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Tag: agile business analyst

Why Indian Businesses are adopting Fast Oracles Self-driving Database?

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The era of automation and cloud is here. In order to drive success and delight customers, Indian companies are looking to Fast Oracle Self driving databases. 

Data drives the world. Be it consumer insights such as shopping behavior, music preference or payment preferences. Today companies are leveraging the power of technology to crunch large amounts of data. Digital transformation has become an integral factor behind a company’s growth. When we take a closer look at how large amounts of data is processed and stored, we know that the possibilities are endless thanks to automation and cloud.

Companies such as Oracle have been leaders in the space for decades are now combining technology pillars such as machine learning, automation and cloud to provide solutions such as ‘self-drive database’. In simple terms, what it means with minimal human intervention, the power of data, businesses are able to achieve high performance at a lower cost.

Take for example, a clothing brand that wants to improve their point of sale interactions to enhance customer experience. How can they do it? By using the ‘Autonomous Cloud Service’ by Oracle, the brand is able to extract and manage relevant data which can support the end customer experience. All this can be done in an Agile business courses enterprise by unlocking deep insights from large amounts of data.

Furthermore, services such as Autonomous Database not only automate the whole process but also take into consideration data privacy, protection against cyber-attacks, data thefts and storage. Organisations that undergo Agile business training can unlock the true potential of autonomous services.

Some of the key attributes which can help companies invest in such services are:

Automation of Management Processes

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Autonomous Database provide companies with integrated solutions such as data management, repair, tuning and upgrade to ensure business continuity and growth. 

Reduces Cost of Operations

Due to minimal or zero human intervention, businesses can focus on leveraging key customer insights derived from data thereby reducing operational costs. 

Data Privacy

Data Privacy has become a top priority for most organisations today and implementing a software database storage solution provides them with the opportunity to safeguard data on cloud against cyber-crimes.

Take Strategic Decisions Fast

In an agile world, a key factor that comes into play is when businesses are provided with an opportunity to take quick, decisions. From a strategy perspective, Autonomous Data Warehouses offer this as a part of the solution.
Conclusion
Using a traditional database is time-consuming, and Indian businesses are catching on. Due to the exponential value that self drive databases provide Indian companies are adopting this in order to accelerate growth.

How Augmented Analytics Is Helping Business Analysts Build Prediction Models

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Gartner, a popular IT Research company, recently released their universally accepted Hype Cycle. In this Gartner Hype Cycle 2018, the augmented analytics is predicted to be the hottest topic in business intelligence. This article will shed light on what augmented analytics is and how is it helping businesses.

What is Augmented Analytics?
Augmented analysis or Agile business analysis can simply be explained as a fusion between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Business Intelligence (BI). On a more technical note, Augmented Analytics is an approach that uses machine learning and natural language generation to automate the insights. With this technology, the traditional hectic process of converting raw data to insights will be automated and improved.

Augmented Analytics isn’t exactly a brand new technology. It had been growing at a slower pace over the past years. But with the recent advancement in AI technology, Augmented Analytics also found new heights of evolution.

The Impact of Augmented Analytics
Analytics Automation is a largely desired capability among new-gen enterprises. The current system primarily relies on manual methods to process raw data. The current automation of the change management processes is limited to simple forecasting and visualization of data using analytics tools. The Augmented Analytics delves deeper and provides actionable predictive and prescriptive guidance along with the historical reports and dashboards.

Elimination of human biasing is another critical aspect of this technology. Since Augmented Analytics can be free of any particular research question, it gives the organizations the flexibility to explore hidden layers of insights. Eventually, it will result in executives of enterprises concentrating more on strategies rather than the daily routine manual tasks.

Some experts compare Augmented Analytics to the evolution of automobiles. Both systems are very complex and have thousands of parts to make them function properly. But a user does not have to know all these parts to use a vehicle. Similarly, Augmented Analytics enables its users to carry out complex analyses without the need for coding skills. The technology abstracts the complexity away.

So, non-technical analysts will be capable of running complex analyses. According to Gartner, the hardest tasks of analytics are expected to be automated within the next two years. Hence making machine learning and data science more open and accessible.

Is Augmented Analytics the Future?
Currently, enterprises are relying on data scientists to carry out data analysis. The scarcity and the high cost for a good data scientist are preventing medium and small-scale businesses from effectively using their data. But with the aid of Augmented Analytics, the data analysis will be cheaper, easier and better – enabling more businesses of all sizes to benefit from analytics.

