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What is Invest

Let us discuss what is INVEST in Agile 

What is Invest

The test for determining whether or not a story is well understood and ready for the team to start working on it is the INVEST acronym:

  • Independent — The story should be independent.
  • Negotiable — Can this story be changed or removed without impact to everything else?
  • Valuable — Does this story have value to the end user?
  • Estimable — Can you estimate the size of the story?
  • Small —Is it small enough?
  • Testable — User story should be testable.

FAQ’s

What is invest in Scrum?

Coined by Bill Wake in his book Extreme Programming Explored, INVEST is an acronym that defines a simple set of rules used in creating well-formed user stories. An effective way to ensure testability is to define user acceptance criteria for all user stories. …

What is invest in user story?

Bill Wake came up with the INVEST acronym to help us remember guidelines for writing effective user stories: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimatable, Small, and Testable.

What are 3 C's in user stories?

Whether you are a newbie or a seasoned veteran, the 3 C’s of User Stories help keep the purpose of the user story in perspective.
The first C is the user story in its raw form, the Card. …
The second C is the Conversation. …
The third C is the Confirmation.

What are the 3 pillars of Scrum?

The three pillars of Scrum that uphold every implementation of empirical process control are:
Transparency.
Inspection.
Adaptation.

Agile Business Analyst / Business Analyst Role in Agile Scrum

Agile Business Analyst

Agile Business Analyst . Once a project is kicked off, Business Analyst does the requirement Planning, then conducts various requirement gathering sessions and analyses the requirement.

Finally, the requirement is listed as “FEATURE LIST’. This Feature list is drafted by Business Analyst discussed with Product Owner. This feature list will have all enhancements and existing features.

Existing features will present if it is migration project.

From the Feature list, Business Analyst identifies the Epic and breaks them as Themes and then to User Stories.

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User stories will have below information.

Agile Business Analyst

Example :

BA Role in Agile

Acceptance Criteria: – This area will have mandatory information that are needed in this story.

Then Business Analyst brief the story to development team and regularly supports the team for development.

Business Analyst also does and involves in Integration Testing and Systems Testing to ensure the system performs as desired.

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FAQ’s

Does Agile need business analyst?

Agile teams, they need business analysts. … They need us to take a holistic view of the product backlog and find all those inner related requirements and inter-dependencies and make sure that the pieces of working software delivered are, again, going to deliver value in the context of that end-to-end business process.

Where does a business analyst fit in agile?

Within the Agile model, Business Analysts can serve as the “bridge” between developers and product stakeholders – translating business needs into user stories and prioritizing deliverables within the task list.

Can business analyst become Scrum Master?

No, You Cannot Be The Business Analyst and ScrumMaster.

The ScrumMaster focuses on the team and how to continuously improve. The Business Analyst focuses on product backlog, stakeholders, and customer needs. Despite these shared skills, it is difficult for one person to assume both roles successfully.Jul 8, 2016

Is there a BA in Scrum?

Business analysts play an important role: Traditionally, they act as the link between the business units and IT, help to discover the user needs and the solution to address them, and specify requirements. But in Scrum, there is no business analyst role.

How do I become an agile business analyst?

Here are the first five steps:
Step 1: Research Agile Methods.
Step 2: Change Your Mindset.
Step 3: Support the Product Owner.
Step 4: Think in User Stories.
Step 5: Focus on Business Value.

Does Business Analyst write user stories?

User stories are written throughout the agile project, however, the Business Analyst assigned to the project should produce user stories in the discovery phase. … In an agile project, new stories can be written and added to the product backlog at any time, and by anyone.

Can a BA be a product owner?

On some projects the agile business analyst may act as the product owner, but they are effectively operating on behalf of the business. So more often this happens on internal projects, as opposed to a business analyst from a vendor operating as the product owner on behalf of an external client.

Is there a BA role in agile?

Most agile approaches have a specific role to represent the ultimate business decision maker, such as the role titled product owner. … A business analyst supports a product owner by helping them analyze the business domain, stocking the product backlog, and grooming the product backlog.

what is a product owner in agile?

what is a product owner in agile?

Product owner plays important role in Scrum Team,

Below are Scrum Roles:

  1. Product Owner(PO): He will decide what needs to done in this sprint/project and he is the responsible for managing the product backlog. He will be the responsible person for product like how product should be and all. He interacts with Business Analysts and Customers. This role may be played by BA or any person who is having strong knowledge on product and who works with end users for a long time. Depends on the project client also may play this role.
  • Scrum Master   (SM) : He will monitor the performance of the team within the sprint. Team will raise all their concerns and issues to scrum master. He is responsible to provide solutions to the team. He will interact with the stake holders to address the issues and concerns raised by the team. This role can be played by any person in team usually Business Analyst will play this role.
  • Development Team( Cross functional team who are self organized)

what is a product owner in agile

What is a product owner in Agile?

Let us discuss and observe here about Product Owner.

Main responsibility of the Product Owner in Scrum is to build a successful product. Product owner is the single person to take all product related decisions.

To build successful products, product owner does the following.

