A Business Analyst by profession, a loud and clear thinker, budding entrepreneur, an occasional cook, proud son and an easy husband to my wife. I can be reachable at ravi.pardesi@gmail.com
Wish you all a very Happy Christmas and safe Holidays. I pray that 2012 brings new avenues, responsibilities, possibilities and lot of joys in your life and your families.
Eat lot of chocolates, stay up late and do drink and party hard.
Here's a great classic from Jackson 5:
I personally thank each one of you for your continued visits and kind words.
Ever wondered what works in background when two web applications on cloud share something? It is Web Services.
Sofware, Infrastructure, Platform as service = Cloud Computing
Web Services = Vapours
Exactly! If you enable a service on cloud in sky, then it takes vapours to rain on earth. The Web services are the essence of cloud computing.
Think of it as mesh of systems talking to each other, where one of the system is requestor and other is provider. So if you tweet with #fb and that tweet is auto-posted to facebook, the twitter is actually requesting facebook service to write your status on your behalf. Did you notice a vapour in action here?
If you are developing, or intend to develop, a service on cloud principles, then you should consider learning about following:
1. REST services - I am stumbled upon this article - How I explained REST to my wife - try out!
2. Service Oriented Architecture
3. Remote Procedure Calls
There are hundred other services or frameworks that you will see like Amazon services, etc but they are product specific and principally use above methods.
Are you using any interesting methods to enable services? Please let us know using the 'Responses' section below.
Like it, please share it in your circle or click on the 'tweet' or 'facebook like' image below!
Welcome back guys! Last few weeks, I have been extremely busy with on-going projects that keeps me away from writing. I promise to write frequently from now on. So far in this series for cloud posts, we have covered:
In this post, we will cover "Multi Tenant Architecture" - the architecture on which cloud computing lodges itself. The Multi Tenant Architecture revolves around the principle where a single instance application runs on a server serving multiple organizations/ clients.They all are separate yet connected to each other; by being hosted on a single server.
Wondering, what's new with it? Let me explain in simple terms and scenarios. Imagine you own a 3 bedroom property and you rent it to one tenant i.e. a single family moves in and stays in the property. This is the traditional way of renting out a property.
Now you sold the property and this new landlord is an intelligent fellow and he rents out his 3 bedroom property to 3 families where each family lives in a single room. If he would want to be further innovative, he would go one level up and rent out room to any 4th family if one of the third family moves out for vacation provided his property stays in demand.
Use this analogy in hosting application where your server is a house and each customer you're enabling is a tenant. Split the server capacity and virtually segregate storage of each customer - separate yet connected with each other. If one of your customer is stopping your payments or goes out of subscription (goes on a vacation) and your application is in high demand, rent out your server space to someone who is active and in action.
The real benefit, apart from cost savings, of Multi Tenant Architecture are:
Deploy once, and push or pull the switch to enable or disable the customers! - The worth and the returns received for hosting any application in Multi-Tenant environment is far better than performing dedicated hosting for a single customer.
Cutting long story short, when you go out on a cloud enabled application and you subscribe to it, this is the underlying principle upon which that application is hosted on the cloud. The moment you disable or inactivate your subscription, the space is shared by someone else whose subscription is active.
Hope you enjoyed this post. In our next post, we'll discuss about "The Vapours: Web Services"
Until then, Cheers and
Happy Learning!
In our previous post, I introduced Cloud Computing with a simple definition. In this post, we'll discuss about what cloud has to offer and how it can serve its audience and their purpose. If used with utmost efficiency, the benefits of cloud are endless.
