Author name: MCAL

The past decade saw an explosion in demand for business analysts. Back in 2010, data-focused companies were still relatively new and analytics weren’t as commonly used. Since then, however, data analytics has become an integral part of every department in many organizations, moving BAs from their siloed corners.While there’s been a lot of change over […]

“Hey, I am looking for some guidance on the CBAP certification. I gave it a couple of attempts, once in earlier 2017 and the recent one was two days ago. I failed both times and it is so disheartening and demotivating. I really want to be CBAP certified as I have 10 + years of

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the use and benefits of Mind Maps for business analysis. The 5W mind map uses the journalists’ five questions (Who, What, Where, When, Why) plus How to provide a template for a business analysis guide that can be used through the project lifecycle. This technique is the

The Business Analyst and Project Manager are team players on a project. As is common the Business Analyst and Project Manager sometimes have conflicting approaches during a project. Having frequently taken up dual roles of a project manager and Business analyst during the course of my career, I have gained some insight on the dos

Business process modeling is an incredibly powerful technique and one that is core to the BA toolkit. Modeling a process enables us to understand how the work ‘flows’ between teams and makes it easier to spot process problems and bottlenecks. Process models also enable us to standardize how work is undertaken. This has a number

There is no doubt that these are challenging times and a lot of people in our community are facing hardships right now. But there is also an immense amount of opportunity. Organizations need business analysts now more than ever. A few key points: Organizations need business analysts now more than ever. It might not seem

Have you heard of an agile business analyst? Does this even make sense? Agile is to move quickly. How can a business analyst (ba) move quickly when he is loaded with the effort of understanding the scope, analyzing, collecting, and defining requirements, negotiating and convincing with stakeholders, make a technical team to understand the requirements

There is little doubt that social media platforms have created new ways for people to interact with each other. Whether it’s staying in touch with friends, exchanging holiday snaps, or “debating” the day’s hot political issues with strangers, there’s bound to be a place for it somewhere in the social-mediasphere. Often there is a treasure-trove

Many companies end up reinventing the wheel when it comes to business planning. They either create convoluted business plans that are hard to read or try to map out their business models in various ways. There is one tool that companies can use to clearly communicate a plan to investors, stakeholders, and employees: the business