Augmented Analytics is not yet mature enough to implement in the industry. But, reports suggest that the growth rate in this technology is immense enough to disrupt the business intelligence and analytics market shortly. Right now the lack of good data scientists is causing major trouble for the industry and Augmented Analytics is expected to resolve all these troubles. In short, Augmented Analytics is indeed the future of business analytics.

What Is The Basic Difference Between Scrum And Agile?

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It doesn’t matter if you are new to the field of software development, enrolling in a business analyst course online, just getting familiar with it, or already have some experience in it, Scrum and Agile are the two terms you must have heard.

business analyst online courseWhile both process management practices share identical approaches, the key differences between them are what you must learn about if you want to pursue a career in project management, software development, or both.

This will help you in choosing among various business analyst certification courses online. So, without further ado, let’s get into it!

What is Agile?

Agile methodology basically helps with the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) process and you can learn about it in a business analyst course online. It helps in reiterating the development and testing in the SDLC process. In the Agile process, development activities run simultaneously with testing activities.

This is something very different from other software development methodologies. Developers, stakeholders, businesses, and the client here work together on strategy analysis which encourages teamwork and better communication.

What is Scrum?

Scrum is a process in Agile (Scrum in Agile) that lets the software development team solely focus on providing the business values to customers in a brief amount of time by repeatedly and rapidly reviewing the actual working software and doing a strategy analysis.

The Scrum framework acknowledges the fact that the requirements of the project are not known at the inception of the project and likely to change. Scrum in Agile focuses on teamwork, accountability, and iteration to reach well-defined targets.

What is the difference between the two?

Both Scrum and Agile include iterative processes, cooperative decision-making, and client interaction. To choose which business analytics certification is best, knowing the difference between Scrum and Agile is important as they may seem similar on the surface.

The key difference is that Agile is a project management methodology that makes use of a core set of principles and values, while Scrum is a particular Agile approach that facilitates the project. Therefore, if you learn Agile, then you will most probably also learn Scrum if you choose a good Agile business analyst course with placement.

The other key differences between Agile and Scrum are:

  • Scrum can be broken down into smaller sprints and shorter deliverables whereas in Agile everything that needs to be delivered is done at the end of the project.
  • Agile includes team members from various cross-functional departments whereas, in Scrum, the project team has specific roles to play like product owner and Scrum master.
  • In Agile, the process design and its execution are kept as simple as possible whereas, in Scrum, the process design and execution are mostly experimental and innovative.

Business Analyst online courseAn important thing to note is that Agile does not necessarily mean Scrum even though Scrum is an approach in Agile. Notably, they are quite different approaches and processes that take the Agile approach towards project management.

It can be concluded that both Agile and Scrum while somewhat similar cannot be substituted with each other, because they have quite major differences. Agile is a more aggressive and preferred approach than Scrum. You can choose a business analyst course with placement to get to know them better.

What Are the Six Business Analysis Knowledge Areas

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In today’s world of rapidly changing business dynamics, business analysis is quickly becoming a crucial aspect that determines the success of any establishment. While with the advent of technology, understanding and analysing business problems have become much simpler, even today it is necessary that a business analyst knows the six knowledge areas that were originally outlined in the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge also known as BABOK.

BABOK, created and published by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) can be described in the most simplest terms as being a framework that describes the various aspects that encompasses a business, the tasks that are undertaken on a regular basis, and the competencies as well as techniques that are necessary to execute the same. In layman terms, BABOK can be compared to the Bible for aspiring as well as established business analysts in today’s global business environment.

What is Business Analysis

According to the second version of BABOK, business analysis can be described as being, “the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies, and operations of an organization, and recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.”

In simple terms, this definition states that business analysis is a tool that helps organizations and businesses understand and analyze their problems as well as opportunities. Along with this, when a potential solution presents itself, business analysis helps them establish if the solution is valid and most importantly measure the implementation success of the solution in the longer run.

Mentioned below are some of the key areas in which business analysis serves organizations:

1. Establishing and understanding key parameters as well as strategic objectives.
2. Listing out the projects that can be pursued along with analyzing the feasibility of pursuing them.
3. Understand and analyze the opportunities presented by the market as well as decide if skills should be acquired in order to fulfil the demand.
4. It helps establish that all the stakeholders share the same vision for the future as well as are aware of the steps that will be undertaken to reach the same. In a way, it helps keep the company on track by envisioning its future and subsequent goals.