In order to enable computing on-demand, the Cloud package is available to all Internet users in form of three services:
1. Software as a service
2. Infrastructure as a service
3. Platform as a service
In short, I call it as SIP as a service. No dear - we are not talking about Systematic Investment Plans :)
Most cloud providers enable these offerings via three channels - though they differ only slightly:
1. Public Cloud - accessed either free or on subscription over internet
2. Vendor Hosted - almost similar to Public cloud but usually enterprise applications especially customized for you.
3. Private Cloud - accessed over VPN or Intranet
Software as a service
I will start with an example here. Let's say you want to build a workflow application that allows task assignment, task escalations, notifications, approvals etc. In a traditional computing scenario, you would install a Workflow framework, customize it and then start developing application using it. You will follow complete SDLC to build a technology stack with a thorough testing and by the time you're up & running, the technology is upgraded by the vendor or outdated. Is your technology version agnostic? Oops.... :)
Here's an alternative: Runmyprocess - The software allows developing workflow application quick enough and that too on Cloud (No Installation required, just work in your browser). The software is itself developed in such a fashion that it self-enable user to develop applications as per their requirement. No point denying, you may need a little programming help but cost of development and time-to-market reduces dramatically.
The benefit of availability as a service is you don't worry about Infrastructure, support, development of underlying functionality at all. You simply adopt existing out-of-the-box functionality and extend it. The difference is build vs buy where in both cases you would need to implement your requirement. But in cloud, you usually buy services and extend it to suit your requirements.
Infrastructure as a service
What If I still need to develop an application which is not out there and don't want to buy physical server? Can I leverage cloud? Can I only pay for the hardware that I am using? Can I really extend my hardware without impacting my users?
The answer is Yes, you can.
The Infrastructure as a service on cloud enables you with the capacity to compute. Imagine, you need a Linux server and instead of purchasing a big fat box for future requirements, you buy a computing capacity that allows you to install Linux/Windows/any OS and stretches automatically as your need grows. Yes, the whole server is available to you with full controls and you only pay as your users increase. So you are increasing cost only when your revenue stream is increasing.
There are different cloud providers that offer Infrastructure as a service you can check out - Amazon EC2 http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/ as an example. EC2 stands for Elastic Computing where hardware/ computing capacity is treated as Elastic that auto stretches as per your waist size ;)
Platform as a service
I am a real stubborn fellow; I don't want to buy the software or Infrastructure. Can I still leverage cloud?
Oh Yes - Sure. The answer to your question is Platform as a service. These days whole platforms are available on cloud that enable you to create a full-fledged application right from scratch to cater to your requirements.
For example, try Google Apps Engine that allows you to write applications from head to toe. What more, Google also provides to sell those applications to Marketplace - revenues ;)
A small post cannot justify all features of cloud so I'll be explaining further in our coming posts in series. It has been super busy days but I am trying to find time as and when possible. Hope you like the post and please share it with your friends or colleagues who are interested in the concept and want to learn from it.
If you need further detailed information on Cloud, feel free to write to me. I'll be happy to help you.
*Disclaimer: I am not recommending any service by this post. All example services are just used as a reference to explain the concept.
Cheers Friends,
Have loads of fun!!
Oh no – another post on Cloud Computing! I am sure most of you will have same thoughts when you read the heading of this blog post – “What is Cloud Computing?”
Of course I will be explaining about Cloud Computing but I will try to ensure I make this topic an interesting read and explain in a manner which is short and concise and apparently simple to understand.
In addition, I will be posting about Cloud Computing in series of small Posts in a quicker time frame. Here is a small summary of what we’ll be covering in this series:
1. What is Cloud Computing? - Cloud Post - 1
2. SIP (Software, Infrastructure, Platform) as a service - Cloud Post - 2
3. Multi Tenant Architecture - Cloud Post - 3
4. The Vapours: Web Services - Cloud Post - 4
5. Why should you invest in services on Cloud? - Cloud Post - 5
6. The Cons! - Cloud Post - 6
7. Key Cloud Providers - Cloud Post - 7
Post reading this series, you will be able to understand the basic concepts of Cloud Computing and what Cloud has to offer that may suit your personal or business needs. If you probe deeper a bit, you might view Web from a different angle – the Cloud way.
Before we fly high into Clouds, a big Hello to my Infobesity Readers – thanks for coming back and giving a time to read. Please fasten your seat belt; we will be touching the Clouds in around 2 seconds. J
What is Cloud Computing?
