BPMN Diagrams For Dummies

BPMN Diagrams For Dummies

Business process modeling notation, or BPMN, is how BPM professionals communicate the design of a specific process, be it simple or exceedingly complex. Various steps in any process may come up. Notation helps a business process management (BPM) professional identify these at a glance and describe what needs to be done at any given point during the process based on element types.

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How to Get Stakeholders to Open Up During Elicitation Sessions

How to Get Stakeholders to Open Up During Elicitation Sessions

If you’ve worked as a Business Analyst for a while, you’ve probably encountered stakeholders who appear quite economical with information. You know there’s more to the issue than they’re letting on. The key question is, how can you get stakeholders to open up when conducting elicitation events like interviews or workshop sessions? 

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What BAs Should Know About Feedback Analysis

What BAs Should Know About Feedback Analysis

I particularly find the concept of feedback analysis quite versatile because it can be applied to one’s professional development as well as the concept of implementing business projects successfully over time. Feedback analysis can give insight into your performance, whether as an individual or as a team.

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Solving Complex Business Problems: An Introduction to Soft Systems Methodology - Part 2

Solving Complex Business Problems: An Introduction to Soft Systems Methodology - Part 2

As discussed in the previous article, Solving Complex Business Problems: An Introduction to Soft Systems Methodology, the steps of SSM can be applied in any particular order and the analyst may choose to skip or apply steps depending on what is needed to understand the problem situation. The steps of SSM that will be applied in this article include:

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Solving Complex Business Problems: An Introduction to Soft Systems Methodology

Solving Complex Business Problems: An Introduction to Soft Systems Methodology

Some business problems are by their nature, complex to handle. Due to their complexity and the non-suitability of traditional problem solving methods, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) can be used as the methodology for arriving at recommendations for action and positive change. This recommendation for action can range from making minute changes to a process to introducing a new information system.

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15 Quick Tips For Modelling Business Processes

15 Quick Tips For Modelling Business Processes

Business Process Modelling is a technique, one that comes with standards that are understandable to stakeholders if presented in the right form but this is not always the case. The problem with drawing process models is that they can quickly become unwieldy over time, hard to maintain and difficult to understand, thereby defeating their main purpose which is to convey meaning.

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20 Nuggets for Conducting Stakeholder Interviews

20 Nuggets for Conducting Stakeholder Interviews

The quote by William Shatner certainly underscores the importance of the interview as a fact-finding technique. While interviews provide analysts the opportunity to learn about stakeholders’ needs, stakeholders in the process of being interviewed, also start to unravel the intricacies of what they want – their elusive requirements.

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The 80-20 Rule: The Law of the Vital Few & The Trivial Many

The 80-20 Rule: The Law of the Vital Few & The Trivial Many

What if it’s only 20% of the requirements that will actually deliver the most (80%) business value? What if it’s only 20% of the business problems that cause the most issues within the organization? Focusing on key issues and tasks instead of attempting to tackle everything at once can help you achieve huge benefits in the short term. 

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