent nominations.

The winner will be announced in the first quarter of 2011, so stay tuned…

The Requirements Lifecycle Award returns this year to recognize an individual who has made a positive difference in their organization’s software requirements lifecycle. Companies today recognize that inadequate requirements definition and management is a key inhibitor to software project success which can have a direct and negative affect on the business itself. The Requirements Lifecycle Award recognizes the achievements of an individual who has effected positive change in their organization’s software requirements lifecycle through education, process and automation initiatives to reduce waste, rework and inefficiencies. If you, or someone you know has made a positive difference with your organization’s software requirements lifecycle, nominate them today!

This award not only recognizes individual achievement, but also shows others that there are ways to make meaningful improvements in the Software Requirements Lifecycle.

Nominate a deserving individual today!

Join Matt Morgan and Keith Barrett in this special edition podcast as they lead a 60 minute panel discussion on the results of The State of Business Analysis in Agile IT Projects survey. Over 300 companies participated in this 2010 survey and the role of business analyst was identified as key to enabling successful Agile projects. However, the transition to Agile is not without pitfalls. Business Analysts must learn to visually define requirements, they must improve stakeholder validation and review of user stories, and they must shift requirements practices to incrementally define requirements concurrently with development to ensure success.

Panel discussion members:

Mark Sarbiewski, Sr. Director of Products at HP Software: Mark oversees WW application product marketing at HP Software, including products such as HP Quality Center, HP Performance Center, HP Application Security Center.

Martin Crisp, Chief Technology Officer at Blueprint: Martin manages distributed Agile application development for Blueprint’s requirements definition and visualization product line.

Murat Aksu, Consulting Alliances, Capgemini: Murat has oversees Capgemini consulting efforts related to the deployment of application lifecycle management solution from HP Software and is the co-author of the 2010-2011 Capgemini World Quality Report.

Download Podcast here

Requirements.net in partnership with the Phoenix Chapter of the IIBA and Capgemini have published the results of a survey completed by over 300 participants on the state of business analysis in today’s Agile IT projects.

Summary

The survey found that Agile is prevalent and growing within the enterprise. All of the participants surveyed were using an Agile development methodology within their organization. A majority of participants (57%) were using agile for 10-25% of their projects, with 25% using agile for 25-50% of projects, and 18% almost exclusively using agile, for 75-100% of projects. Time to market and resource utilization were the most oft-cited reasons for moving to agile, while participants cited quicker realization of vision and promoting transparency as the most common benefits as a result of the move to agile.

Key Findings:

• Collaboration between business and IT stakeholders is an important element of successful Agile projects and requirements are a critical control point in any Agile project lifecycle. Challenges to collaboration are increasing, with participants naming six core areas of landscape complexity that include large project team sizes, domain complexity, rigid interdepartmental relationships, global geographic distribution, technical complexity, and contractural departmental SLAs. These landscape barriers hamper stakeholder collaboration and can challenge the deployment of Agile methodologies.

• Survey participants indicate that requirements for Agile projects should be “immediately consumable? by IT project teams, with 72% of companies surveyed indicating that requirements should consist of process flows (or visual use cases) or visual story boards in lieu of textual lists and paragraphs. Requirements that include visual assets (such as data, business process diagrams, use cases, user interface mockups) require less interpretation from project teams and are more accurately leveraged for project direction and have a positive impact on project success.

• Requirements uncertainty is the number one constraint for planning the size and scale of Agile sprints. Ambiguous requirements assets, often without stakeholder validation and signoff, can cause significant project delays.

• The majority of participants (56%) indicate that business involvement is the most critical functional characteristic of successful agile project teams. Business involvement includes participating in up-front requirements validation and signoff, involvement in sprint validation, and providing overall subject matter expertise.

Download Report here.