Archive of Business Analysis Articles

Just Plain BadLameAverageGoodGreat (5 votes, average: 3.80 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...
June 22nd, 2009

User Goals and Corporate Goals

When defining requirements, you always start in the context of a goal – either a user goal or a corporate goal.  You need to be aware of both.  Having a positive user experience is important, and requires a user-centered understanding.  Achieving your corporate goals might be in conflict with some user goals.

Read the rest of the article…

Just Plain BadLameAverageGoodGreat (Be The First to Rate This Article)
Loading ... Loading ...
June 9th, 2009

ProductCamps and Class Diagrams

For you product managers out there – here are a couple upcoming productcamp unconferences.  For you business analysts, here’s an excuse to do a little domain modeling and practice your UML class diagram skills.

Read the rest of the article…

Just Plain BadLameAverageGoodGreat (3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...
June 1st, 2009

Foundation Series: Price Elasticity

When prices go up, demand goes down.  But how much does it go down?  Price elasticity of demand is the term economists use for the math that describes this behavior.

Just Plain BadLameAverageGoodGreat (4 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...
May 6th, 2009

Pictures and Ideas for Powerful Whitepapers

Pictures can convey messages much more powerfully than words.  In a recent discussion about writing whitepapers, I suggested combining the idea-creation advice from Made To Stick with the image-creation advice from Back of The Napkin.  Check out this article to see some concrete examples.

Read the rest of the article…

Just Plain BadLameAverageGoodGreat (7 votes, average: 4.71 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...
April 22nd, 2009

You Must Not Write “The System Shall…”

A lot of books and blogs and experts tell us to use “The System shall…” when writing requirements.  Read on to find out why that’s not a very good idea.

Read the rest of the article…

Just Plain BadLameAverageGoodGreat (2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...
April 1st, 2009

Product Growth Strategy

Growth is a make or break measurement for products and companies.  Investment is often determined by expected value, which is based (in part) on expectations of growth.  When you create a product, there are aspects of growth – how many people can use your product, and how many people do use your product.  When dealing with a freemium business model, there are two elements of use - paid use and free use.

Read the rest of the article…

Just Plain BadLameAverageGoodGreat (6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...
February 24th, 2009

Freemium Business Model

Ever scratch your head and wonder why you can use your favorite application for free?  How can a business actually make money (and stay in business) when they offer their product for free?  This article looks at the freemium business model, to see when it makes sense for a company to offer it.  The freemium model is one where the company offers two (or more) versions of a product.  The basic version is free to use.  You have to pay for the premium version.  The goal of this article is to answer the product management question, “Should you create a freemium business model?”

Read the rest of the article…

Just Plain BadLameAverageGoodGreat (4 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...
February 10th, 2009

Agile Non-Functional Requirements

Just because your requirement is not a user story does not mean you have to throw it out when planning your next sprint.  See one way (that is working) for managing non-functional requirements with an agile team.

Read the rest of the article…

Just Plain BadLameAverageGoodGreat (24 votes, average: 4.71 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...
February 2nd, 2009

User Stories and Use Cases

User Stories are one of the key agile artifacts for helping implementation teams deliver the most important capabilities first.  They differ from use cases in some important ways, but share more commonalities than you might think.

Read the rest of the article…

Just Plain BadLameAverageGoodGreat (3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...
December 18th, 2008

Inspired By Your Customers

Should your products be designed by your customers, or inspired by your customers?