SOA & Business Analysts
/ Stephanie FamuyideThe term, "SOA", has been thrown around a lot in the professional world and often means different things to different people.
What exactly does SOA mean?
Instead of having separate monolithic applications that function independently, an organization invests in developing reusable “services”. These services (applications) would not need to be developed over and over again when needed since they can be reused.
With SOA, different applications can easily be integrated and gain access to the same data or features. One common example of an SOA implementation is Amazon Web Services. Another example is having a code with the capability to convert measurements from “ft to cm” which can be reused in other applications when needed.
SOA is being used increasingly across organizations. Business Analysts that understand how it works can set themselves apart from the crowd. This implies that the way business analysts are required to analyse requirements within an SOA environment is certainly different from the traditional approach.
Service-orientation is not limited to architecture design and extends to business analysis. BAs would be expected to work with Enterprise Architects and SOA experts to determine how best requirements and business rules can be crafted and grouped for maximum visibility and efficiency during SOA implementation.
Picture Attribution: "Button Of Service Isolated On White Background" by cbenjasuwan/Freedigitalphotos.net
The idea of representing data visually has been around for ages. In the business setting, we visualize data to help decision-makers grasp difficult concepts or identify new patterns, often using pie charts, graphs, infographics, and other visual aids.
In some cases, a software application will need to send data to or receive data from another. How does one achieve this integration between two separate applications built with separate development languages? An application programming interface (API) is a set of routines for achieving this. It specifies how software components should communicate with one another.
User stories play an important role in agile software development. Their main goal is to shift the focus from writing about requirements to talking about them.
There are plenty of try-before-you-pay-a-lot offers for Requirement Management Software. Good, free RM software, however, is rare. This article sketches out three of the most promising packages and informs you of the pros and cons of each. Not all of them are winners. But there are still some excellent, free bargains available. Let’s see what’s out there.
Communicating requirements visually is a very effective way of communicating with stakeholders. However, if you’re not a designer, creating beautiful visual diagrams, charts, plans, and maps can seem like a challenge. Luckily, we have tools like Lucidchart, that make it simple to communicate with stakeholders using easy-to-use tools and pre-designed templates.
Though having a technical background is not a prerequisite to becoming an effective business analyst, it is important that BAs understand the underlying technology behind the solutions they propose, so that they can better advise stakeholders on its limitations and possibilities.
Since the invention and introduction of the entity-relationship modelling technique by Peter Chen in 1970s, data modelling techniques have been used to represent information requirements of an organization as well as describe how data should be used to meet the requirements given by the end user.
You shouldn’t have to create an excellent design from scratch. Most apps are the result of iterative design, a methodology based on a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining. Design mockups play a significant role in regards to this methodology, allowing designers to create example designs in a fraction of the time it would take using traditional tools.
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