Tag Archives: Techniques

Data Flow Diagrams

There are a couple of ways to represent the flow of data in any existing or proposed system. One is by creating a flow diagram using any notation you prefer that communicates the necessary understanding to all participants. I have … Continue reading

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Business Cases

A business case is essentially a cost-benefit analysis of taking a given course of action. Actions may include embarking on new projects, acquiring resources or other organizations, making non-routine purchases, adopting new methods, entering partnerships, seeking new lines of business, … Continue reading

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Prototyping

Prototyping is the act of mocking up some aspect of an envisaged product or capability in order to asses its suitability, acceptability, or performance. It is usually applied to product design, but can be used in many different contexts for … Continue reading

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Business Capability Analysis

Business capability analysis is the process of evaluating a many aspects of a business’s ability to accomplish defined goals and support and develop its staff and customers. It seeks to create a consistent rubric for conducting repeatable analyses that allow … Continue reading

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TWSL Series 14: Business Analysis Techniques from the BABOK

Today I gave this webinar for the Tom Woods School of Life Lunch and Learn Series. The slides are here.

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Organizational Modeling

Organizational modeling is a technique for representing the functional, operational, or physical structure of cohesive groups of people. The most common way of doing this is by using organizational charts or “org charts.” The traditional way these are shown is … Continue reading

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SWOT Analysis

SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The basic idea of this analysis is straightforward, but the decisions and actions can be as complex as can be imagined. Much like the Important vs. Urgent grid, this technique … Continue reading

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Use Cases and Scenarios

Use cases may be thought of as packages of instructions or actions taken by an actor when interacting with a system. The actor does not have to be human, and the system does not have to involve computers or IT. … Continue reading

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Risk Analysis and Management

I don’t strongly feature the subject of risk analysis when I talk about my framework, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t accounted for or present. I usually build up my framework like this: Risks and Impacts appears with Assumptions and … Continue reading

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Sequence Diagrams

Imagine a network with the following representative elements. Many external and internal workstations, mobile devices, and pieces of equipment exchange information with an internal system of servers and capabilities. Now imagine that some of the internal servers provide a number … Continue reading

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