Bob Lambert

Jazz on the harmonica

Tag: Business Analysis

  • Business requirements up front

    “Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” – Pablo Picasso It is an old story: about 30% of IT application projects succeed, 45% are “challenged,” and the other quarter fail…

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  • Study data early to improve application alignment

    A recurring theme in the literature on IT over the years has been frequent failure of IT projects.  Most studies lay the bulk of the blame on requirements (examples here and here).  One way to improve accuracy and fit-to-purpose of requirements, and thereby promote project success, is to include data analysis as well as process…

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  • No business value in nulls

    It seems I’m frequently in conversations about using null to represent a business value.  To paraphrase, say there are credit and cash customers, and there’s a suggestion to set “Customer_Type” to “C” for credit and null for cash.  To data and database professionals this is obviously a bad idea, but it’s not obvious from a…

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  • A pretty good requirements analysis checklist

    Recently I was asked for a high level requirements plan for a large IT conversion.  I googled around a little for something standard.  I found some good references (see links at the bottom of this post), but not exactly what I was looking for: a simple, method-agnostic layout of the high level steps and checkpoints…

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  • Free form diagrams part 3: just right, with a few rules

    Free form diagramming doesn’t only mean “no rules”, it also means “just right”. This post, last in a three part series on free form diagramming, gives some simple guidelines for getting the technique right.  Part one talked about the tension between rigor and expression in diagramming for analysis and design, and how more precise diagrams…

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  • Free form diagrams part 2: real world applications

    This is part two of a three part series on free form diagramming for IT projects.  This entry reviews free form diagramming in practice. Part one talked about the tension between rigor and expression in diagramming for analysis and design, and how more precise diagrams can hinder rather than help communications with business people.  Part…

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  • Free form diagrams part 1: rigor versus business appeal

    One effective way of communicating complexity, especially in the overall architecture of a system, is the free form diagram.  A free form diagram can directly address unique characteristics of a system in a way that business people can understand. Out on a walk some years ago I met an acquaintance who happened to be a…

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  • Data modeling: essential business skill

    Everyone involved in managing or improving a business process should understand data modeling.  For real. And almost everyone is in a position to improve a business process by understanding the current one and making suggestions to improve it.  Understanding a business process means understanding business objects, events, the relations among them, and the business rules…

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