Establishing and Business Analyst Center of Excellence (BACOE) – Tips on Getting Started
Written by Traci Lester on February 6th, 2013
Written by Sherry Pate, PMP
Although there are many things you need to do, the following items are a good start. First, identify what you want to accomplish with a Business Analysis Center of Excellence (BACOE) for your specific organization. Yes, you want to improve things but unless you define what those things are, you can’t begin with the end in mind. With a BA team and other stakeholders – other IT roles, the business, etc., – brainstorm what you want to accomplish. Put each item on a post it note and number them, then have the group cluster items together by calling out numbers (i.e. 1 and 7 go together), then name the themes. You’ll probably have 5-6 major goals you want to deliver. For example, here are two goals identified by brainstorming items first, then clustering.
- Improve Project Delivery
- Gain efficiency/reduce defects through PI
- Project deliver: faster and more accurate
- Productivity
- Establish and follow standardization
- Drive consistency
- Standard artifacts
- Consistent standards for deliverables
- Establish standard process and delivery Click to continue »
Posted in Business Analysis, Business Analyst Center of Excellence (BACOE), Web Seminar, business analyst | No Responses »
Tags: ASPE, aspe web seminar, ASPE-SDLC, aspe-sdlc web semianrs, BACOE, buiness analyst training, business analysis training, Establishing and Business Analyst Center of Excellence, sherry pate
Web Seminar Recap: Federal Agile in 2013
Written by Natalie Morgan on February 13th, 2013
As Agile grows, people who learned about it at a 5th, 6th or 7th degree of separation from the “founding fathers” of Agile sometimes see it as process or a science type method. That sentiment isn’t 100% incorrect, but in reality Agile is much more . Based on a core perspective from which process/methods flow out., it is about seeing the world, conducting yourself, working in a team, and doing actual work the Agile way.
The four basic values of Agile are:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan Click to continue »
Posted in ASPE, ASPE-SDLC, Agile, Agile Government, Web Seminar | No Responses »
Tags: Agile Government, ASPE, ASPE-SDLC, Federal Agile
Web Seminar Recap: Agile Creativity: A Look at how Google is Supporting the Adoption of Agile Methods into Marketing and Agency-level Creative
Written by Natalie Morgan on February 6th, 2013
Rapid, scalable, flexible, collaborative are just a few words that marketers try to achieve real-world success in their creative processes. And beyond the marketing world, business leaders everywhere are realizing that the new economic paradigm rewards speed, flexibility, and response to change.
If you’ve read The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, you know how FAST economic disruptions now move through the world economy. Some disruptions are flashes in the pan. Others bring about marketplace revolutions that none of us have the tools to entirely predict, or even catch early indicators regarding the direction they will take.
Marketers need to look at work values, principles, and processes that enable the nimbleness required to “catch a black swan”. In search of practices which enable this success, creative leaders in marketing fields are looking to their brethren in another profession which is high-stakes and project-based: software development. They are finding that the foundational values (and the practices associated with them) of highly successful software development philosophies such as Agile can also be leveraged to bring speed, quality, and flexibility to processes which yield fantastic creative.
Click to continue »
Posted in ASPE, ASPE-SDLC, Agile, aspe web seminar | No Responses »
Tags: ASPE-ROI, ASPE-SDLC, web seminar, Web Seminar Recap: Agile Creativity: A Look at how Google is Supporting the Adoption of Agile Methods into Marketing and Agency-level Creative
Web Seminar Recap: PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (ACP) Primer
Written by Natalie Morgan on February 6th, 2013
Testing for the pilot PMI Agile Certified Practitioner has finished and the exam has been in place for a year. ASPE is a leader in both Agile and Project Management and ASPE-SDLC feels particularly and uniquely qualified to provide this primer session to help you prepare yourself and feel confident to obtain this certification. Many of our instructors have taken and passed the exam and can also offer their personal insights and advice.
