Picture this if you will: It’s a Monday morning after a long weekend where you took Friday off to get out of the city. You were consequently out of 3G coverage which resulted in no mobile phone reception, and therefore no email access. Back to Monday – you start your email application, and you have 113 unread emails. Do you: panic and hyperventilate, black spots start to appear in your peripheral vision, head straight to the kitchen, coffee will be your only saviour, knuckle down, and start going through the emails in the order you received them, or wish you [&hellip

Once upon a time a consulting firm bid for a high profile, fixed price project using Platform A. I realize that I have only started reading this fairytale story but how on earth has this bid included a technology choice when they are yet to do the analysis? The clients were delighted, as were the consulting firm when they won the > 15M contract. “And now for the real work to begin!” declared the (first) Project Manager. The Business Analysts swooped in and worked their magic on high-level design documentation and a long list of prioritized requirements. “Wonderful” declared both [&hellip

In today’s fast paced technology world it is common, if not mandatory, for financial institutions to replace legacy systems in order to gain competitive advantage. In my experience business stakeholders will often have decided on the technology before bringing an analyst or consultant on board. A lack of analysis from the onset means uninformed decisions and ultimately reputational risk if the wrong choice is made. Implementation projects that I have been involved in, have typically deferred the engaging of business analysts until project slippage has arisen. I’m not entirely sure whether this is a scapegoat tactic or a sincere attempt [&hellip