  1. Define product vision and goal.
  2. Strategy to increase ROI based on scope, time and budget (Return On Investment).
  3. Creates roadmaps, strategy and release plans.
  4. Manage ROI, Priorities, Product backlog, prioritizing product backlog.
  5. Release planning and goal.
  6. Maintain release burn down.
  7. Engage Stakeholders and scrum teams.
  8. Define requirements and acceptance criteria.
  9. Participates in all scrum activities.
  10. Speaking to teams to provide clarity on work and business requirements.
  11. Write requirements in the form of user stories and groom them with the teams.
  12. Understand the business value and deliver value, communicate the requirements to team clearly.
  13. Accept, reject, and share feedback comments towards building successful product.
  14. Maintain transparency on release plan, scope and forecast.
  15. Product owner should be balanced personality who can give inputs on product, business, value and domain. A person with only understand technical expertise might not be an effective Product Owner.

I feel it will help to understand What is a product owner in agile and what product owner does in project.

Let us observe  more on what is a product owner in agile

and FAQ’s

For product Owner Certification

FAQ’S

What is the difference between a product owner and a product manager?

To break it down: The product manager discovers what users need, prioritizes what to build next, and rallies the team around a product roadmap. The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product by creating and managing the product backlog.

Is product owner a job title?

Product Owner is a role you play in an Agile team, whereas a Product Manager is the job title of someone responsible for a product and its outcome on the customer and the business. Now a lot of Product Owners out there are great Product Managers, and they should just change their title.

How do you become a product owner?

Build Shared Understanding
Get help from someone on your team. This often results in the Product Manager, Product Owner, and Business Analyst model of product ownership.
Find a good book focused on analysis techniques applied with an agile mindset. …
Get some training on analysis techniques.

Who does a product owner report to?

The product owner reports to stakeholders. The scrum.org page about product owners describes how this person is the interface between the scrum team and the rest of the world. Scrum doesn’t mention managers, project leads, etc. – those are all subsumed under the term “stakeholder”.

Is Product Manager higher than product owner?

In bigger companies, the product manager stands a level higher than the product owner and serves as a connector between the house and the outside world. This is why it’s sometimes so hard to draw a line between the two positions or jobs.

Is Product Owner same as project manager?

All in all a Product Owner is a Project Manager who is responsible for the project success and project environment. But at the same time, he delegated daily management of the project team to a Scrum Master.

Who can be a product owner?

The Scrum product owner is typically a project’s key stakeholder. Part of the product owner responsibilities is to have a vision of what he or she wishes to build, and convey that vision to the scrum team. This is key to successfully starting any agile software development project.

What is a SCRUM Development Team?

Scrum Development Team

The scrum development team plays important role in Scrum Team,

Below are Scrum Roles:

  1. Product Owner(PO): 

    He will decide what needs to done in this sprint/project and he is the responsible for managing the product backlog. He will be the responsible person for product like how product should be and all. He interacts with Business Analysts and Customers. This role may be played by BA or any person who is having strong knowledge on product and who works with end users for a long time. Depends on the project client also may play this role.

  2. Scrum Master   (SM) :He will monitor the performance of the team within the sprint. Team will raise all their concerns and issues to scrum master. He is responsible to provide solutions to the team. He will interact with the stake holders to address the issues and concerns raised by the team. This role can be played by any person in team usually Business Analyst will play this role.
  3. Development Team( Cross functional team who are self organized)

Let us discuss and observe here about Scrum Development Team.

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And Development Team Responsibilities:

Develop team is a group of people. Development team work together to reach the goal or complete the agreed tasks within committed time. Target of the development team is to build or develop the product with high quality. To achieve this team coordinates and communicates with each other, i.e how to develop the product and what are the things to be taken care to release the successful product.

Self organize to do work and plan. When product owner tells”what” needs to be done, then development team discuss among them and decides “how” to achieve it.

Scrum development is cross functional. So that there is maximum effectiveness in reaching the goal and minimum dependencies on external. Usually Scrum development team will have 5 to 9 members depends on the project.

Scrum development team work collaboratively to design architecture, features incrementally and iteratively.

Scrum development team is cross functional, team has the required skills, required to develop the product within the team.

Scrum development team work collaboratively, share responsibility, and accountable for the successful delivery of the product which is assigned by product owner. Scrum development team completely responsible and accountable for the quality of the product.

Once dev. team finalized, team don’t change during sprint or afterwards. Any changes shall brink back them to forming stage and performance issues.

The dev. team has authority to manage their own work. This enables them to improve their efficiency and effectiveness.

Every team member has the same level of authority regardless of their contributions and they all share in the project’s accountability.

Even though the Product Owner is responsible for the product backlog, the dev. team refines the tasks in the product backlog as a team.

The dev. team has full control over the tasks in the product backlog and how many tasks they are assigned in a sprint.

They build in extra time for collaboration and knowledge sharing into the sprint. This helps support team bonding, knowledge sharing and gives them time to resolve any unexpected issues.

They regularly collaborate with the Product Owner and the Scrum Master to ensure that they are on the right track.

They continuously deliver features at the end of every sprint to ensure that there is a working product.

They review the product with the Scrum team and get feedback which they incorporate into the next sprint.

They ensure that the scrum board is updated to reflect what they are working on and what has been “done”.

Scrum Team = Product Owner + Scrum Master + Development Team (Project resources grouped as Scrum teams which comprises of BA, Developers, Testers)

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FAQS

Who is on the scrum team development team member?