On January 29, David led a free web seminar that included topics as:
- Application Requirements
- Fees
- Exam content overview
- Domains and tasks for Agile Certification
- Training options
- Where this certification fits with the Scrum Alliance certifications
- Q & A
Click to continue »
Posted in ASPE, Agile, Agile Certification, PDUs, PMI-ACP, aspe web seminar, aspe-sdlc web semianrs, certification | No Responses »
Tags: agile, ASPE, ASPE-SDLC, Certification, PMI-ACP
How Does the Movie Ground Hog Day Connect to Business Analysis?
Written by Traci Lester on February 5th, 2013
Written by Kelley Bruns
Imagine this: you wake up, do your morning routine, arrive at work, and start where you left off on your project yesterday – performing requirements elicitation, analyzing requirements, refining requirements, updating the requirements documentation, validating requirements with stakeholders. In other words, a fairly common day in the life of a business analyst. You complete your work day, go home, perform your evening routine, and go to bed. Then you wake up the next morning only to find you are Bill Murray and you have to keep reliving that same day over and over again.
Would you do everything the same way when you re-live that day? Or, would you do things differently to improve on what you learned? I hope you chose the latter question, to do things differently. Now think about this – replay your last work day. What worked well in your analysis efforts? What didn’t work well? What do you want to keep doing? What do you want to stop doing? What do you want to start doing? I like to replay my day and think about: Start, Stop, and Continue/Keep. That way I do not fall into my own ground hog day. Following this process daily will lead you into the concept of continuous improvement and not expecting to get different results from the same actions repeated over and over again. Click to continue »
Posted in Business Analysis, business analyst | No Responses »
Tags: ASPE, aspe ba training, aspe business analysis training, aspe business analyst training, ASPE-SDLC, ba, business analysis, business analysis training, Business analyst, business analyst training, How Does the Movie Ground Hog Day Connect to Business Analysis, kelley bruns
Web Seminar Recap: Agile Concepts for Management and Leadership Success
Written by Natalie Morgan on January 30th, 2013
Agile principles are dominating discussions of software development. Currently, software practitioners in almost every vertical are utilizing what Agile offers. It is only a matter of time before other disciplines start incorporating Agile for professional and organizational success.
In this web seminar, David discussed the various ways Agile can be integrated into management and leadership success. David looked at the core values of Agile and discussed how they can be interpreted and utilized for managers and leaders both inside and outside the software development discipline. David also went into the specifics of Radical Management, the fundamental rationale for it, the defining principles and how those principles are acted upon.
Questions and Answers:
- Who is the author and what is the name of the Radical Management Book?
Steve Denning is the author and the book is The Leaders Guide to Radical Management you can find it on Amazon by going to www.amazon.com/Leaders-Guide-Radical-Management-Reinventing/dp/0470548681#_
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Posted in ASPE, ASPE-SDLC, Agile, Agile Development, Agile Software, Management, Web Seminar, Web Seminar Recap | No Responses »
Tags: agile, Agile Concepts for Management and Leadership Success, ASPE, ASPE-SDLC, Web Seminar Recap
ASPE Partners With ICAgile to Offer the First Complete Agile Certificate Program
Written by Natalie Morgan on January 23rd, 2013
As Agile continues to mature as a product development approach and the community of Agilists swells, there is an increasing need to have a shared framework for certifying Agile experience and expertise. While there exists a multitude of training and education options out there, there has been no certifying body to bring the diverse and extensive training options together into a single, holistic certification offering. That is until now.
Over the last several months, I have been working closely with the International Consortium of Agile (ICAgile) to certify our Agile courses under their certification program. I have been thoroughly impressed with the amount of forethought they have put into this program as well as the rigor they apply when certifying courses. It has been a challenging process but one that bore a tremendous amount of value, as it provided me a great deal of time to evaluate our courseware and how it served those individuals that were looking for an Agile education.
What makes ICAgile different than other certifications currently available:
Click to continue »
Posted in ASPE, ASPE-SDLC, Agile, Agile Certification, Agile Development, ICAgile, Management, Project Management, Project Managers, SDLC, Software Development, Training | No Responses »
Tags: agile, Agile certificate, Agile Software Development, agile training, ASPE, ASPE Partners With ICAgile, ASPE Partners With ICAgile to Offer the First Complete Agile Certificate Program, ASPE-SDLC, SDLC