The popular belief around BABOK is the fact that it is purely technological information, but this is not entirely true. One of the most significant benefits of business analysis is the fact it can be used in any aspect of the business and be applied regularly on objectives the company wishes to fulfil. This can be anything ranging from undertaking the development of a new software, acquiring a competitor as well as opening a new branch.

One of the most important sections of BABOK is “Requirements” as it helps businesses analyse capabilities as well as conditions that it needs to acquire or analyse in order to meet current business demands. BABOK mainly focuses on the process of identifying requirements, categorizing them, communicating it to the stakeholders, assess the risks as well as benefits, along with managing all the requirements simultaneously.

Six Knowledge Areas

The six knowledge areas outlined in BABOK are the following:

1. Planning and Monitoring
2. Elicitation
3. Requirements Communication and Management
4. Requirements Analysis
5. Enterprise Analysis
6. Validation and assessment of solutions

Conclusion

The six areas of knowledge outlined in BABOK along with all the other sections are crucial parts of any business analysts knowledge and thus if you are aspiring to become a business analyst, you should not understand and analyze them, but also implement them in real life establishments on a regular basis, along with undertaking a formal business analysis training.

What is Business Analysis

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What is Business Analysis

To ensure that a business runs glitch-free, its requirements and problems need to be identified, and solutions need to be determined from time to time. While techniques or processes may vary from industry to industry, the setting of tasks, gathering relevant knowledge related to the market, and techniques implemented to solve business needs is known as business analysis.

Business analysis is also conducted to understand the present state of a business, and to identify what its needs are. In other instances, business analysis means analysing requirements and coming up with valid solutions that meet business objectives and fulfill goals.

From a more technical point of view, identifying business needs and implementing solutions involve bringing about more improvement in daily processes or opting for a structural change in the organization.

How does Business Analysis Impacts an Organization?

Business analysis helps stakeholders or investors of an organization, understand more about its operations, overall structure and operating policies, who can then suggest recommendations or provide solutions to help the business achieve its objectives.

For external stakeholders, the performance of an organization is extremely important for them to anticipate their returns or have a forecasting model for possible risks. Internal communication between stakeholders and other functional departments are also better understood once a business analysis is conducted.

What is the Role of a Business Analyst?

Someone who analyses the state of affairs in an organization or business enterprise, and researches, as well as, documents its process, needs and shortcomings is called a business analyst. It is also his job go understand if a business model need a to be integrated with technology, and to what extent. To become a business analyst, a business analysis course is highly recommended.

The aim of a business analyst involves the following:

  • Understanding the structure of an organization and how operations function
  • Identifying current or potential problems in an organization, recommend and implement solutions
  • To understand the stakeholders’ aims and objectives align with the general health of the business and it’s goals as wellWhat are the various steps analysts follow during business analysis of an organization? 
  • Research- The most important step of business analysis is research. Business analysts spend enough time collecting basic information about the requirements, scope of work and business goals. It is also part of their role to understand who the stakeholders are, along with an in depth knowledge of the business history, understanding how processes work in the organization, and the existing system.
  • Identifying goals of the business and setting a scope- A business analyst has to make sure that business objectives align with the stakeholders’ expectations; in case there are conflicting expectations, he should be able to merge them.
  • An important step of business analysis is making sure that business goals are set and clear, only then the scope of business can be set, which is a go-to reference document that serves in helping people understand the current needs of a business and how they can be implemented. Before any plan mentioned in the scope is implemented, it needs to be run through investors.
  • Making a business analysis plan- to ensure the outcome meets the deliverables, a business plan needs to be put in place- from setting a customized list of deliverables to setting timelines for the same. A business analyst must ensure that the scope has been covered in the plan.
  • Understanding requirements- Once a plan has been set, the implementation team needs to understand the requirements, collect supporting information for the same, review the deliverables and decide up to what extent they are attainable.
  • Technical implementation- During the process of business analysis, often certain software is conceptualized, built and deployed on a project. Making sure that the software design is in place and fixing errors if any, is an important step.
  • Apply the solution- The most important and final step for business analysis is applying the solution to identified issues and understanding it’s results, which means identifying a way forward after the solution has been applied, determining next steps for the business, evaluating progress and communicating the results to important members in the business. This step is based on the business analyst’s own skills, and cannot be mastered at a business analysis course.