In order to keep it simple, I call Cloud Computing as enabling computing on demand via a network. Since Internet is the largest and widest network available, the Cloud Computing mostly refers to enabling computing on demand via Internet.
You must be thinking, what so new about it? We have been doing it from ages – developing applications, hosting it in data centers, making it available for business. Now go back to the definition, did you notice the On-Demand aspect?
The key to Cloud Computing is you only pay for what you actually need and use. You pay for your subscription, your license – you don’t pay for actual hardware, software development, maintenance, overheads et al you would have paid otherwise. By paying for your subscription/ licenses, you are paying for everything to the Cloud providers.
Google is a great example of Cloud Computing. You use Google Products (Search, Apps, Docs, Chat etc) - mostly free but do you worry about where it is hosted, whether it will support my required space, how system will scale if 10,000 e-mail accounts are created today in Gmail? No, because everything is happening in the backdrop and you're just using it as a normal user. The beauty is you only pay for what you need and that is on user basis. If you want to use Google for Business not for personal use, you would pay $50 per user per year. Can you enable a single user in any application developed in Virtual Computing scenario (not cloud) in just $50 amount with 24x7 availablity?
I challenge you - try developing an application, buy hardware, host it, mantain and support it in $50 to enable your first user? That's hard in Virtual Computing but now possible with Cloud in picture. It lowers my TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) and hence my risk. Always calculate how much it would take to enable your first user on the system under consideration.
Let us keep it slow and simple. There is so much more to Cloud Computing which is equally exciting. I will talk further in my coming posts in this series.
What do you think about this definition of Cloud Computing? It would be interesting to read your opinions as well. Please do post your valuable comments below, we need you. Do share it if you like it :)
Everyone is busy, so no point accessing yet another blog site. Subscribe to our RSS feed
Welcome - we are back again.It has been a long time since I have posted but our intention is to give our readers a quality read. I didn't wanted to post just for sake of post. The past one and a half month I have been busy doing some researches, working on few interesting ideas. :-)
As I write I realized that this is our first post of 2011 and I want to wish our readers a very Happy new year. I hope and wish that we are looking forward to a great year ahead.
This post is about Data Visualization - what it is, how people are using it and how one can benefit from it. We will not go into technology specifically because I wanted to stick to the concept rather than options to implement it.
Introduction
As per Wikipedia, Data visualization is the study of the visual representation of data, meaning "information which has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information.
A very interesting topic indeed and a visual treat to your eyes. I want to share few examples of Data Visualization that gives us a picture of how we can represent huge amount of data on a single 14" to 21" inches of computer screen without complicating it. The Data Visualization actually helps us in reaching to conclusions by analyzing large data sets. We humans understand better when things are explained in graphical manner.
As per me: Data Visualization provides meaning to your data. And before I share the examples please smile a bit - we are definitely not sounding that boring :)
Here are few examples that I discovered and found amazing:
1. Amaztype - http://amaztype.tha.jp/
This simple utility allows you to search for Books in Amazon and present list of books as words of the query string itself. Let's say you search for "INDIA" - the results will appear as small books and represented as search query. Try it out and you will see the power of Visualization. Search for a book and click on a small book in results. You will see the price, author of the book and clicking will actually navigate you to Amazon to purchase. I simply love it rather than conventional search. What's your thoughts?
2. Time - Population Map - http://www.time.com/time/covers/20061030/where_we_live/
The Time is utilizing Data Visualization to map US population by state and cities. I can clearly view the spikes in New York, LA and Chicago telling me top 3 densely populated states in US. I can quickly figure out that East Coast and West Coast is highly populated if I compare to Central America. Isn't it providing meaning to your data? 
3. Aharef - Website Graphs - http://www.aharef.info/2006/05/websites_as_graphs.htm
Look at what this guy did by analyzing some of the common website's HTML structure. He analyzed all Anchors, tr's, td's, div's, form's, image's, blockquote's, line break's html tags and color coded it. It clearly tells how the websites are designed with clean or bad structures. I really liked the clarity in Apple and Google's structure and see how yahoo is still bogged with 80's mechanisms of coding HTML's. What do you think?