These are as follows: It’s a cross-functional team, i.e., it includes UI/UX designers, programmers, architects, business analysts, testers, etc. A scrum development team size is typically between five to seven members. The best scrum teams are closely-knit and work together on a regular basis, preferably full-time.

Is development team member a role in Scrum?

So, that means the ‘developer‘ role in Scrum means a team member who has the right skills, as part of the team to do the work. The development team should be able to self-organize so they can make decisions to get work done. … The development team’s responsibilities include: Delivering the work through the sprint.

How many developers are there in a scrum team?

According to the Scrum Guide, the development team should be between three and nine people and should have all the skills necessary to deliver product increments. The number of developers is usually dictated by the needs of the product and usually is between two and five developers in a scrum team.

How do you create a scrum team?

Establish individual members expectations. …
Provide boundaries. …
Enable the team to self-organise. …
Provide channels for direct communication with the product owner. …
Don’t commit to work on the team’s behalf.

What is the best size for a scrum team?

The ideal size for a development is between 3 and 9 people, not including the ScrumMaster and product owner. Any smaller and the team couldn’t accomplish enough each sprint. Any larger and communication becomes complex and cumbersome.

What is difference between Scrum and agile?

Agile is a continuous iteration of development and testing in the software development process whereas Scrum is an Agile process to focus on delivering the business value in the shortest time. Agile methodology delivers the software on a regular basis for feedback while Scrum delivers the software after each sprint.

Why is it called Scrum?

The software development term scrum was first used in a 1986 paper titled “The New New Product Development Game”. The term is borrowed from rugby, where a scrum is a formation of players. The term scrum was chosen by the paper’s authors because it emphasizes teamwork.

What is UAT (User Acceptance Test)?

What is UAT : In this article let us understand what is UAT and what is the role of Business Analyst during UAT phase. As we discussed in previous articles, Business Analyst is responsible for end to end to project execution.

What is UAT (User Acceptance Test)?
What is UAT

UAT (User Acceptance Test)

Business Analyst suppose not to actively participate in testing part but, Business Analyst do support and perform testing.

What are User Acceptance Tests or what is uat?

User Acceptance Test is very important. Usually client will do the UAT. Once development completed and all approvals are in place, then we will release changes to client for Testing. Before releasing to client, we will do the end to end testing (Testing Team/QA Team).

Before planning for production movement, we will release to client for testing, client will do the end to end testing, and usually End users will do the UAT. As they have good knowledge on functionality, they will do the UAT.

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What is the Role of Business Analyst in UAT(User Acceptance Test)?

Business Analyst supports to End users during UAT, if any issues are observations raised by the client, then they will inform to the Business Analyst, Business Analyst is the person to understand the issues are observations raised by the client. Then Business Analyst will coordinate with the respective teams to fix the issues.

If any understanding gaps then Business Analyst will explain to the End users, what is the existing functionality and what changes we deployed, so that they can test without deviations, or else we deploy something and client test something else and raise as a Bugs or defects. It may lead to project delay and client escalation due to misunderstanding.

Business Analyst responsibility is to support to client during the UAT and get signoff from the client, once we received signoff (Approval) from the client then we will deploy the changes into production environment.

Why UAT (User Acceptance Test) is required and important?

As we discussed earlier, client will do the UAT testing and Business Analyst supports to complete the UAT successfully.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) are tests that are usually conducted by the end user to verify that the product is working as expected. It is used to confirm if the product meets both the requirements and expectations of the stakeholders.

These tests are usually performed to capture product before it is deployed to the production environment.

The user acceptance tests are usually done in an environment that is almost identical to the final production environment.

They are one of the final tests that are conducted after all other tests such as the functional, integration and system tests are done.

As client (End Users) is performing the UAT, they can identify the application or functional issues/bugs.  As soon as we receive issue tracker or bug tracker from the client, we will start work on fixing the bugs. This helps us to deploy the product in production environment with ‘0’ errors or less errors. 

And we can make client happy as there is no issues or less issues in production environment.

If a defective product is prematurely deployed, it can severely damage an organization and the cost of fixing the incurred damages can sometimes outweigh the value to be gained from the deploying that product.

So it is important that the user acceptance tests are conducted before the product is deployed.

How are the User Acceptance Tests conducted?

The UAT is usually performed by the users who are going to use the final product, as they have knowledge and idea on product requirements and understand the business process so they are the best qualified resource to identify the application or functional issues with the finished product.

What steps to be taken care before deploying to UAT?

  1. Once the product is ready for the user acceptance tests, the test scenarios and test cases should be created. Sometimes Business Analyst may create the Test cases, it depends on the organization.
  2. The test scenarios should be created based on the requirements. If the project is Agile, then the created user stories can be used to create the acceptance testing scenarios.
  3. Once Test cases and test scenarios are in place, then we can release to client for testing.
  4. Before releasing to client we should ensure all the approvals are in place and testing and QA completed from our end.
  5. Then client starts the user acceptance tests and reports if any issues with the product.
  6. The identified issues should be reviewed and any defects should be fixed from our end. If any understanding issue or process gaps then we need to schedule meeting with the stake holders and explain to them.
  7. Once issues or bugs fixed from our end then again user acceptance tests should be rescheduled.
  8. The users should retest the product.
  9. The process continues until the product passes the tests at an acceptable level and we receive the signoff from the client. Without client signoff we can’t move any changes to production environment.
  10. Sometimes we will move the working product to production environment if the raised issues or bugs are not show stopper. It depends on the client.