Once the process of business analysis is completed, it is expected that the business will achieve its set goals and objectives. Businesses often find better opportunities, improve their internal processes and manage effective communication with stakeholders more efficiently post a business analysis.

Also Read: Life of Business Analyst in India

Business Analyst Interview Questions

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If you’re searching for business analyst interview questions then you could be an interviewer or interviewee. But no matter which side of the table you are the interview itself is your chance to evaluate the answers of each other. Do not be nervous and try to stay calm, positive and genial throughout.

Business Analyst General Interview Questions

One should expect the interviewer will test your knowledge based on your resume and facts stated in them, your solutions in hypothetical situations and Agile related questions where the answers are likely to be based on your applications of Agile to BA situations like macroeconomics, fiscal policies, your ability to work on the team and your ability to creatively resolve tricky issues. General questions may have no right answer. These business analyst interview questions assess your soft skills and interpersonal communication skills.
Some of these are

  • Lead me through your resume.
  • What is your best positive feature or worst negative feature?
  • How would you measure BA success?
  • Would you like to ask us any questions?

In all your answers be brief, keep your answers simple, answer with spontaneity and honesty. Facts are easily verifiable and deceptively simple to answer wrongly.

Business Analyst Technical Interview Questions

  1. Explain differences between the Business Requirements, Functional Requirements and Technical Requirements documents.
    A BRD explains the business requirements. An FRD explains how business requirements can be achieved. A TRD explains how the Technical Designer requirements will be met. This trick question is not just about the answer but tests your Agile knowledge and application of the acronym to the Backlog list and other concepts in Agile from traditional and Agile perspectives.
  2. Where is PESTLE used?
    The PESTLE BA tool acronym expansion is Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Environmental, Legal environments assessed for opportunities, pressures and constraints.
  3. What are “Porter’s 5 Forces”?
    The framework is used to analyze competition levels in an industry, product substitutes, rivalry, new entrant’s threat and such factors for assessing competitiveness to influence organizational strategy. It was built and named after Harvard’s Prof. Porter.
  4. Explain Use Case Model.
    The Use Case model uses case descriptions and a step-by-step use case diagram to define the processes, role of actors and areas of the story.
  5. What does “Swim Lane” diagram mean to you?
    Using swim lanes is a widely used best practice in modelling techniques of processes showing the trigger for a specific event and the task sequences performed by a particular actor in the Use Case model.
  6. Tell us your definition of User Story.
    A User Story is used by Agile teams and is a format requirement from the user point of view got from Extreme Programming with the format:
    As a <user role>, I want
    <requirement> so that
    <business value>
  7. What is INVEST?
    The acronym expansion is Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Sized Appropriately and Testable. It checks the User Story effectiveness and uses it as a criterion for building them.
  8. Explain “Usability”.
    Usability is about the qualities that are end-user suitable. It is about the right system functionality and the user interface. The UX-user experience is the ultimate measure focused on.
  9. Explain non-functional and functional requirements:
    Functional Requirements are those that the solution will do or allow users to do. Non-functional requirements are “Quality Characteristics” like compatibility, security, performance etc, that measure how well the system behaves against the standards set for it and are essential to the system.
  10. Tell us about Kano Analysis:
    The Kano model explains customer satisfaction applied to the theory of product development by Professor Noriaki Kano in the 1980s. Customer preferences are put into five categories namely exciters, satisfiers, dissatisfiers or the wow, will and want factors. The model focuses on customer needs and tries to cash-in on perceived product features differentiated for product and marketing analysis.
  11. Explain MoSCoW prioritization briefly:
    MoSCoW stands for the acronym used in Agile approaches for requirements prioritized on a time-dependent scale in the DSDM Agile Project Framework.
    • Must Have
    • Should Have
    • Could Have
    • Won’t Have this time

Use these business analyst interview questions as a reference and work on your own questions if you were in the interviewer’s shoes.
Interviews need one to be thoroughly knowledgeable on topics related to business analysis, Agile framework and market conditions. One should use creativity in answering business analyst interview questions. Most of the questions tend to test knowledge, attributes of soft-skills, interpersonal communication skills and technical subject knowledge.
Did you know that the Agile and business analyst courses at Imarticus Learning offer mock interviews, assured placements, and soft-skill development too as part of their course learning? Why wait then? Join today!