4. Revisit - http://moritz.stefaner.eu/projects/revisit/#
You'll love it if you use twitter to access the information. This is a beta tool and allow you to search for tweets with keywords . The interesting bit is how they represents RTs and conversations. Ah - amazing, I must say here a good job done. Simply perform a search on any keyword and you'll see time slotted tweets with your keyword. Click on small icons should you want to view tweets and how they are linked to each other. Also do not forget to notice small filters available on the top left and the right pane. And if that was not enough - enjoy the lovely full screen view!! Please do comment if you like it :)
5. Universe - http://universe.daylife.com/
It is a great concept of projecting any keyword search into a complete Universe. So all your search results in total will form the universe and unique search results as stars and their relationships between them forms the constellation. Try it out, it takes a while to load since it is a Java applet. You may want to try Universe of Angelina Jolie :D
If you notice carefully, one thing is common in all the above examples. It requires rigorous data collection, identification of trends and finally providing meaning to your data by giving contexts that are relevant to readers. Think about it - are you helping your customer looking at their data visually in a meaningful manner?
Please do share your experiences by posting into the comments section below. I would be eager to hear your comments and contemplate.
Shall I ask a small favor? Please share and spread the word if you found this information useful. Thank you for taking the time off and reading this article.
Hello again Infobeese friends - First of all thank you for such a warm response for our first post. J I hope everyone enjoyed the reading and grasped all the points I was trying to make.
I want to dedicate this post to a well debated topic - “Time”. There are some recent lessons learned around this topic and the experience is worth sharing with everyone. Before you read any further, I would like to highlight that these are general opinions from my own experiences. Some of them might not be valid or they may completely be irrelevant for you. So, here goes our second post:
I see around myself and notice people (many of them) killing their productive time in activities that aren’t going to help them in any manner. Facebook, General Browsing, Personal e-mails, Gossips et al to name a few.
When I ask these same people why don’t you spend your time in activities that have some worth and they’ll bounce back to you – “Oh, I don’t have that much time!!”
I just cannot stop thinking why my generation has time for all the crap but not for something valuable that will pay off to them in the longer run.
This happened to me few months back. I was unable to find quality time to read, write, focus on work, experiment new things, spending time with my family and friends to name a few. I was running short of time and then I started to analyze where my actual time is being spent.
What I noticed was my mega precious time is being washed out in Facebook, Personal e-mails, Messengers, few Internet Toys (small little useless tools on internet), and general Internet browsing.
In this post, I want to show you the reasons that state why these are useless activities and can or should be avoided.
Facebook as I foresee, is one of the major time killer in corporate world. The productive time during office hours is burnt these days by this social networking utility - Facebook. Imagine how many numbers of hours Facebook is taking from economy which could potentially produce goods, services, new products, solutions to complex problems.
Networking is a good thing but too much of it works against you. I am sure many of you glare at Facebook pages and wondering what to do. Let me pose some questions in front of you:
There is something which I learnt from Facebook:
If you are advertising and doing business via Facebook, it might be an excellent platform for you to communicate. But if you are not doing any branding or advertising on Facebook, it’s a waste of time especially when you’re accessing it in office hours. There’s no harm is being personal in your leisure time at home or while travelling. J
Another time killer that is rising up the ladder is checking personal e-mails over again and again. Let me share a situation with everyone here. I saw a guy who was clicking “Inbox” link on his Gmail for over 5 minutes during work hours. I got curious and got into a quick conversation with him:
Ravi: “Dude, why clicking it again and again?”
He said: “My friend is mailing me an invitation to a party”
Ravi: “How do you know he is mailing you the invite?”
He said: “Oh, he’s online with me on gtalk. He’s been telling me his plan from last 30 minutes”.
My mind was saying to myself: C'mon guys, from the last 30 minutes you have all the courage to waste your precious time listening to somebody's party plans and then you are so eager to see the invite. I took it as a lesson to never do the same.
