Posted on 10, March 2014
in Category practitioner experience
Confidentiality For the sake of this post, I’ll define confidentiality as “concerns regarding the unwanted disclosure of information.” Confidentiality is complex as it is both role-driven and time-driven, i.e. sensitive data may only be applicable to me in my current role and for a specific timeframe after which it may become stale and elicit invalid results. Without deploying additional layers (e.g. using the file system layer to assign access via login to specific roles) neither angle is covered by Excel (or any Office-style application). Access is blanket applied – you are in or out of the loop. Hidden sheets help, [&hellip
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Posted on 14, January 2014
in Category bsg insight, practitioner experience
On a recent engagement for a global retail bank, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to travel to 10 of the African countries in which they operate. The project entailed examining the source of poor debt quality in the region and focused on collections and recoveries operations. Following a three month project, we noted a number of common issues facing banks across the 10 countries. It is felt that overcoming these issues will offer significant benefits in terms of portfolio profitability, debt quality and customer service to name a few, but is it as simple as that? Lack [&hellip
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Posted on 17, June 2013
in Category bsg insight, practitioner experience, tools and techniques
by Michael Railton Challenges are just opportunities to think differently Offshoring has its horror stories. Many of them resulting from putting the desire to drive cost down ahead of the desire to deliver against business benefit. Throwing specs “over the fence” may be cheap, but there is often significant business upheaval in the wake of a poorly built software system. The cost of correction (in the software) and disruption (in the business) is often significantly greater than would’ve been incurred had a smarter approach to working as a team been pursued from the outset. Effective collaboration within distributed development teams is [&hellip
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Posted on 15, May 2013
in Category practitioner experience
by Chuka Madukwe At the outset of every engagement, we spend time architecting the project to ensure that there is alignment between the organisation’s strategy, the proposed deliverable of the project and the approach to be adopted. Over the years, we’ve seen many, uhm, less than optimal practices across the industry. We decided to write them up in a “cheat sheet” for project architects. Project architecting for anti-progress Make roles and responsibilities unclear. In fact, why even consider them at all? Just assign people to the project and hope that they will get on with it. This way, the real “diamonds [&hellip
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Posted on 28, February 2013
in Category practitioner experience
BSG recently completed a challenging project stage at the world’s leading insurance market corporation. To maximise the learning on both sides, we facilitated a review session using Edward de Bono’s 6 hats approach. Here’s how we did it… BSG (UK) 6 hats project reviews from BSG (UK)
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Posted on 15, January 2013
in Category practitioner experience
BSG’er David Reinhardt was interviewed for The BA Coach’s popular BA podcast series. In this episode, you will get to hear from a top-notch BA in UK, creating ‘Aha’ moments for his clients in every engagement. His passion for doing work that can goes beyond just being a ‘project’ can serve as a great example for us to learn from.He shares many insights and tips that can help practitioners understand that our profession is a social profession and that collaboration is at the heart of a project well done
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Posted on 27, September 2012
in Category practitioner experience
All too often people take on the “Business Analyst” role to provide some specialist input to a project. It’s a great starting point, but the move to Business Analyst involves a greater mindset shift than just moving desks – it’s about creating something meaningful, achieving a purpose. To lead the business through purposeful change, it is essential to be able to communicate with different stakeholder groups using the right tools and techniques. BAs need to learn to “speak analyst”. Key takeaways: Three orders of business analysis: bridging the gap, introducing innovation and facilitating change Understand the notion of “Analyst” as [&hellip
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Posted on 31, August 2012
in Category practitioner experience
So there are 5 special senses, we all know that. There are more subtle ‘senses’ like a sense of fear amongst others. But what are the senses of a Business Analyst? Someone who makes letters and numbers in a spreadsheet into a successful system or change initiative. Someone who makes the impossible possible. Someone who tames the wilderness. Here are some thoughts on the emergent senses of the evolving BA. > Common sense Several of my contemporaries, notably @ukadrianreed, have highlighted how common sense is a thing missing from many BA’s armoury at the moment. I fear that BA’s get [&hellip
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