Also Read: Top 25 Agile Interview Questions

Rethinking the Role of Business Analyst

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The Business Analyst can be found in most enterprises and their job roles can be classified under the heads of

  •  Requirements analysts
  • Systems analysts
  • Business analysts
  • Business system analysts

Good BAs are people-persons with excellent business domain understanding and include proficiency in interviewing, (JAD), modeling sessions, and model reviews.

The Need for Business analyst

The three oft heard justifications in traditional organizations for hiring a Business Analyst are not justifiable.

  • Developers fail in eliciting requirements because of poor modelling and communication skills required for this. This is remediable through training.
  • Stakeholders cannot document and model their requirements. Again training stakeholders using the right techniques and tools can help them do most of the work with a little help and guidance.
  • One need’s expert analysis. This is right and does not imply you need a BA to do just that. Agile BAs may not be good at all aspects of the job and analysis may be one of them.

Role of the Business Analyst

Business analyst on a traditional software development project will perform one or more of the following activities:

  • System scoping
  • Translates needs of the business
  • Technical issues translation
  • Document and model
  • Be the broker for communications
  • Be a political mentor
  • Validation and testing
  •  Stakeholder representation

Common Issues For Business Analyst

Some of the common Business Analyst problems that occur are mentioned below.

  • Lack of the right skills.
  • BAs may influence the project.
  • Outdated BAs.
  • BAs may become communication hurdles.
  • BAs may reduce the influence of stakeholders.
  • BAs over analyze.
  • BAs reduce feedback.
  • BAs reduce developer opportunity for communication skills.

Rethinking for Agile Analysts

Agility is to ensure that the processes and development are done in iterative items on a product backlog where the sprint and responsibilities of delivery of products devolve on the team. That means trouble as there is conflict in the BAs role and team activity.
Hence the following methodologies based on Agile practices were evolved to help to scale Agile in the organization.

  • One room methodology – Developers and Stakeholders are Co-Located
  • Over the wall methodology- Not Co-Located but Single Location
  • Across the network methodology- Dispersed/Distributed Development

Business analyst as Product Owner and the role of the Business analyst in scaling Agile cannot be discounted and are Agile measures to empower the new BAs rather than stick with traditional roles. This should be encouraged just because Agile in order to scale needs the removal of all hurdles and the spread of Agile thinking across every employee in the organization. This, of course, involves the Business analyst and gives them a chance to transform into Agile roles of being stakeholders in the process.

Though it would be impossible to discuss the topic in great detail, suffice to say that rethinking the Agile BAs role is a necessity in large organizations and cross-functional teams. So how would one understand better the benefits of Agility? The answer lies in Agile training and implementation from the grassroots levels. Doing an Agile course with a reputed and accredited training partner like Imarticus would bring in more than one benefit.

Benefits of Doing Business Analyst Course

  • You get trained in a very short time period.
  • Practical skills in the latest technology are enhanced through project work, assignments etc keeping your sports vertical in mind.
  • They have sufficient assignments, tests, hands-on practice and boot-camps to help you revise and learn the tough subjects.
  • They have a variety of subjects like ML, AI, finance, fintech etc in which they offer certification.
  • They use certified instructors and mentors drawn from the industry.
  • They integrate resume writing, personality development, mock interviews and soft-skill development modules in the course.
  • They have convenient modes and timings to learn at your own pace and online for professionals and in the classroom mode for sports analytics career aspirants.
  • They offer assured placements too!

Concluding thoughts:

An experienced Business Analyst will find it hard to settle into Agile teams because they have issues with over-modelling and over-specifying. To be effective members in Agile, they need to rethink, be collaborative, flexible and disciplined. This takes effort and time.
The easiest way is to do an Agile specialist course at Imarticus Learning where one can get acclimatized through industry-relevant assignments and project work.
Become a specialized BA today!

Why Should You Enroll in a Business Analyst Certification Program

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Businesses and the data they produce and require to thrive are growing, expanding fast and need efficient analysts to use the data for growing. Data has turned out to be the most valuable asset in any organization to help measure efficiency, success and production in all organizational tasks. Technology too has kept pace with these rapid developments and the BA is a career that tops any career aspirants list. Especially software related projects need to clean and use data from multiple sources to gain foresight and insights into the databases to help the BA analyze and use the data for predictive analysis.

