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SDTimes posted an article about the ever-increasing importance of the business analyst (BA) in software development. In this piece, author Jennifer deJong describes the new style analyst, a role that demands more IT expertise and a deeper business understanding than ever before. No longer the generic bridge between business and IT, the new business analyst must tap into everything from strategic issues (e.g. a company’s exit strategy) to technical implementation specifics.
This “new analyst” idea underscores what iRise has been evangelizing. The BA’s role is to bridge the communication gap between business and IT. iRise’s visualization software elegantly solves that problem by bringing both parties together to easily review and iterate a proposed application, then use the approved simulation as a blueprint to which both teams refer back. Visualization is what allows a BA to cut through the miscommunication issues that often plague application projects. The status quo for doing visual mock-ups has traditionally been static wire frames and PowerPoint screen shots – a process that can be painful, costly and time-intensive. As the BA function has evolved, the technology has now finally caught up so business analysts can fly through simulations in high fidelity with a group of stakeholders, leaving the days of missed requirements and rework behind.
To learn more about the shifting role of the business analyst, listen to Carey Schwaber’s Webinar and the report she co-authored with Rob Karel.
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iRise recently conducted a national survey of IT professionals around application definition. The survey revealed that 72% of IT professionals are suffering from increased development cost due to rework and scope creep . According to the survey, poor communication is a fundamental problem. Respondents cited “business stakeholders not being fully invested in the definition process’ or ‘having unrealistic expectations of the end result,” as the key problem in application definition communication.
Last week’s blog post by Forrester Research’s Carey Schwaber, “Which Vendors Have Made A Difference In App Dev?” 
acknowledged iRise for “waking up the market to the limitations of textual requirements.” This survey shows that many IT professionals are still in need of “awakening.”
Additional survey findings include:
- Over 60% of companies experienced delays, cost overruns and missing features in an application development project in the past two years;
- IT professionals that are prototyping applications are using MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint and MS Visio to document requirements, and over 60% of these respondents are not fully satisfied with their current method of defining applications;
- 30% of participants said that they are not testing applications before development at all; and,
- Almost 80% of respondents are interested in eliciting customer feedback using a fully functional prototype before coding.
To download the free executive report of this survey visit:
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Forrester analyst Carey Schwaber published a blog post this week titled “Which Vendors Have Made A Difference In App Dev?” - and iRise was nominated as one of her 5 difference-making vendors.
Carey started out her post by wondering which of the vendors she covers have had a broad-reaching impact on changing the way development works:
Forget which vendor’s tool has the best bells and whistles. Which vendor has really made the most difference? Which vendor has delivered products or services that have really improved project outcomes? Or resulted in worse project outcomes? Not just a single project outcome, but hundreds or even thousands of project outcomes.
iRise was nominated by Carey for:
Waking the market up to the limitations of textual requirements and providing an accessible and effective alternative.
In addition to mentioning iRise partner IBM Rational, Carey also nominated Sun (Java Platform), Junit (test-driven development) and Thoughtworks (agile practices pioneer) as game-changing vendors.
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At iRise, we have been preaching for many years that words by themselves do a poor job of defining the requirements for software applications. So, it’s refreshing to see someone else – especially a Forrester analyst – pile on to the discussion.
Tom Grant, a senior analyst in the Technology Marketing group at Forrester, published a research document this week titled “Improving Your Product Management Tools”. While the note is targeted at product marketing and management professionals, the roles and tasks performed by these workers have significant if not total overlap with business analyst and usability professions.
The problem is actually double-edged. According to Tom, “most product managers rely on tools – predominantly Microsoft Office – that do not adequately support them.” And while there are tools specifically designed to handle product requirements, the majority of technology companies do not embrace them.
Tom further identifies 6 functions needed to address the requirements challenges for product managers and describes the shortcomings of trying to use Microsoft Office, Web 2.0 tools and CRM systems:
- Collection
- Analysis
- Prediction
- Connection
- Communication
- Updates
By the way, iRise was mentioned as one of the tools for the Communication function which Tom defines as modeling or simulating use cases to communicate to stakeholders.
Tom’s research also pointed out that innovators are more than twice as likely to adopt requirements tools. He examined companies based on their size, company age and product delivery and found that requirements tools were adopted at a much higher rate in companies that were 1-5 years old, smaller than 500 employees and who used software as a service (SaaS) delivery.
The full 16-page report is available from Forrester for $279 and is worth a read for anyone involved in defining and managing requirements. You can also read Tom Grant’s blog at this link and he welcomes feedback.
