Understand Business Analysis

Assessment Measures: Definition & Examples in Business

Every profession needs some form of evaluation. Academics use written tests, athletes use speed and agility exercises, and businesspeople use a combination of key performance indicators, such as conversion rates and sales. The same assessment applies to organizations as a whole. For example, universities use drop-out rates, teams play in tournaments, and companies set financial […]

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Solution Design: Template, Steps, & Definition

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In business, solutions are a way of life. Companies aim to solve customers’ problems, and to do so, they have to overcome many of their own problems. However, solutions are rarely easy. They have to be fast, affordable, and qualitative — but they’re rarely all three. In addition, they need to be well understood throughout

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Business Analyst vs Data Analyst: what’s the difference?

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In a word, the difference is scope. Business analysts (BAs) collect requirements to improve individual work flows or launch single products, whereas data analysts extract insights from data to understand process efficiency, market potential, customer behavior, financial performance, and more for an entire department. While BAs may use descriptive and diagnostic data analysis to validate

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man teaching how to be come a business analyst

What is a business analyst? (3 Types You Didn’t Know About)

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A few Google searches show that there’s significant misunderstanding of the business analyst (BA) role. Some claim BAs work on internal processes (such as a supply chain), while others claim BAs are translators between business needs and technical ability (usually in product development). This split lets wonder what a business analyst really is — what

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What does a business analyst do? (& The Skills to Do It)

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In the business world, the ultimate goal for any organization is to deliver products that fulfill customer needs. But the difference between what we think customers need and the reality is often staggering, and decision makers can fall into a number of process traps or miscalculations about what to provide. That’s where the role of

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What is a Pugh matrix? (a.k.a. Decision-Matrix)

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Some choices are tough. Think of the last time you bought a car. You had to make a decision about price, color, gas mileage, electric or gas, size, horse power, and more. It’s possible one or two criteria were clear (i.e it had to be under $20,000 and red). Then you went shopping and found

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Use Case and Test Case: What’s the difference?

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The terms “use case” and “test case” are sometimes used interchangeably in the IT development world, and for good reason. Both terms refer to a way of checking if users’ interactions with a product or system occur in an intended way. The difference lies in creator intent. In a sentence, a use case describes the

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Business Analyst vs Software Developer: What’s the difference?

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“Business analyst vs software developer” sounds like a war movie, but the two actually work together. Business analysts (BAs) and software developers (SDs) collaborate in the software development lifecycle, but they’re far from being the same role. In short, business analysts collect, interprets, and document requirements for a software product, whereas software developers and programmers

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What is a control owner? (Hint: saves you money…)

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The idea of controls is as pervasive as business itself. A control is a check at some or multiple points within a process to ensure that the system is working correctly. In this way, controls are a form of risk management. We usually talk about control owners in accounting (controller) and quality assurance. A control

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How to Write, Measure & Capture Non Functional Requirements

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Non functional requirements are the goals that a product or functionality must achieve to be successful , as opposed to actual product behaviors (or functional requirements). Examples of non functional requirements for websites include performance, usability, and attractiveness, whereas the actual behaviors behind these might be design and page color. Non functional behaviors vary, however,

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