Why Do Business Analyst Certifications

Organizational business analytics is of paramount importance and helps determine trends, future plans, goal setting, budgeting and many other indices for sustained growth. An approximate half of IT spends are on such initiatives which have resulted in unprecedented growth and demand for BAs.
Business Analyst Certification can help in many ways in a market where making a career in business and data analytics for business purposes is well-paid and demand booming. One of the major benefits of such certifications is that they are an essential spend whether you wish to make a career, are switching jobs or aspiring for a promotion. All organizations want to know before recruiting that the aspirant has sufficient experience and certification in business analytics practice. This is where they need a measurable endorsement and validation of your practical skills and application of learning from a reputed institution like Imarticus Learning. And, certification provides them with exactly this information. Certifications besides being a goal achieved can also provide you with a number of other benefits like
• Builds your confidence while adding to your resume.
• Visibility in a pool of aspirants in the demand-driven job-market.
• Salaries that are probably better and account for the better experience in BA practices under skilled and industry-relevant mentors.
• The credibility that you know, implement and practice business and data analysis techniques on the latest technological suites and frameworks.
• Suit and match market and technological trends in business analytics that are current and in demand.
Thus from the above diagram, you will see that this certification in business analytics is a right career step that can enhance your resume, build your confidence and help with landing those BA jobs with the best payouts. The McKinsey study reports that 490,000 data science jobs are vacant and have only less than 200,000 certified and qualified professionals to fill them. TechCrunch reports claim worldwide demand for data analysts will grow by 50% and fuel better payouts while increasing the demand-supply gap.
The payouts:
According to Glassdoor.com the median salary of a US business analyst is 77,712 USD per annum. The US Bureau for Census reports that median salaries for BA’s are on an average of 34,940 USD per annum and clearly indicates that most BAs draw more than this figure. Of course, this is a huge plus when making a career or changing jobs or roles. Business2Wirereports show that a certified professional earns 20 to 40% more than the rest.
Qualifications Needed
Can you believe that with such great pay packages all you could possibly need to launch your career is finding the right training course and partner? A basic sound degree in finance, economics, business administration etc definitely helps though not mandatory. Along with the boom in data technologies, the demand for training institutes to cater to the huge number of trained personnel has also seen tremendous growth. That is exactly why finding a reputed training partner like Imarticus makes a huge difference. Their curriculum is sound, practically-oriented and has industry acceptance globally. The certification is widely accepted and even has modules on soft-skill development, resume writing and such important topics. Getting into the right job is also easy with assured placements and effective mentorship from certified industry-drawn instructors and mentors.
Parting Thoughts:
Data analytics is a practice- intensive course best learnt from a reputed training institute like Imarticus Learning. Certification enables smart career choices and normally achieves a better pay-package and learning retention. Choose your vertical and ensure you get lots of practice then. All the best then and do not forget to call Imarticus today.

Three Modes of Business Analysis Consulting

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A consultant for BA normally is a collaborator, expert, or an additional pair-of-hands when facing clients. The book by Process Impact’s Principal Consultant Karl Wiegers is about these three modes of interactions. Let us explore these to learn more.

1. The independent model:

The Expert:

The expert works with clients who have pain-areas and approach you to fix them through training personnel, process validation/assessment, or alter and review some process/ project documentation or deliverables. The expert can only help with the tools like the assessment of ineffective processes and practices, possible solutions to the root causes, the current position report or a roadmap to effectively reducing the causes of pain. Managers, practitioners, employees and the management need to work on culture changes and sustained improvement techniques to ease their own pain.

The collaborator of ideas:

The consultant is an expert collaborator of ideas supplying solutions and ideas that make processes and performance in them more efficient and productive. According to Karl Weiger’s personal experience out of ten generated ideas, two are bound to be ridiculous, another two not suitable to the culture and process, three could be obvious and tried already and only two or one novel, innovative and brilliant in the fit. Being client and technology appropriate is vital.

The Agile Coach:

The BA may also coach and become the expert consultant using his advice to study the current practices and help discover better ways of doing the tasks. On a bigger scale, they could be of use to maintain, monitor practice standards, and establish them from a

Centre of Excellence for business analysis. The BAs role could involve preparing training materials, developing methodologies, creating process and guidance documents, templates for project deliverables, and such.

Difficulties faced:

The NAH and NIH issues are general syndromes that creating resistance in organizations. By NIH-not invented here most expert-offered solutions get rejected because the people using it do not trust it. By NAH-not applicable here complaints clients disapprove solutions citing they wouldn’t work in their environment since they were different. The BA expert consultant and coach cannot implement their solutions and rarely get any feedback regarding the outcomes. This means change management is crucial to organizations who hire such experts to provide solutions which cannot work in isolation.