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Catalyze Webcast – “10 Tips for Driving Better Project Outcomes”
Featuring Carey Schwaber of Forrester Research
Thursday, June 12 @ 10am Pacific/1pm Eastern
Register for the webcast here.
It’s no secret that in the battle to bring effective business software to market on time and on budget, business analysts are on the front line.
- What can business analysts do to improve requirements definition practices and make a difference in project outcomes?
- What skills do business analysts need?
- What roles can they play?
- What tools should they use, and what role should those tools play?
Don’t miss this valuable online seminar sponsored by iRise and featuring one of the industry’s leading experts on the subject of requirements definition, Carey Schwaber, a senior analyst from Forrester Research. Carey has talked with hundreds of organizations that use a variety of requirements definition tools and methods. From this experience and accumulated knowledge, she has developed a set of 10 practical tips that you can immediately put into action in your own organization.
If you cannot make the live webcast, the recording will be uploaded to the iRise and Catalyze websites by June 16.
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It’s Business Analyst appreciation month at CIO.com and Forrester – and it’s a great time to be a business analyst as they are definitely a HOT commodity according to a recent research report.
Thomas Wailgum of CIO.com wrote an article last week titled “Why Business Analysts Are So Important for IT and CIOs“. In the article, Thomas references a new report that came out this month from Forrester analysts Carey Schwaber and Rob Karel which is called “The New Business Analyst“.
The Forrester report provides a “better understanding of this crucial yet largely undefined role”. One business analyst interviewed for the report said “everyone agrees on the importance of the business analyst role, but few know exactly what it is that business analysts do.”
Schwaber and Karel interviewed 338 business analysts and reviewed more than 29,000 business analyst job descriptions. They conclude that there is not a standard definition and that the roles between business-oriented and IT-oriented analysts is blurring. In fact, they coined a new role called the “Business Technology Analyst” or BT Analyst.
The Forrester report also pointed out several things that smart CIOs and IT managers can do today to prepare for the future:
- Look in your own backyard for talent
- Look for BT analysts in untapped parts of your business
- Establish centers of excellence for BT analysts
Check out these links for the complete story:
- Forrester “The New Business Analyst” – $279 unless you are a Forrester client
- CIO.com Article – “Why Business Analysts Are So Important for IT and CIOs” - be sure to check out the comments and feedback at the end of the article
- Carey Schwaber spoke at the Fusion ‘07 and her video interview is available from the iRise website
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Google (and others) made a huge splash on October 31st with their announcement about the new OpenSocial alliance. This blog post is a compilation of insights and links to what some of the leading voices are saying about OpenSocial.
What is OpenSocial? Essentially, OpenSocial provides the ability for companies to extend their website experiences to existing communities on popular social networks using mini-applications. The official word according to Google is that “OpenSocial provides a common set of APIs for social applications across multiple websites. With standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can create apps that access a social network’s friends and update feeds.”
It is also important to note that OpenSocial is not “GoogleSocial”. Most of the leading social networks including MySpace, Bebo, SixApart, Orkut, Salesforce.com, LinkedIn, Ning, Plaxo, Friendster, Oracle and others have signed on to the OpenSocial alliance. The notable exception currently is that Facebook has not officially joined yet.
Who cares and why? Web strategists, developers, marketers, user experience professionals and others who define and design websites will be impacted.
What are the challenges? First of all, the announcement was just made 2 days ago, so everything surrounding the announcement and alliance is all pretty new. According to Web Strategist and Forrester analyst Jerimiah Owyang, some of the other challenges include: open data opens risks, inconsistencies in application behaviors, cultural differences, and how will the alliance evolve.
Bottom Line – My conclusion is that is important to be familiar with OpenSocial as everyone will be affected whether as a consumer of social applications or more directly in your business. Personally, I am excited about possible new features and capabilities I could be seeing soon in my favorite applications. However, it will take some time for things to shake out and for developers to start exploiting the new APIs. So, stay tuned, keep your ear to the ground and be patient for now.
What are your thoughts?
Additional Information - Here are some other links to explore to learn more:
- Official OpenSocial website
- Jeremiah Owyang’s blog post
- What really matters from Jeremiah’s colleague at Forrester, Charlene Li’s blog post
- SixApart’s view that OpenSocial is “Killer Apps and Regular People“
Finally, here is a the first “Campfire” video from Google that explains what OpenSocial and shows how it will work:
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