Business Analysis

How Well Are You Using Your Project Managers and Business Analysts?

June 29, 2015 Dan Stober Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

How well does your organization leverage institutional business analysis (BA) and project management (PM) experience within IT projects? From an enterprise perspective, most organizations recognize that there is a disconnect between knowledge of processes and the effective application of that knowledge. It has been talked about and written about for years within the PM and BA communities. So how can organizations bridge the gap between institutional knowledge and project results? The answer is to synchronize IT, project management and business analysis competencies so that those skills translate into capabilities.

So You Need Business Analysis Training

June 26, 2015 Perry McLeod Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

Successful business-systems analysts usually have a combination of education and experience in the field of business analysis. It is common that a newbie business analyst finds that he or she is unskilled at dealing with the challenges of the occupation. It is a great idea to look for training to understand the real-world landscape of IT project lifecycle, where and how a business analyst fits and career advancement. The goal of this article is to provide a large-picture, across-the-globe view of the different training options available.

Why it’s a Great Time to be in HR and L&D

June 25, 2015 Michael Stierhoff Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

HR and Learning and Development professionals have a unique opportunity for personal and professional growth as business transformation impacts practically every organization on the planet. If you are hiring, training or are responsible for these processes, it’s likely that senior management has already asked you to take a leading role in the quest for agility and it’s a great time to inventory every object in the toolbox.The good news is that you have an exceptional opportunity to help fill that gap because you are in the optimal position to make the case for your workforce and your customers.

The Difference Between Fights and Arguments

June 16, 2015 Perry McLeod Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

Fights and arguments — two words that are used synonymously but could not be further apart. We all know that a fight is a disagreement based not on rational thought but rather on an emotional position. Fights, filled with gainsaying, fallacious thinking and emotional hijacking seldom do anyone any good. Argumentation, on the other hand, is reason giving. Argumentation, the gateway to effective reasoning, is an essential skill for any business-systems analyst. But what is argumentation?

Think Not Machines Systems Thinkers

June 10, 2015 Perry McLeod Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

In my last blog, I wrote that business analysts are really business-systems analysts — where business and systems are joined to make one word. Business systems are interdependent and interrelated organic and/or mechanical entities, which come together to create value for the organization and the rest of its stakeholders. Complex systems involving people and machines, mired in issues, constraints and other problems, require systems-oriented thinking to identify the true solution. To find the root cause to an issue, systems-oriented thinking requires a business-systems analyst to examine problems by breaking them into constitute elements; looking at each of them independently and again as various permutations or combinations until identified underlying patterns lead to solution options.