Referring to our previous example, another time killer applications identified are the chat messengers. There are so many available in markets: gtalk, Skype, yahoo, ICQ, AOL (I am sure I will miss loads of them so not even trying to state each messenger here).
Unless it involves your colleagues to get in touch via messengers, I would say shut it off. World is not going to end if your friends are not going to reach you for half a day. They can call you if there’s something urgent. Focus on your work or your learning – spend your precious time in raising your bar instead.
Another time killing activity that I noticed is useless Internet browsing. I am not denying the fact that everyone should browse the internet to gather the required information but you should only do it on need basis. You must first clear yourself what exactly you’re looking for before even trying to open the browser. Otherwise, you will deviate from the track and it will become an aggressive time consuming activity. All you need to do is focus on quality browsing instead of just browsing.
There are some personal habits that I follow to ensure I am focused and I utilize my time to the best. Of course this may vary as per your habits and should then be considered as cues to have a solution for yourself.
The first thing I tried and helped a lot in achieving peace of mind is:
I didn’t know until I deactivated Facebook for a month that it is going to help me a lot. I am not bothered what everyone is doing on Farmville or whether people are commenting on my post or not.
I will activate it but on an alternate month basis only. We are social and we don’t want to be cutout from our friends and family but being active on Facebook for alternate months provides me six month of time focusing just on work. Again, a personal choice whether you want to get rid of useless addiction or stick to it. This also helped me find out how much self control I have on myself. So far so good – it’s been around 10 days or so. J
Here is an analogy: Our elders (people from the age of 1800s, early 1900s) use to squander their time meeting in gardens, playing cards/ games, sitting idle beneath the trees and spending precious time. Remember that age – yeah, I know you have a smile on your face. J Now compare Facebook to it, aren’t we doing the same thing?
The platform has changed but the overall effect is absolutely same. Plus, you’re too much worried about tracking a notification, other person’s wall, checking comments – oh please lord, give me a break.
I would suggest you to check your personal email accounts once or twice a day only. Unless, you have an urgent e-mail that you are expecting and is going to change your life. You don’t want to click Inbox link for 5 minutes to receive a Party Invite, do you? J
Caution: Please note the above is true for Personal emails only. You should check your official emails often otherwise your colleagues/partners would be searching for you and you will miss an important aspect of communication at your work place.
Keep a tab on your browsing. Focus more on browsing for official or learning purposes. One of the best way to track your browsing is to have two different browsers – one for official and another for personal browsing. I usually use Chrome for personal browsing and Firefox for official browsing. It helps me organize myself in a better manner.
At any point, if I am spending more time on Chrome – I usually switch myself back to Firefox to get back to work.
If you really want to focus on something and crack a problem, close off all the messengers. Disable all the notifications. Nobody is going to shout on you, if you don’t reply them just after a second when they sent a message.
Everyone knows the other guy is busy and might take time to reply. We can always say sorry if we are late in replying but at least we will be able to finish one task efficiently. J
Another way to stop wasting your precious time is to focus on only those activities which you should really be concerned about. Identify your interest areas that are going to help you and channelize your effort in accordance.
Many times I think aloud and it usually return to my mind that Time itself is saying to you “Catch me if you want”, otherwise I’m gone. A minute passed will never return in your life. The best thinking, idea, work will be produced by you if you sit in peace of mind and think over it. Try it out – it helped me a lot, might help you as well!!
Like it – spread the world!! Share it with your dear ones.
P.S: Special thanks to my friend Gaurav Anand for helping me in minor edits!!
I usually come across this line: “Ravi, I want to become a Business Analyst”
My first response to all of them is always, what do you know about Business Analysis? I always get weird answer to this question because mostly they are people at early stages of their career getting attracted with the nature of the job (client facing, travels, uncertainty to name a few).
Of course, it is an exciting and respectful job and you want to become a business analyst but you should first invest genuine time and learn about the same.
I always show a deep interest in those candidates who start the conversation with asking questions like: “Ravi, what is actually Business Analysis?”
I am not going to type IIBA definition of Business Analysis here but will try to explain in my own words. For those of you wondering what is IIBA? - IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis) is a professional association for Business Analysis profession and serves as Business Analysis Body of Knowledge.