2. A many-handed mode:

Often the extra pair-of-hands mode has many benefits where the domain of the consultant is exploited since the company may lack time and staff resources though they can perform the task themselves. The client is allowed to independently assess deliverables with the consultant working on his own.

Ex: Hiring experienced BAs on a fixed-term contract basis for specific developments in a software project.

The consultant here performs the regular BA tasks like eliciting requirements, identifying users, writing specifications, and so on until the on-site project work is completed. Often deliverables are iterated and worked till the final product is acceptable. At times you may do the novel and innovative task. In such cases, a vision statement is absolutely mandated covering the following assessment parameters since the outcomes are fuzzy.

For whom? (targeted client)

For Who? (statement of opportunity and specific needs)

Is a? (Deliverable type)

That? (Key takeaways)

Unlike? (current process)

This deliverable? (The new deliverable differentiators) 

3. The side-by-side collaborator:

Collaboration is the key parameter in this mode where the consultant needs to work for side-by-side the client organization’s staff in creating deliverables, identifying solutions, making decisions and setting priorities. It could be an extended off-site engagement that is collaborative or in the independent pair-of-hands-mode of operation. It includes reviews of the governance process architecturally, making environment peer reviews, working on reviews and product objectives, developing e-learning presentations, drawing up review processes and training of staff, recording e-learning training courseware scripts and such.

Concluding notes:

It is always best to use the three consulting modes depending on the engagement type and the specific project needs. There will be times when as an expert you may not agree with the mode selected and that’s where one will have to keep the client’s best interests in mind no matter your role. Often you will function as all three-The consultant, the expert and the collaborator of ideas.

Want to learn more about Agile courses? Do a course at the Imarticus Learning Academy where careers are born and honed.

How Big Is The Agile Methodologies Provider Industry

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Let us first understand what Agile methodology is all about. Under Agile methodologies, the software is developed in an escalating, incremental manner through rapid cycles. The process focuses on adaptability and customer satisfaction of the software product. Each cycle of software building is better and incremental than the previous one, and thus the cycle continues.
There are various reasons why Agile methodology has gained worldwide fame, appreciation, and popularity.
(a)One of them being that Agile is used to prevent large projects from failing, it had a prime focus on business profitability and delivering software as opposed to documentation.
(b)It is user-friendly and treats the user/consumer in a friendly way rather than a machine-centric manner.
There are certain strong strategies that Agile has adapted to have become this popular and widely acclaimed. They are as follows:
1. It shares the common value and goal of fixing large scale projects
2. It is user/customer/human centric rather than being machine-centric. This has positively impacted the productivity of Agile users and shown proven efficiency in business successes.
3. Inclusive/collaborative approach – The agile methodology has a very inclusive feature that supports the entire Agile team and promotes collaborative efforts of the team through its built-in flexibility.
4. Some Agile methodologies are very popular and user-friendly. These include Extreme Programming (XP), SCRUM, Features Driven Development (FDD) and Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)
5. Agile methodology helps you perform quicker and can also be developed at a good pace.
There many Agile methodology courses and certifications that you can sign up for. You can start with basics, and if you have previous exposure to the software development and its aspects such as coding, testing, and other software skills, it helps you gain Agile knowledge much more efficiently. From mastering an adaptive approach to product development, the courses are streamlined for your needs/requirements.

What You Will Gain From An Agile Certification Course?

1. You will gain the knowledge base, skills, tools and techniques involved in Agile methodologies and will be able to understand, apply and implement the principles of Agile.
2. You will also learn to smoothly coordinate Agile development processes including managing your respective teams, bringing about a social culture of experimentation, and running sprints.
3. In the final project completion stage, you should be able to apply, everything that you have learnt to a real-world hands-on practical project and demonstrate your skills and abilities.
4. Flexible schedules to learn the course in case you are already a working professional. Many education platforms offer online certification courses and you can time these according to your convenience.
The job opportunities you will encounter are many to pick from. You can become an Agile Scrum Master, Technical project manager, Technology manager, Scrum Master consultant, Project leader, Senior Agile transformer, and Agile coach/tutor/mentor/guide and give lessons and coach many more hundreds of people, Product Owner handling the business operations too, and/or software development manager, among other opportunities. The Agile Scrum certification promises you a great career with a heavy income. A career with a business analyst certification India is also possible using these skills and knowledge base.