What are the things to be taken care as a Business Analyst to complete the UAT successfully?

  1. Before client performing the UAT, schedule a meeting or session with the client and explain about developed product, like how it works and what are the requirements covered and how the solution has been provided to the requirements, so that client or end user can test the product in proper way.
  2. Identify the right testers: stakeholder analysis is an important part of the UAT’s because if the wrong people are invited to test the product, the product might not be properly tested and this could lead to costly mistakes. Usually client will assign the end users who needs to test the application, get in touch with the end users and explain and make them to understand the product before starting testing and before they raise as defect or bug.
  3. Business Analyst should have clear idea on test cases and test scenarios and what is the functionality of the product, so that it is easy to explain the product features and clarify the end user doubts.
  4. Clarify the test results: the UAT results might include the identification of some product defects and change requests. The report might require some clarifications, so the business analyst would need to follow up with the end users to fully understand the UAT results.

I hope this help you to understand what is uat and what are user acceptance tests. And why Business Analyst  should have knowledge on what is UAT?

What is User Acceptance Testing (UAT)?

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FAQS:

What is UAT testing?

User acceptance testing (UAT) is the last phase of the software testing process. During UAT, actual software users test the software to make sure it can handle required tasks in real-world scenarios, according to specifications.

What UAT means?

user acceptance testing

Short for user acceptance testing, typically the final phase in a software development process in which the software is given to the intended audience to be tested for functionality. … UAT also is called beta testing, end-user testing or application testing.

How is UAT performed?

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is a type of testing performed by the end user or the client to verify/accept the software system before moving the software application to the production environment. UAT is done in the final phase of testing after functional, integration and system testing is done.

Who should perform UAT testing?

User Acceptance Testing (UAT), also known as beta or end-user testing, is defined as testing the software by the user or client to determine whether it can be accepted or not. This is the final testing performed once the functional, system and regression testing are completed.

What is the purpose of UAT?

User acceptance testing (UAT) is the last phase of the software testing process. … The goal of User Acceptance Testing is to assess if the system can support day-to-day business and user scenarios and ensure the system is sufficient and correct for business usage.

What happens during UAT?

User acceptance testing (UAT) is the last phase of the software testing process. During UAT, actual software users test the software to make sure it can handle required tasks in real-world scenarios, according to specifications.

Who prepares UAT test cases?

When it comes to UAT, often the UAT is composed of Business Analysts and selected end-users who will perform the actual UA testing. But QA, who have an overall responsibility to ensure the application/product works as required, should be part of the process for test definition.

What is UAT sign off?

UAT Sign–off: When all defects are resolved, the UAT team formally accepts (or recommends acceptance to the project manager) the software application as developed. The approval shows that the application meets user requirements and is deployable.

What is UAT full form?

Short for user acceptance testing, typically the final phase in a software development process in which the software is given to the intended audience to be tested for functionality. … UAT also is called beta testing, end-user testing or application testing.

What is the difference between QA and UAT testing?

Difference Between QA and UAT Testing. … The major difference between both of these is the fact that quality assurance ensures that the software is error-free, whereas user acceptance testing ensures that the software is giving the users just the experience and usability that they were looking for.

How is UAT done in agile?

Lets have each of them one by one: Agile UAT begins with user stories which includes both story and acceptance criteria. … In last, UAT involves a dedicated sprint to perform overall user acceptance test and fixing discovered defects. It should be done by Product Owner along with the subject matter experts.

What are the primary objectives of UAT?

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
The aim of User Acceptance Testing (UAT testing), is to receive feedback on the software from real customers. Thus, as a rule, UAT is conducted by people selected from the target audience. These conditions are the closest real-world usage of the product.

What is Stand up Meeting (Daily Scrum)?

How to Conduct Stand Up Meetings?

Let us discuss about Stand Up Meeting or daily stand up meetings.

What is stand up Meeting

Stand up meetings are an important event that is used in the Scrum methodology. Their primary purpose is to keep the Scrum team updated on the team’s progress.

The stands up meetings are usually held daily and they are allotted short time frames i.e. 15 minutes or less.

What is a Stand Up Meeting?

A stand-up meeting is a short meeting that is held on daily basis.  Usually this meeting will happen when day starts.  This is very short meeting and usually it takes 15 minutes. Due to its short time frame, these meeting are usually held with the team standing up, hence the name – Stand Up Meeting.

The purpose of the meeting is to update the status of the assigned user stories or tasks,  like finished, in progress, or about to be started. All the teams join in these meetings. They will raise their concerns if they have any, then Scrum Master will note down and coordinate with concerned teams if there is any dependency on other teams and try to provide the solution.

So this meeting is to understand the status of User Stories.

How to conduct  Stand Up Meetings?

The stand up meeting is to be brief and focused on the team’s progress. The Scrum Master is responsible for conducting the meeting so they should ensure that they keep the meeting straight to the point. No discussions will be allowed during this meeting. Only team members will update the status on the assigned user stories.

The Scrum Master should start planning the stand up meeting by choosing a convenient location and meeting time for all the team members.  Usually these meetings held on the same place and same time.

If we have team in different locations and team is working on different time zones, ensure that you pick a time when they would all be in to work.

Once the meeting is scheduled, the Scrum Master should ensure that the team stays focused by answering the below questions:

  1. What did you do yesterday?
  2. What will you do today?
  3. Is there any impediment, that is slowing or stopping you?

All the team members should ensure that they attend the meeting on time. So that time will not be wasted and it shows that they are respecting team member’s time.

Scrum Master should ensure all the team members must participate in meeting and sufficient time allocated to each team member to update the status.

When the team members are discussing their progress, they might get carried away and want to discuss details but the Scrum Master should try to keep them on track by asking them to take it “Offline”.

Taking it “Offline” means that the team member should schedule another meeting with the appropriate team members to discuss their encountered issues in more detail. Scrum Master is responsible to schedule the meeting.

While this might discourage some of the team members, the Scrum Master should remind them that the Stand Up meeting is a short one and other team members also have to provide their updates.

It is also called as Daily Scrum meeting or Daily stand up Meeting

This is also called as Daily Meeting, Daily Status Meeting, Daily Status update Meeting, Daily Scrum Meeting or Status call..

FAQ’s

What is the purpose of daily standup meeting?

Daily Scrums improve communications, eliminate other meetings, identify impediments to development for removal, highlight and promote quick decision-making, and improve the Development Team’s level of knowledge. This is a key inspect and adapt meeting.

What does stand up meeting mean?

A stand–up meeting (or simply “stand–up“) is a meeting in which attendees typically participate while standing. The discomfort of standing for long periods is intended to keep the meetings short.

How do you do a stand up meeting?

7 Rules for Effective Stand-Up Meetings
Only meet when necessary. One common employee complaint is that many meetings could easily be replaced by an email. …
Keep it short and sweet. At it’s core, a stand-up meeting is brief. …
Establish a goal. …
Maintain structure. …
Make remote employees feel like they’re there. …
Give everyone a chance to talk. …
Don’t skip follow-up.

What happens in a stand up meeting?

A stand–up meeting is a short meeting between a team that is held on foot. The goal is to go over important tasks that have been finished, are in progress, or are about to be started. It is also known as daily stand–up or daily Kanban to teams practicing the Kanban method, due to the recurring cadence of the meeting.

What happens in daily standup meeting?

Daily Scrums improve communications, eliminate other meetings, identify impediments to development for removal, highlight and promote quick decision-making, and improve the Development Team’s level of knowledge. This is a key inspect and adapt meeting.

What are the three questions asked in daily standup call?

What did you do yesterday?
What will you do today?
Are there any impediments in your way?

What are the benefits of daily standup meeting in agile?

Listed below are few benefits of having daily scrum meeting:
Let’s the team to be in sync on how things are going.
Allows for corrections in the sprint.
Building trust between team members.
Encouraging personal planning.
High visibility of progress.
Self-organization in team.

How do I start a daily standup meeting?

Here are some effective tips for a successful daily standup meeting:
15 minutes or less. …
Be on time! …
Keep the team engaged. …
Put discovered problems on hold. …
Keep it fun! Start every standup meeting with a joke, meme, gif, comic, quote, etc. …
Say ‘thank you’. …
Hold your daily standup meeting around the task board.

Why is it important to meet every day for daily stand up?

The main aim of a stand–up meeting is to distribute relevant and important information and/or to make quick decisions. They are also used to make major strategic decisions and above all, they offer a chance to “go around the room” and get everyone to present their results from the day before.

How to Become a Business Analyst in IT field

How to Become a Business Analyst

Here whatever I mentioned is based on my own experience; I feel it may help to someone who are preparing for BA and trying to get job as a Business Analyst.

A BA is in charge of understanding a business’s changing needs, and providing technological solutions to improve its processes and systems. Thus, a business analyst is often thought of as the link between the business and IT departments.

Let us discuss in-detail below to understand how to become a BA and what are the skills needed to prove as a BA. 

How to Become a Business Analyst

How to become a Business Analyst

Once we got information from our friends or colleagues related to BA career and if we decided to become a Business Analyst, then first question in our mind is how to become a Business Analyst.

Then we start discussing or inquiring more about BA and start thinking about “How to become a Business Analyst and what skills needed to become a BA. Here I am trying to give some inputs which may answer to your question “How to become a Business Analyst” 

Identify Skills:

Before deciding to become BA first identify what are the skills needed to become a BA and what BA will do on daily basis.  Most of the people may think communication is very important to become BA that is partially true. Communication means not only speaking in English, as s BA we should know what to speak and what not to speak and how to convince the stakeholders. Once you identify the skills, analyze yourself whether you are suitable for this position or not. Once you decided that you are suitable for this position then start improving skills to become BA.

How to identify Skills :

Now a days we can get more BA blogs and videos online, we can get to know by reading BA blogs and watching some videos on YouTube.

What are the skills needed to become a Business Analyst

Develop Your Knowledge as a Business Analyst: 

Once you decided that you are suitable for this position then start improving skills to become a Business Analyst by reading Business Analyst related blogs and by watching videos. And you can discuss with your seniors who can help you to build your career as a BA Start understand,  how software application will be developed and what challenges team faced during the development of the Project. And start thinking as a BA, if you are in that situation as a BA then how you will react and you will resolve the issues are problems.

What BA does on his/her day to day life
Role of BA in a Project

Develop your Domain Knowledge:

Domain knowledge is very important for BA Example for Domain Knowledge: Banking, Insurance, Finance, Healthcare, Telecom etc… Domain knowledge will help you to understand client requirements easily. You may think that as a fresher how I can get Domain Knowledge. Start discussing with your friends and seniors who are working on multiple domains and multiple organizations. Try to understanding by them how bank will work and how IT Company will work. Most of the companies will not expect Domain knowledge if you are attending interview as a Fresher, but it is good to have some knowledge.

What is Domain Knowledge

What is domain knowledge and why domain knowledge is important for BA

Practice BA Tools: 

BA will use some prototyping tools to capture the requirements.  Stake holders can understand by seeing the prototypes what is the requirement and what client is expecting by this requirement.

What are the tools used by BA
Documents prepared by the BA during the SDLC

Prepare Resume:

Once you are confident then start preparing the resume and start attending to interviews. And ensure your resume should not be a template; change the resume as per the job description and company requirement.  Before attending to any interview read the job description carefully and prepares yourself what interviewer is expecting from you and how to answer to him.

Don’t worry and don’t disappoint if you not answered any question, note down the questions which you not answered and prepare well for those. Don’t lose your confidence and keep attending the interviews.

Read Job Description of BA

Start Attending the Interviews:

Note down the questions:

I feel it helps you to understand how to become a BA/ 

Once you understand how to become a BA, then you can start prepare your resume and start attending interview.

Business Analyst Certification

FAQS:

What qualifications do you need to be a business analyst?

Desirable qualifications
Undergraduate degree in subjects such as computer science, business information systems, computing and systems development, and business management.
Postgraduate qualification

How do I start a business analyst career?

To start a career as a business analyst, initially educate yourself as a business analyst person by undergoing some business analyst training. Get certified: There are a number of BA certifications widely recognized in the industry today.

Is it hard to become a business analyst?

Business analysis is hard.
It’s an extremely creative activity – occasionally frustrating but generally very satisfying. I used to come home most days feeling like I’d done a good day’s work and would still have plenty of energy to apply myself to extra-curricular activities in the evening.

Is business analyst a good career?

A good business analyst can move from industry to industry with ease. You can move to where the work is needed. You are a very flexible resource. It is also a well paid career.

How do I become a business analyst with no experience?

Learn From Other Business Analysts.
Do Some Research On BA Work Deliverables.
Seek Out Training Opportunities.
Master Soft Skills.
Participate in Business Analysis Tasks.

How is business analyst as a career?

After eight to 10 years in various business analysis positions, you can advance to chief technology officer or work as a consultant. You can take the business analyst career path as far as you would like, progressing through management levels as far as your expertise, talents and desires take you.

Does business analyst need MBA?

MBA degree is not necessary for an individual to take up a Business Analyst (IT Business Analyst) role. Those who start their IT business analyst careers , most of the times do not have good skills in all the three areas. … So an MBA is not necessary to take up an IT business analyst role.

How is business analyst career path?

After eight to 10 years in various business analysis positions, you can advance to chief technology officer or work as a consultant. You can take the business analyst career path as far as you would like, progressing through management levels as far as your expertise, talents and desires take you.

Is business analyst a technical job?

No, it is not. It is more of a techno-functional role but doesn’t require technical skills. Here are some extracts from Adaptive US’ blog on Business Analyst Job Description : … Managing requirements both at the project level and organization level are vital in fulfilling business needs.

Top 15 Business Analysis Blogs and Websites To Follow

The bacareers blog: Career Path for Business Analyst

Top 15 Business Analysis Blogs and Websites To Follow

Recently https://www.bacareers.in Career path for Business Analyst  was named the top Business Analyst blog on the web!Top 15 Business Analyst Blogs

This is the most comprehensive list of  Top 15 Business Analysis Blogs on the internet and I’m honored to be a part of this! Included in the list are some wonderful blogs.

Feedspot uses this criteria to create their rankings:

  • Relevancy
  • Domain authority
  • Age of a blog
  • Alexa Web Traffic Rank and many other parameters
  • Google reputation and Google search ranking
  • Influence and popularity on Facebook, twitter and other social media sites
  • Quality and consistency of posts.
  • Feedspot’s editorial team and expert review

Top 15 Business Analyst Blog
Top 15 Business Analyst Blog

Recognition never comes easy, and is often the result of collaborative work. Thanks to the much-appreciated support of its subscribers and visitors to its website, I did not expect this result when I started blogging, my intention is to help and support the people who are interested to start their career as a Business Analyst.

I am very happy when bacareers.in Career path for Business Analyst  has just been listed by Feedspot among the Top 15 Business Analysis Blogs on the Web.

No doubt, this honor is an encouragement for us to try even harder than we have done over the past 8 months to bring you the whole story, good and not-so-good, about Business Analyst.

Thanks again.

Our heart-felt appreciation goes to the dedicated team of Feedspot.

Thank you Feedspot.

Hope you find some new Business Analyst blog to improve your knowledge.

How payments will happen?

Credit or Debit card payments:

Payments

Usually we will do the payments through credit card and Debit Card. Some people may think, just we are giving the card to the shop owner or we are entering details on the e-commerce website then shop owner is getting the money. But how this payment is happening and what the background process for this payment is, let us discuss in detail.

But how this process is happening and this merchant will get money. Let us discuss in details here.

A payment starts with a customer who’s interested in buying a particular product or service from some type of retailer or merchant service..

For example:  I want to buy mobile phone on any website or from any mobile shop. For that I need to give my card to the shop owner or I need to enter the details on website. 

Here we may think that we provided the card to the merchant hence my account has been debited and credited the merchant account with respective amount. But this is not true. Let us discuss in detail who are involved to complete single transaction.

Four parties involved to complete the single payment transaction.

  • The merchant that’s selling the product Ex: Amazon or retail store.
  • The payment processor that organizes the transaction
  • Credit card brands like MasterCard and Visa
  • Card issuers such as banks, credit unions or another financial institution

Here is a step-by-step outline of how a card based payments transaction is processed:

  • The customer gives his or her card to the merchant to pay for a product or manually swipes the card themselves.
  • Once the card is swiped, the transaction request is sent to the merchant’s payment processor partner
  • The processor then sends the transaction request to the corresponding credit card brand
  • The credit card company sends the transaction to the card issuer
  • The issuer then approves or declines the transaction based on available funds

When it comes to online payments including payment wallet, UPI payments and the like, there are three major players involved- the merchant, the customer and the payment gateway, linking the two parties. Here we are going to elaborate on the role of each that makes payment system work:

Merchant

In order to accept credit and debit card payments from online customers, the business owner needs to partner with some key players. He/she should have a merchant bank (also called an acquirer) that accepts payments on their behalf and deposits them into a merchant account they provide.

Customer

Similarly, the customer too needs a credit or debit card to make the payment for the products and services purchased. The bank that approves his/her for the card (and lends the cash to pay ) is called the issuing bank.

Technology

Connecting the two parties is the payment gateway that enables you and your customers to transact. First is the payment gateway, the software that links the site’s shopping cart to the processing network. The second is the payment processor (or merchant service), which does all the major tasks like moving the transaction through the processing network, sending you a billing statement, working with your bank, etc. Often, it’s your merchant bank that also acts as your payment processor, helping to simplify things and facilitating instant payments.

I hope it help you to get overview domain  knowledge on  payments.

Website Design and Development

Let us discuss about some simple domains now to get some domain knowledge; I feel this will help you to get some idea about domain knowledge. Let us discuss about Website design and development and how it will be taken place.

Website Design and Development

As we are reading blogs and accessing multiple websites on our daily life, we know what is website and how it looks like and what purpose wee will browse the websites.  Let us discuss in depth what are the things to be taken care before developing website. Here we can observe our website https://www.bacareers.in also for reference.

Website Design and Development:

Website will contain information/content and can be accessed though network. It can be on private network (intranet) or public network, popularly known as internet. Website can be built using html or flash or combination of both HTML and flash. Most commonly we will find HTML. Using HTMl tags/syntax web page will be created.  Now a day’s websites can be building with wordpress also. It works with plug-in.
A website can be of one page or more than one page. Website is commonly used for publishing information or advertise. Website is one of the powerful tool for advertisement /promotion. Not only promotion but also e-commerce (buying & selling online, Ex: Amazon, Flipcart), news websites like times of india, gaming sites needs website. In simple language we can say any business; anything in this world has a website.   Education websites Ex: https://www.bacareers.in  and Some other websites related to Education.Top Websites to improve knowledge as a Business Analyst.

Common elements used along with HTML are CSS (cascading Style Sheets), JS (java Script) and Flash (flash is optional). People prefer HTML compared to flash because flash page Loading time is bit long compared to HTML page. Web page usually ends with extension .html or .htm (other than.html and .htm there are   .jsp, .aspx etc but let us not get too technical, Business Analyst need not know what technologies are using to built a website, just I mentioned here for understanding purpose).

A website needs a domain name (note this is not the domain which we are talking – do not get confused) DOMAIN NAME means the website link name which will be unique always.  For example bacareers.in, this is the domain name for my website. Like www.google.com ,www.youtube.com , www.yatra.com , www.facebook.com 
If you see here bacareers.in, google.com , youtube.com, yatra.com are called domains. Domain name cannot be duplicated. Only one domain exists. There are some servicing companies and whoever wants website they should go to register DOMAIN NAME. Usually there will be some charges for registration and annual renewal charges as well. Not only .com’s there are different extensions like .info, .net, .tv, .biz, .org, .gov, .in etc   these are also website domains like .com (For Example: Godaddy, We can visit godaddy website to understand how to check the domain availability and hosting plans and charges, this is for your knowledge purpose) For Example I mentioned godaddy, there are so many domain and hosting providers, you can find more once you google it.

Once DOMAIN NAME is registered, website needs hosting space, usually called server. There are so many companies which provides hosting service. We need to purchase some space from them like 50 MB, 1 GB space . Once space is purchase, after website is built we can host website.

