Category: Business Requirements
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How a BA could be your IT Project’s most valuable player?
“What do you do?” I was a little hurt when a life-long friend asked me this question, after all, I remembered that she is a Director of HR. “You know what I do. I’m a Business Analyst.” I replied. “No, I know you’re a Business Analyst silly,” she said, “What does that mean? What … do you do?”…
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How Business Analysts Can Deal With Cultural Differences
Many businesses are increasingly operating in a global work environment; using the best teams and people from a variety of regions and countries to complete their projects. In this way they can draw on strengths from certain groups and also minimise costs. Consequently more and more people are working with remote colleagues and collaborating with…
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Understanding User Acceptance Testing in a Project
If you work in the IT, digital or software industry, you will have come across ‘User Acceptance Testing’ in relation to projects. Whilst you may not currently be required to manage this specific project phase, it is useful to understand the process for your future development as a project management professional. Here’s an overview explaining…
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Ten QA Tips for Project Managers
Quality Assurance is the process concerned with monitoring the quality of all aspects of a project so that the final product fulfils all requirements. So QA is performed before the product is finished – it is an essential part of project management and one of the factors that will determine whether the project is a…
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5 Reasons Why You Need User Acceptance Testing
As a business owner or employee, performing User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is the final process in a long line of tasks that will result in a successful completion of a project. It is the last stage before a product is finally launched. Before the actual UAT however, the product already underwent testing, checking and review…
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The importance of end-users in IT Projects
I met up with an old colleague recently who I worked with when we were both IT Project Managers for a large blue-chip corporation. Our conversation got me thinking about how often the opinions of end-users in IT projects are dismissed as of little importance or, worse, ignored completely. The stakeholders, senior management, project manager,…
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Let’s All Learn from the Business Analysts
Business analysis involves defining, scoping and prioritising initiatives (usually projects) and, particularly on complex projects, is an essential first step and then a continuing process as requirements change along the way (as they nearly always do). Thorough business analysis ensures the goals and objectives of the project are clear, which helps keep the project on…
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Six steps to never making another bad IT hire
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh once said that his bad hires had cost the company “well over $100 million.” Whilst it’s reassuring that a firm that usually gets everything so right … occasionally doesn’t … it is mind boggling how much a bad hire can cost. I mean, there’s the obvious cost of having to recruit…
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User Acceptance Testing is Necessary for Every Project
A recent project that was done for a small business I know was a good example of why formal User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is essential for all projects no matter what their size and complexity – even those small projects that are more of a makeover than a full-blown project. This particular project involved “re-skinning”…
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Why you need to build testing into your project
We’ve all had experiences where something doesn’t work quite as it should. Websites that take us to a ‘404’ page, apps for our smartphones that keep crashing and products that aren’t really up to the job. For the user, this is frustrating. For the developer, this is result of poor or improper testing. Projects are…