Business Analysis is the very act of identifying business needs and depicting a solution. There you go, that is it. If you can do that – you are a Business Analyst.
You must be thinking where are IT systems here? – Well, depicting a solution does not mean you have to always suggest an IT system but rather it could be one of the solutions that you can possibly suggest to your customers.
The very job of the Business analyst is to identify business need and suggest solution. Anything that suffices the business need is a solution. The gap between business need and probable solution is a “Requirement”. Our job is to highlight these requirements.
Ok, now you understand what Business analysis is – what skills do you require to become a BA?
As a BA, everyone expects you to speak clearly so that those involved in solving the business problem understands you. You should convince stakeholders in your suggested solution so that they buy-in. Once stakeholders agree on a solution, you need to communicate the same to people who will develop or work on the solution. If you have suggested an IT solution, these people will be developers. The pre-requisite here is that you have to communicate as simple as you can. You are there on a project to simplify things not to complicate. Why use Jargon and flashy words then.
You should learn the art of communicating with two hats on:
Business Hat: Wear this hat, when you’re speaking to customer, executives, and managers. These people are usually interested in the output and how it is going to solve their problem. I would suggest do not move into dirty level details unless asked for. Of course, we’ll go into detail but considering the audience.
For example: A CEO who is investing the money in a project would not be interest in how you are keeping the sales information in database with primary and foreign keys. But a Techie at customer end would love to get into discussion of this sort with you. As a BA, you should have a big heart and open mind to welcome discussions at any level.
Analyst Hat: Wear this hat, when you’re playing with low level details. These people are usually interested in how unique is your solution, how you are keeping the data, the screens, the workflows, the processes, et al.
You might want to go to white board, have a small visual and then start explaining. Take your time – BA’s are also human J. I like pictures; they speak more than my words.
All in all your talk should be cohesive, interesting, short but complete – otherwise people will eventually lose interest in you. In business world, time is money. No one wants to invest time with you unless they get something concrete out of it.
Oh, so you mean BA is a technical writer? If you’re a BA or an aspiring one – you must have faced this question many times till now.
Well - not at all, we are not technical writer. Technical writing is a special skill and require different bent of mind set. I won’t talk much about technical writer profile here but recommend you to Google it. May be we can invite a technical writer for future posts.
We cannot be everywhere – Stakeholders, developers, Integration system vendors, the teams are getting distributed these days. You should be able to clearly document the business problems, the requirements and the shared vision of solution to bring everyone on consensus. The key here is to write unambiguous requirements where anyone can only make one interpretation. Write in active voice and focus on defining what system “must” do rather than “should” do. I usually use “musts” and “wills” because it gives clear instructions.
Finally, I would suggest you to sit first with stakeholders and then with developers to give them your vision and understanding of the requirements. It would be very beneficial to have lead developers explain you what they have got from your session.
I came across a nice article depicting rules of how to write unambiguous requirements:
http://tynerblain.com/blog/2006/06/12/writing-unambiguous-requirements/
“Do you know? – The misinterpretation of requirements is the source of 40% of all the bugs.”
Be a good listener if you want to get a real knack of customer’s problem. They have hired you (or your company) because there is a need to achieve a goal. You must get a clear understanding of their problems before even trying to suggest any solution.
Do not interrupt when they are in a flow and telling their story of problems. You will miss some key pain areas that otherwise would have been put forward had you given them their time to speak. Wait for your turn and ask right questions at right time.
Back in your mind keep a track of all pain areas. The business is facing these issues because of some bad decisions from past. They are examples for you that you should learn from. If possible, build a knowledge base of these pain areas.
While listening to customers, understand their business model and need. There are so many wants at business level that requires your attention. They are waiting to originate provided you give them required attention. Ask right questions, move into detail, apply your brain and certainly you’ll find few questions that are unanswered. Throw these questions to your customer – try what if’s - they are usually beneficial in these scenarios. They might lead you to new path and new findings.
