THE IMPORTANCE OF NICHE TECHNOLOGIES IN BUSINESS ANALYSIS. - Kat Okwera Jan 2019

Transcription

1 THE IMPORTANCE OF NICHE TECHNOLOGIES IN BUSINESS ANALYSIS - Kat Okwera Jan 2019

2 HEY THERE I M A BA TOO! Kat Okwera Programmer Systems Designer Web Developer Project Manager Business Analyst E-Learning Develop Consultan Graphic Designer

3 A BIT ABOUT ME 10 years of BA work Some past clients: Technologies: SharePoint WordPress MySQL Axure Adobe Photoshop Adobe Illustrator HTML / CSS/ PHP / Javascript / SQL Learning Management Systems Excel

4 PAST PROJECT EXPERIENCE Communication Portals Process Automation Forecasting Portals Learning Management Systems Websites Reporting Solutions Data Collection Platforms HR Policy Tools Training Development SEO Database Design Data Analyses

5 WHAT IS A BUSINESS ANALYST? An Agent of Change Business analysis is a disciplined approach for introducing and managing change to organizations

6 THE REALITY OF BUSINESS ANALYSIS What you probably think a BA is Someone who helps advise the design of solutions to help how organizations work What companies often expect a BA to be Admin Support Requirements Gathering Project Managers Note Takers Client Managers Quality Assurance People Light Weight Tech Specialists Technology Subject Matter Experts

7 WHAT A BA REALLY NEEDS TO BE: People Person Client Manager Requirements Gatherer Strong Communicator Technically Savvy Tester Advisor Conduit between stakeholders and the implementers

8 WHY IS TECHNOLOGY SO IMPORTANT?

9 A FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION What tools will you use to solve your business problem?

10 THE BASIC STEPS OF SOLUTIONS DESIGN Analysis Design Plan Deploy Maintain

11 You develop / gather requirements Analysis Design WHERE A BA FITS IN You will help the development team create a design You may help create the business case / plan Plan Deploy You will facilitate rolling out this solution You may even maintain / evaluate the solution Maintain

12 What technology to use and why? THE BIG QUESTION

13 Will you use any technology for requirements gathering? What tools will you use communicate your plan / work with your team? Plan What tech will you use to track success? WHERE TECHNOLOGY FITS IN Analysis Maintain Design Deploy What tech will be used to develop the solution and track the progress? What tech will you use to help users to use the solution

14 HOW TECHNICAL DO YOU NEED TO BE?

15 Capabilities TECH SAVVY NOT TECH MASTERY Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of a platform is critical to being able to analyze a solution. Costs Technology Integrations Limitations

16 HOW WILL YOU INTERFACE WITH YOUR TEAM? Requirements Gathering Technical Guidance Technical Translation Expectation Management Quality Assurance

17 COMMON CATEGORIES OF BA TECH TOOLS 1.Requirements Gathering 1.Team Tools 1.Collaborative Platforms 1.CRMS 1.Workflow Engines

18 LET S TALK ABOUT REQUIREMENTS GATHERING Wireframes Mockups Discovery Documents Technical Specifications Dependency Documentation What technology will you use to generate these?

19 REQUIREMENTS GATHERING Tools Axure Wireframes Mockups UX / UI Vignettes Requirements Gathering Documents Technical Specifications

20 TEAM COLLABORATIVE Technologies to support how you work with your teams

21 COLLABORATIVE CLIENT PLATFORMS Technologies clients may use to run their organizations

22 INDUSTRY SPECIFIC PLATFORMS Each industry may have technologies that are specific to them. Knowledge of these is useful when trying to support these industries.

23 CRMS Tools that help organizations manage their customer relationships

24 WORKFLOW ENGINES How will you implement your business processes?

25 PROGRAMMING / SCRIPTING LANGUAGES Ruby Python PHP JavaScript Java CSS HTML XML SQL Jquery What languages does your environment require?

26 THERE ARE MANY TOOLS TO GET THE JOB DONE What tools will you use? How will they increase your effectiveness? How will they guide your planning processes?

27 COMPANIES HAVE TECHNOLOGIES THEY PREFER

28 Requirements Gathering Team Collaboration Client / End User Platforms Project Management Evaluation THE MANY WAYS NICHE TECHNOLOGIES ARE PART OF BA WORK

29 WHICH TECHNOLOGIES WILL YOU KNOW? Your level of understanding of technologies will guide your functions as a business analyst.

30 WHAT DOES ALL OF THIS MEAN FOR A BA? Choose some platforms companies use to have expertise. You can t analyze a solution if you don t understand the environment. You are an asset to a project when you understand all angles of a solution.

31 QUESTIONS?

32 CONTACT INFORMATION Phone: Web: Linkedin: