Let's start to discuss new topic "What product discovery techniques do Business Analysts use?"🤓

The first one is Design thinking. Design thinking is an old concept formulated in its current state in the 1990s by David Kelley and Tim Brown. It’s not only a philosophy but also a process that consists of five iterative steps.
🔶 Empathize
In this step, Business Analysts formulate assumptions about the pain points of the potential users:
✔️ What problems are they experiencing?
✔️ How do they currently solve them?
✔️ Are these problems really important?
✔️ Are people ready to pay for solutions?
The specialists shouldn’t convince the customer of anything; their goal is to understand the users.
🔶 Define
Organizing and analyzing data collected in the previous step helps the experts to articulate the main problems that the software will solve, the so-called problem statements, and create personas.
🔶 Ideate
This step refers to brainstorming as many ideas related to software features that will solve the problems as possible. None of the ideas are wrong at this stage, excluding those that are impossible to implement.
🔶 Prototype
The less time it takes to create prototypes of possible solutions, the better. These prototypes can take the form of sketches on a napkin or PowerPoint presentations. They should be minimalistic and just enough to make the potential users understand the idea of how the software is going to work.
🔶 Test
Asking potential users for their opinion about the prototypes can include the following questions:
✔️ Does the software solve the problem?
✔️ Is it convenient to use?
✔️ Is it priced properly?
The process of improving and testing the prototypes should be iterated until the solution can solve potential users' relevant problems in an appropriate and convenient manner.

#Discovery

Let's continue topic "What product discovery techniques do Business Analysts use?"🤓
🔶Conducting interviews
When providing product development services, interviewing is essential to collect relevant and useful data about a project. An open conversation with potential customers makes them feel confident and provides the project team with more insights.

A good interview shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes and shouldn’t include overly intrusive questions. Interviewers are often tempted to ask about the respondent’s annual revenue and similar topics. However, there is little possibility that they will answer openly as this would involve proprietary information that the respondent might not be willing to disclose. Moreover, they can get irritated by such questions. Instead of inquiring about the prospective customer’s annual revenue, it’s appropriate to ask them about prices for their services and products.

Both using a standard questionnaire and asking clarifying questions are essential. When conducting product discovery, one needs insights and not statistics. Asking open-ended questions provides Business Analysts with the necessary information and helps the respondents to remain engaged during the interview.

🔶Brainstorming
The goal of brainstorming is to find non-standard and effective solutions to problems. During brainstorming, its participants propose the solutions that first come into their minds no matter how strange they might seem. The majority of the proposals are later discarded; however, discussing as many ideas as possible is essential to turn quantity into quality. The main idea behind this process is to articulate the best ideas by employing creativity and full freedom while generating them.

Brainstorming brings the following results:
✔️proposing original solutions to users’ problems;
✔️eliciting as many possible product features as possible so as not to miss anything important;
✔️revealing possible product limitations, for example, dictated by the company policy.

#Discovery

Let's continue topic "What product discovery techniques do Business Analysts use?"🤓

🔶Business modeling
Different projects require different business modeling techniques. For example, working on a business model for a startup usually involves using Lean Canvas.
When the product is a large corporate system, it requires establishing business processes.

🔶Functional decomposition
This may seem an easy task, however, many project teams experience difficulties with estimations due to incorrect approaches to creating a work breakdown structure. Specialists who perform decomposition should be skilled in business analysis as they need to understand how the product will work. Otherwise, tasks can be duplicated or unclear from the technical point of view, and therefore, hard to estimate. The lack of qualification in business analysis can lead to missing critical requirements which results in the underestimation of a project, sometimes by several times.

#Discovery

Finally Friday! Have a great weekend⭐️
#BAmeme

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Andersen, an international IT company, invites an experienced Product Owner/Business Analyst to work for a large-scale e-commerce project. The customer is a leading international tobacco manufacturer headquartered in Switzerland.

📍You have:
▪️Experience as a Product Owner/Business Analyst for 5+ years;
▪️Proven experience in developing e-commerce platforms (e.g., Magento, Shopify);
▪️Hands on with Agile methodology;
▪️Strong leadership, coordination, negotiation, and presentation skills;
▪️English: B2+.

📌Nice to have:
International certificates (e.g. PSPO/PSM/PSU/PAL/SPS/ICP/IQBBA/IREB)

📍Reasons to join us:
▪️Salaries at Andersen are pegged to the EUR, and our employees are provided with a benefit package and an extensive set of bonuses;
▪️We give our employees an opportunity to attend and participate in the company’s BA meetups, as well as offer a compensation program for international professional certificates;

📎You can find out more about the vacancy here: https://people.andersenlab.com/ru/vacancy/business-analyst-and-product-owner/1679


✏️Feel free to contact:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-vinnikova/
Telegram: @Katerina_Vinnikova
Email: mailto:k.vinnikava@andersenlab.com

Andersen, an international IT company, invites an experienced System Analyst to work for a large-scale project of our partners from the Netherlands.

📌You have:
▪️Experience as a Business/Systems Analyst for 3+ years;
▪️Excellent functional and technical skills in software development (Driven Design, UML Diagrams, Design Pattern);
▪️Strong knowledge of DevOps methodology and good knowledge of an Agile Project Management Tool (Azure DevOps, JIRA);
▪️Knowledge in AI/ML or possibility to learn new information in that field right away.
▪️English: B2+.

📌Nice to have:
International certificates (e.g. PSPO/PSM/PSU/PAL/SPS/ICP/IQBBA/IREB)

📌Reasons to join us:
▪️Salaries at Andersen are pegged to the EUR, and our employees are provided with a benefit package and an extensive set of bonuses;
▪️We give our employees an opportunity to attend and participate in the company’s BA meetups, as well as offer a compensation program for international professional certificates;

🖇You can find out more about the vacancy here: https://people.andersenlab.com/ru/vacancy/system-analyst/1676

✏️Feel free to contact:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-vinnikova/
Telegram: @Katerina_Vinnikova
Email: k.vinnikava@andersenlab.com

Hi professionals!😎
Long time no see, and great to publish a new post.
Here are a nice article "42 Reasons To Start a Business Analyst Career".
🌟Could you share you own experience in the comments below why do you choose this profession?
🌟Was it an easy decision?
🌟How long did it take you to reach this noscript?
https://www.bridging-the-gap.com/42-reasons-to-consider-starting-a-business-analyst-career/

Hi professionals!⭐️
How about to read article about ER-model: what it is and how to create it?
☝️Modeling, as a cognitive activity of the highest level, is considered to be the very tool that through simplification of all the relevant project elements makes stakeholders not only aware but also calm about the design of the product, as well as about the processes the project involves and the course of the project realization.

Among many different models that can help all the subjects agree about the product/project, an ER-model is the one that conceptualizes relations between the elements in a system. In simple BA language, an Entity-relationship model describes entities and the relationships between them using graphical notation. In what follows we are going to look up closer at what ER-models comprise and what is the most problematic issue while creating them.

🌟Once the purpose of ER-model is to describe the structure of a database in software engineering and business information systems so as to simplify the database design process, it is clear that one of the major problems with developing an ER-model arises when choosing a notation system. There are several notations and no single standard, which means that every BA is free to use any to their liking, with other stakeholders having a chance to not understand it. With this in mind, I recommend turning to Crow's Foot Notation which is one of the most commonly used notations when creating/designing ER diagrams (ERDs).

The major parts of ERDs are:
🔸Entities - a person, place or thing about which we want to collect and store multiple instances of data - is represented by a rectangle with a noun as the name of the entity (e.g. ‘Patient’, ‘Hospital’, ‘Doctor’).;
🔸Relationship - that connects the two entities involved in some relationship - is represented by a line;
🔸Attributes - the information about an entity which distinguishes the data we intend to store (e.g. doctorid, doctorname) and about the type of the data (e.g. string, integer, etc.) - are written inside an entity (inside a rectangle).

To describe different types of relationships that can take place in an ERD the notion of cardinality is of use. Cardinality is treated as the number of times an instance in one entity can relate to instances of another entity. Cardinality is depicted by the styling of a line that connects instances and its endpoint. The major types of cardinal relationships are:
🔸one to one - relationship means that one entity has only one event shared with another entity (for e.g. An appointment can have one and only one receipt);
🔸one to many - one of the related entities has an event that occurs one time, while the other entity can have more than one repetition of the event (for e.g. A hospital can have one or many doctors, while the doctor can have one and only one hospital);
🔸many to many - both entities have the same event or relationship happening more than once (for e.g. Many patients can have many appointments.).

Here is brief tutorial for ERD creation (in Crow's Foot Notation) with the help of such simple tools as Draw.io and Lucidchart:
👉Identify the key entities with particular names and label rectangles with these names. Don’t forget that they should be represented as nouns.
👉Think about the attributes of each entity and its data type.
👉Place attributes and their data type inside the rectangles with relevant entities.
👉Think about all relationships between the entities.
👉Choose and set an appropriate type of relationships between entities using lines.
Some of your entities may have only one relationship, some may have multiple relationships. That is okay.

What if ChatGPT were a cat?🤔
https://catgpt.wvd.io/

Hi professionals!
How about to discuss topic "User Stories vs Use Cases"?

📝 User Story is a short statement describing some functionality to be implemented from the perspective of a user.
US typically includes:
🔸Story Title written in the format: As a <role> I can <capability>, so that <receive benefit>;
🔸Acceptance Criteria;
🔸Attachments (links to mock-ups, diagrams, check-lists, content, etc).

👍🏻 US’s Pros:
✔️User-centered (e.g.enables developers to determine the way of implementation)
✔️Simple format, which makes it easy for a business owners to understand and (dis)aproove
✔️Quick to change (e.g. changes often affect certain criteria rather than the whole US)

👎🏻 US’s Cons:
➖Unclearly defined criteria make testing difficult
➖Difficult to check the comprehensiveness of the criteria
➖Narrow vision (as US focuses on one single requirement)

📝 Use Case describe how a user should interact with the system in order to achieve a specific goal.
UC typically include:
🔸Titles;
🔸Actors;
🔸Preconditions;
🔸Main scenario;
🔸Alternative scenario;
🔸Exceptional scenario;
🔸Expected result.

👍🏻 UC’s Pros:
✔️Behavior-centred (e.g. describes interaction between a user and a system)
✔️Focus on the functionality (e.g. describes different scenarios and, what is more important, system’s behavior)
✔️Form the basis for writing test cases

👎🏻 UC’s Cons:
➖Changes take much time, as all the scenarios must be refactored
➖Non-functional requirements are not expected to be included

❓What do you prefer US or UC?

How is yours productivity today?🤓
#BAmeme

Hi professionals!
What do you think about "Risk identification techniques"?
Risk identification in business analysis is one of the steps of risk analysis and management. If you don’t identify a risk, you can’t manage it.
According to the BABOK the failure to identify risks may negatively affect the value of the solution. Risk identification consists in identifying potential risks and analyzing them to learn about their effects on the business.

☝️As part of the risk identification process in business analysis you may look at the following sources:

🔸Brainstorming is the gathering of team members to speculate on ideas, discuss problems with people who work on the project. Team members may have a better understanding from the ground level and can share their own perspectives of the project's risks.
Advantages: Brainstorming is an effective method because it allows everyone to speak and practice their critical thinking skills. The output of a brainstorm is a list of risks, each described by a phrase or sentence indicative of the risk source.
Limitations: the facilitator has to maintain control, involve all teammaters, even extroverts.

🔸Interviews are used when it is not practicable to commit a team to a single meeting. Moreover interviewing stakeholders may help you better understand what they believe are the biggest risks. Also their viewpoint can help learn what concerns investors and how to address it.
Advantages: some people are more comfortable with expressing themselves
openly in a one-to-one situation.
Limitations: the process consumes more of the facilitator’s time and that opportunities afforded by the cross-fertilisation of ideas are more limited.

🔸NGT, or nominal group technique is the variation of brainstorming. Participants write their own ideas without discussing it directly with other group members. Then, the team discusses each item to ensure everyone understands them, and a facilitator can work to prioritize each one.
Advantages: provides a more comprehensive approach than brainstorming.
Limitations: depends on honesty and teamwork.

🔸Delphi Technique is a method of group decision-making and forecasting that involves successively collating the judgments of experts. A group of experts exchange views, and each independently gives estimates and assumptions to a facilitator who reviews the data and issues a summary report.
Advantages: it can be carried out remotely and/or anonymously – for example, by e-mail. The output is the work breakdown structures, opportunities identified, and compiled report of lessons learned.
Limitations: time-consuming. Predicting the future is not an exact science.

🔸Technology readiness levels (TRLs) are an approach to the assessment of technological maturity developed by NASA and adopted by other industries working in conditions of rapid technological change. The TRL are determined and characterized for each system and subsystem. If the system components are relatively low TRL and the maturation plan is uncertain, it points to technology risks.
Advantages: helps enhance risk management from the early stages of product development, helps aid decision making on research and development actions and innovation actions.
Limitations: the technology evolution is technology-centric and not user-centric.

🔸Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis is useful for considering how the strengths and opportunities can be used to reduce weaknesses and threats.
Advantages: combination of quantitative and qualitative information, no need for training or technical skills to complete this process, an expensive piece of software or consultant to come
Limitations: subjective analysis of an issue.

In conclusion it would say there is no one scientific method that will guarantee you will identify all risks. As a project progresses, risks evolve and new risks emerge. Risk identification should be a continuous process, and, if this is not recognised, the output from risks identified previously can dominate further the risk register at the expense of new risks.

Hi professionals!
How about discussing Sequence diagrams?
In this article we will look closer at Sequence diagrams: what are they, when are they used, and how to read them.

🔍 What is Sequence diagram
Sequence diagram illustrates how objects interact within a process or a use case to get something done. It is used to show the order of actions that are taken between elements.

🔍 When are Sequence diagrams useful
Sequence diagrams can help to visualize any scenario, use case or a process. They could be attached to a Use Case or a Use Story, thus complex processes could be described in a single diagram and development team won't have to read a five-page Use Case.

🔍 How to read Sequence diagram
Here are the main rules of any Sequence diagram:
🔸 The sequence is represented from top down
🔸 Each object or actor is placed on a separate lifeline - a vertical dotted line - going across the top of the sequence diagram
🔸 A message from one instance to another is represented with a solid line (for an initial message or outgoing call), and dotted line (for a return value)
🔸 When a system has to perform a process that takes some time to complete, use a vertical box on the lifeline (an activation box). The box ‘starts’ when it first receives a message, and ‘ends’ when all messages have been sent/received and the process has been completed.
🔸 Frames can be used to show alternate sequences - ones that only execute if a certain condition is true. They can also be used for parallel sequences.
🔸 Additional information could be posted in a Comment shape labeled to a message.

Understanding the principles and key elements of the notation, you can further on build it yourself.

Hi professionals!
What do you think about Kano model?
The Kano model is a framework used for product features prioritization that is based on customer emotional reaction towards the features. The customer emotional reaction might range from utter satisfaction to total disappointment.
According to the Kano model, customer reaction to the features allows us to group them into 5 categories:
🔸Basic - the features the product can’t perform its core functions without. The customer expects to have them and takes them for granted.
E.x.: send text message feature in a messenger.
🔸Excitement - the features that make your product stand out, its killer features. The customer is excited to have them.
E.x.: convert audio messages into text feature in a messenger.
🔸Performance - the features that increase customer satisfaction. The customer is happy to have them.
E.x.: an increase in a single voicemail duration in a messenger.
🔸 Indifference - the features that don’t evoke any customer emotion. The customer doesn’t care about these features.
E.x.: displaying application logo decorated with holiday attributes on holidays in a messenger;
🔸Dissatisfaction - the features that upsets the customer .The customer doesn’t want to have these features in the application.
E.x.: a message history is cleared once the user closes a messenger app.

⭐️How to use the Kano model?
📎make a list of features that need prioritization;
📎create a questionnaire for customers which will include a list of features and customer potential emotional reaction options that should correspond to 5 feature categories mentioned above;
📎send out a questionnaire to the target audience;
📎collect the questionnaire results;
📎tally for each feature which customer reaction option(feature category) has the biggest number of points;
📎match the reaction options with Kano feature categories;
📎prioritize the features based on the results:
➖include all Basic features into the scope
➖add as many Performance features as you can
➖add a few Excitement features;
➖remove the Indifference and Dissatisfaction features from the scope.