Domain Name & hosting space should be pointed so that when people type https://www.bacareers.in  website hosted on server (hosting space) will display.

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How Domain Name and Hosting are pointed? Let us not go technical again but for your information at high level, there will be something called name servers; we need to map the name servers of hosting account and domain account.

Some Domain registration service providers will also provide hosting space as well.

How does website project happen? Mainly what does business analyst does here? Let’s see:
In a software company which works on Website Design & Development there will be team usually;

As we discussed in previous articles, there is a team in Software Company to develop the product and get the orders.  Let us observe below who are the stake holders in this project and their roles.

  • Business Development (BD) team / marketing team: These people get website orders
  • Business Analyst – get requirements (what to be designed? How to be designed? What information? How should be the flow? Etc.
  • Designers (Graphical Designers / UI Designers) – Create designs.
  • Deployment / Implementation Engineer: Deploy or host on server
  • Project Manager: manages the project and delivers on time.

You know about marketing people, they just get projects /orders. What does business analyst do in website design & development projects? Once project is awarded Business Analyst will start with requirements. Most common thing in website projects are sending initial questionnaire, where in client can answer in, Yes/No format for most of the questions. Questionnaire will be like;

  • Project Name?
  • Website name? Or what name should appear on website? Ex : bacareers.in
  • Does Domain Exists (note: This domain is different one). If yes, what is the name?
  • Do you have a Logo? If yes, provide us in a Jpeg or Png format; If no, do you want us to design logo for you?
  • How many pages to be created? And provide names for the pages. Like service, about us, contact us, Blog, Articles and Faq etc.
  • Do you need Form for contact us page? Where in user can submit details and email will be triggered.
  • Mention some of the reference websites and provide link.
  • Who are your competitors? Provide some information
  • What colors to be used for website (color theme)?
  • Is it one color or two colors? Or more than 2 colors? Name the colors?
  • Who are the audience for the website? Like children, business people etc
  • Brief about your business?
  • Do you have any hand-outs of your business? Like advertisements, business cards, brochures etc.
  • Do you have any specific images/pictures of your business? Or you want to add any pictures on website? If yes, please send in jpeg or png format
  • Do you need SEO (Search Engine Optimization) done for website? If yes provide Meta tags or key words.
  • Etc (some more questions)

Note : Sometimes client may ask us to prepare prototype like how website looks like. In this case Business Analyst will prepare the prototype with using prototyping tools, here buttons, fields and everything will be there but functionality will not work. Because of prototyping client can also understand how his website will looks like and we can easily communicate with the development team also exactly what we are looking for.

Sometimes client will answer all the questions and some time partially, business analyst will have a call or meet client to discuss on questions and finally have answers.

Once answers are ready business analyst will discuss with Graphical Designers about the concept and requirements. Graphical designers will create some sample designs (usually designs will be created using tools, many tools available)

Business Analyst will share sample designs in a jpeg format (having water mark – water mark will be some text or symbol embedded in the sample, so that client does not own it before completion of the project). Usually there will be some recommendations / changes from client and that will be done from designers. Once Design is finalized from client, Business Analyst will get sign-off on design.

Designer will slice the design (Photoshop file .psd) into HTML. Usually Dreamviewer software will be used to slice HTML. Dreamviewer is also an Adobe product. Designer will adjust and tune designs by applying CSS and wherever necessary apply Java Script (for more information on java script, CSS – visit w3shools website).

Finally website will be ready for launch. Before launch website will be hosted on a test server and will be shown to client for final proof reading, testing will be done if any mistakes are there and same will be rectified. Once approved by client – deployment engineer or implementation engineer will deploy website on hosting server and website will be released.

Most Common erros / bugs in website:

  • Spelling mistakes
  • Cross browser compatibility – like in Mozilla firefox website will look good but in internet explorer it may not and vice-versa.
  • Mobile Friendly: Website looks good in desktop and but in mobile may not, like font and color and menus etc.,,,

Whats new/latest in website? 

CMS website (Content Management System) – when website is launched and later if client wants to change some text or add new picture into website, client has to come back to designer or software company   i.e. client will be dependent on software professionals. If website is built and powered by CMS then client himself / herself can change website content and update without technical knowledge, without HTML, CSS knowledge.   With CMS enabled webpage will open in a editor just like MS-Word, whatever needed can be edited/inserted/deleted/updated and all needs to be saved that all. It is very simple. Most common editors used are FCK Editor, Wyswyg editor, Tiny MC editor.

Also some readily available frameworks in PHP are available where CMS will be default like Drupal, Joomla, Typo3 (lets not go in deep.. this is just for information)

So at higher level we have covered important part of website design and development.

Most commonly once website is done, SEO will be initiated (Search Engine Optimization). Let’s not go deep into SEO because SEO itself will become a separate domain. In simple words making website searchable by search engines like Google, yahoo, Bing, MSN.

To make this happen lot of techniques are there like Meta tags identification, keywords, google analytics, google webmaster tools, submitting website for search engines, pay per click, link exchange websites etc.

WordPress Website: If website is built and powered by WordPress then client himself / herself can change website content and update without technical knowledge, without HTML, CSS knowledge. Client can modify whatever they want with using elementor and other plug-in.  Wordpress will work with plug-in, so we can install the plug in which we need as per our requirement.

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