When I first started working at Seilevel, I worked extensively on editing our book, Visual Models for Software Requirements. Because of this, I knew the models inside and out and could tell you the “by the book” way to create and derive requirements from any of the 22 models in the book. However, when I [...]

When it comes to requirements “communication” is the name of the game. An analyst could crank out top-notch technical documents or business cases, but if their intended audience isn’t able to consume it then ultimately the work was for naught. It’s to this end that we use things like visual models to help get the [...]

Here at Seilevel, when we begin a new project, we typically start off by asking a fundamental question, “Why is this project valuable to our client?” Establishing a “Why” guides the effort, allowing us to understand which areas of the project offer the greatest monetary return. To do this, we create the Business Objectives Model, [...]

Being a business analyst, I think it is fair to say, is not the most creative profession out there. We do have opportunities to write clear requirements, create interesting PowerPoint presentations from time to time, and choose an ingenious font color scheme to make status reports exciting and readable. But most of our time is [...]

Often, business analysts see visual models as a discrete part of the requirements process.  At some point they’ll create the visual models, and then they will file them away in a section of the requirements document that will never be looked at again.  Sometimes, they are completed after the requirements have already been completed, as [...]

The moment your perspective shifts to that of a tester, you’ll find new ways for requirements to be made better. If you ask an analyst what the characteristics of a good requirement are, they will tell you that it should be “necessary, concise, capable of being interpreted only way and testable.” In this post, we’ll [...]

Microsoft Press announced our new book in a recent blog post, a post that takes a deeper dive into some of Visual Model for Software Requirement’s features and content. For example, Microsoft Press shares a bit about the Models Quick Start approach, including a sample process flow: “This book contains a tremendous amount of information [...]

There are an incredible variety of business analyst course offerings and trainings (including ours, of course) – but what should YOU look for when evaluating training? In other words, have you defined your (in this case, training) requirements, and are they complete and accurate? Here are two thought exercises that may help you define your [...]

Joy Beatty, VP of Research at Seilevel, recently presented to the vibrant business analyst community in Central Iowa at IBADD 2012. CBAPs, CCBAs, and new business analysts learned about: Models for Data Requirements: Many analysts think that “data modeling” means designing databases and technical data models. Business users have no capability of creating and consuming [...]

In Learning to Use Visual Requirements Models: Adding Context by “Overloading” the Business Data Diagram, the author tells us how to overload a Business Data Diagram (BDD).  One of the main goals with visual software requirements models is effective communication, so I tend to be “for” anything that furthers the cause. When I look at the author’s [...]