Blog
Search or Browse the BA-Cube Blog
What Happens When You Don’t Have a Product Vision?
I’ve given Agile Product Ownership talks at a few conferences and the response has been great. BAs and BA leaders are beginning to see their connection to product ownership functions, but they are also discovering that there is a huge gap in the industry about what...
What's Your 2015 Lightbulb Moment?
As the year draws to a close, it seems natural to pause and take a look backwards. Instead of beating ourselves up for the well-intentioned goals we left in the dust somewhere around January 13th, let’s focus on the things we did accomplish, and look towards a new...
Turn and Face the Strange Changes!
I've been on the road this fall, sharing my "Face the Strange" message with conference attendees across the United States. Inspired by David Bowie's 1971 song, "Changes," I am encouraging BAs to face and embrace the changes taking place in our industry. Many changes...
Don't Plan Too Much: Make Room for New Opportunities
After a fall filled with work travel, I am so happy to be HOME for the holidays! It's truly time for reflection, celebration and maybe even a little relaxation! Looking back on the year, one guiding principle stands out in my personal and professional life: "Don't...
Value-Driven Planning Brings Context to Iterations
Agile planning includes more than just task-based planning before each iteration. It's the value-driven planning associated with the product and the releases that truly boosts the efficiency/effectiveness of the team. Who builds an agile plan? In most cases, the...
3 Tips to Modernize Your Requirements!
Interested in modernizing your requirements practices? Whether your team is waterfall, agile or somewhere in between, these three tips will help you get you started: Collaborate!Get up! Get out of your cube! Get on the phone! Talk to key stakeholders and users...
Good Meetings Create Shared Understanding, Not BRDs!
Deliverables and artifacts were a focal point of BA work during the early part of my career. If I look back, it seemed the primary purpose of a BA was to generate paper—lots of paper—usually in the form of a giant BRD (business requirements document), and other...
Don't Skip the Analysis When Moving to Shorter Iterations!
In most organizations, the days of multi-year, single release, all-or-nothing waterfall projects have come to an end. Instead, teams (agile, waterfall and everything in between) are trending toward smaller, shorter iterations. They hope smaller iterations will reduce...
Struggling project? Maybe it’s your user stories!
Are you on a sinking ship? If your agile project is struggling to stay above water, it's possible you have holes in your user stories! Do a quick user story inspection. Do you see any of these warning signs? 1. Inside Out User Stories: Do your user stories focus...
Can You Develop Standards That Embrace Both Agile and Traditional Approaches?
In recent years, we’ve seen even the most conservative, tightly-structured organizations begin to experiment with agile and hybrid approaches. These organizations have a long and comfortable relationship with the traditional waterfall approach, but their curiosity...
Better Brainstorming and Agile Requirements Learning Circles
Big Congrats to IIBA! IIBA released version 3 of their Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) on Wednesday, April 15. BA-Squared CEO Angela Wick contributed to the BABOK as a Core Team Member. She enjoyed collaborating with the large team of dedicated IIBA staff...
Why Are We Still Talking About the Role of the BA and PM on Agile Projects?
It seems like we have been talking about this for 10+ years! We probably will continue the discussion for another 10! Titles cause confusion. As Kupe’s blog talked about last month, confusion still exists regarding the PM and BA roles in general. The industry works...