If you have got an idea, you have to bring it forward in front of everyone through any medium. Fire an e-mail, reach to your co-workers, give a phone call to anyone from customer’s team and discuss your idea with them. If you believe in something, you got to speak up.
Think of it this way, what is worst that can happen if you discuss your idea? I can only think of them saying, no this is not going to work for me, let’s brainstorm further. But there is a chance of your idea working for them and my friend – you’re recognized. It’s not that hard to be a BA. J
This small thing can be very effective in your BA career. Try to take control of customer’s requirement, own it and run the show. You don’t have to run away from the responsibility rather, take ownership. This will not only benefit you but provide you with more opportunities to learn upfront.
Try and learn about various software systems available in the market, learn from them and see how uniquely they are solving the problems. The analogy usually helps in solving business problems uniquely. These systems out there have some quality brain already applied on it. It is a knowledge source for you. Ask questions – why something is kept like that? Why like this why not like that?
You have to appreciate and love what you’re doing. You should always look at positive aspects in whatever you do whether it’s a BA or any profession. Keep yourself motivated, it’s an interesting job – you’ve been waiting to become a BA and here’s your chance. Prove yourself in couple of projects, you’re good to go!!
Don’t worry if you are missing with any of the above skills. Search for them and try to work on them. Being a BA is not an innate skill, it can be worked upon and develop. Work on yourself day after day – you’ll surely see improvement.
When there are some to-do’s, there are some not-to-do’s as well that you should not do as BA:
Yes, we are solving business problem but don’t do solution. Try to stay at a requirement level and identify behaviors expected from the system. Stick to “WHAT” is desired rather than “HOW” system/solution will achieve it.
Customer is king – but that doesn’t mean we have to say yes to everything. Rather, we are here to ensure the thinking applied should really solve the problem optimally and in a desired fashion. If you don’t like an idea or have a better one, challenge. Be sure to be diligent and bring your point to the fore.
Do not over complicate, keep things simple. It will help you in the long run. Try to break down problems into individual aspects and try resolving each and every aspect individually and then collectively. Simplifying things have great power - It makes life easy but is the most difficult thing to achieve. We humans tend to complicate simple things, try avoiding it.
Thinking where shall I start? Well there are lots of activities that you can plan and keep on adding in your kitty to reach nearer to the BA profile. You can start working as an assistant to a full-time BA and watch him in action for few weeks. Show interest and speak to your manager, senior, boss or anyone who can make this happen for you. Show that you’re really passionate about this profile and have learnt a lot. You may want to speak to that BA about the same to mentor you.
There are other qualities that I have seen in BA’s (me and other BA’s I’ve met) to keep them geared for the profile:
Read a lot; watch out how others are doing things and have an eagerness and hunger to learn. Buy some books, subscribe to few blogs/RSS feeds/newsletters that are of your interest. It can be anything from cooking to computers. These days content on any possible topic is easily available. I know you must be thinking about Infobesity but a little effort towards this area is worth.
Reading keeps your mind fresh and makes you open to new ideas.
There are many BA sites that are available where people write, share their experience, mentors other fellow BA’s who are seeking help. It will not only keep you up-to-date but also helps you connect to new people from the same profession. I am listing down few sites for you that you can join:
http://www.batimes.com/ - watch for Kupe Kupersmith (a wonderful BA always up for help)
http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/ - Laura Brandenburg (another wonderful BA always up – loved her writing style)
http://www.joenewbert.com/ - Joe Newbert (a fantastic guy from South Africa, a good connection)
http://www.theiiba.org – The IIBA official website.
All you have to do is network with BA’s through any medium and be a part of tribe. Twitter is a great place where you’ll find many full-time BA’s who are eager to help you. Search for #baot (business analysts on twitter) hash tag and you can simply follow to receive updates from them.
Don’t rush. There is no definite timeframe in which you can be a BA but will surely depend on amount of effort you will apply to reach the home. I wish you all best of luck. I am reachable at ravi.pardesi@gmail.com. Should you have any query, I am happy to help. You can also follow me on twitter at @rpardesi.
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