So um if this is the first time you’re joining us um what we’ve done in the last three weeks this is the fourth week that we’re working on this and this is this is a business analyst case study for an interview um our vendor here um with us had recommended that we try to do this for our training sessions if you’re new to.
This group or to this training we do live training sing and myself manage a facebook group called business analyst success path and what we do is we do live training every sunday on various topics that are of interest to you guys so feel free to give us feedback on training sessions on how what we’ve done good what we could.
Improve on and also give us different topics that we can train you guys on so for this week in the last three weeks we’ve um went over very detailed and very specific things that you should be doing when you’re working on a case study and if you’ve missed those trainings they’re.
All in our group business analyst success path and facebook you can go back and watch them if you still have questions on them please leave them in the comments jeet and myself are pretty responsive in the group so we’ll get back to your questions.
This week what we decided to do was to spend this whole session talking about how to present all this great work that you’ve done on the case study during your interview so that is going to be the goal for our training today before we get started do you guys have any questions on this topic okay.
And again while we’re going through this um we always say this is really not for us we spend this time and energy um to make this helpful for you guys so if you have any questions please stop us while we’re presenting because that’s the best time um to talk about things if they’re not clear got it so with that.
Let’s get started so uh the organization that we were working on is a non-profit organization um i put these slides together to give you guys a framework again we’ll post the slides in the group as well along with this training session so you guys have a framework when you’re working on this you can.
Download the slides and kind of use them as a template and again every organization every company every um uh industry does things a little differently when jeet and i sat down and started to work on this our goal was to give you a great framework um to follow along with not necessarily that you should follow.
Everything to the t as we done it but it gives you a great framework to follow and again the case study may request different types of documentation so follow the structure of your case study and use this from a framework standpoint and as a template standpoint on how you should prepare for these things so today we’re not going to focus on how we got.
To the documents or the um how we got to the requirements and things like that for that go back and watch the previous training today is just presentation on how to best prepare yourself to show up for that interview okay so with that let’s kind of recap why companies are doing case study.
Interviews right so it’s to ensure that you guys have a good understanding of business analyst role it’s um for you guys to have like that analytical mindset and to ask the right questions during the interview um analytical mindset who can dive deep into the business needs this is all.
About solving a business need right not the technical solution not on how a company can get to where they need to be to solve that problem but how are you going to solve that business need for the stakeholders that you’re working for for you to have the ability to document the businesses and be comfortable with asking why.
A lot of new business analysts that go into the industry they work with stakeholders and they just jot down everything that the business partners or business stakeholders are saying but a good part of your role as a business analyst is to stop and ask why are you wanting to do it this way right because our business partners typically.
Most of the time they don’t know why they’re doing certain things they’ve just been trained maybe from when they started their career many years ago to do things certain a certain way so it becomes really crucial when we the business analysts are enhancing or you know evaluating things to buy a new system for us to.
Stop and ask why are we doing it this way because maybe they’re doing redundant processes maybe it makes doesn’t make sense so make sure even when you’re presenting your case study that you talk about that um you know making sure you are validating the business need so again these are the goals i went a little deep on the why.
Because it’s a personal pet peeve of mine but these are really the goals of people having case studies for interviews because they’re trying to make sure that you understand what the role of a business analyst is and what it’s not is it’s not there to trick you is not to make your life.
Miserable it’s not to see if you can get to the right or wrong answer right most likely it’s not about the outcome that you come up with or what you’re presenting at the case study they just want to make sure that you have um the logical flow um and you have the analytical mindset to solve a problem not that particular problem but just a.
Problem does that make sense you guys okay awesome so when i was i’m working on this and um i’m a procrastinator i don’t i do things at the last minute so when i was thinking about you know kind of wrapping this up for you guys last night it’s like i need to give them a quote right so this is mine uh from yours.
Truly served right um the goal of a case study interview you’re not trying to get to the right answer you’re trying to showcase your approach to meeting business needs and i quote um meeting business needs again because lots of times we try to jump to solutions and i know that in many countries.
Our ba roles and systems analysts which are a little bit technical are kind of getting merged together so in that scenario you may need to give a technical outline but theoretically um originally the business analyst role is not that of providing a technical solution it’s you identifying a business need appropriately so that it.
Can be met by our technical developers and our technical leads our technical architects and things as such so if you’re presenting a case study make sure you focus on the business needs and meeting those business needs for your stakeholders got it so in general.
Before showing up for the interview make sure that you prepare a powerpoint presentation something like what you’re looking at right now that you save your documents on a flash drive to take with you you plan on bringing your laptop right just in case lots of companies have security requirements so they may not allow you.
To plug in a flash drive to present a powerpoint like this right also email your documents to yourself or to your interviewer you want to email it to yourself in the event that you can log in from their network to pull these documents up or you may want to email them to an interviewer who can pull them up.
During the interview and then also it’s a good idea to bring hard copies of your presentation and your documents for the case studies i always stick with five and just to be on the safe side but you may want to these are just things that you may want to think about because you don’t want to have spent hours and hours preparing for this case study get to the.
Interview and not be able to showcase your work so make sure you follow these um when you’re showing up for a case study interview so again just in general how to show up to the interview you got to dress for impr to impress right first impressions are by far the most important ones for men.
You guys need to wear a black or gray suit i always personal uh preference is a white or a blue shirt uh with a tie like a button-down shirt for the men your shoes need to be polished your hair needs to be well up front i’m sorry so i think you may have missed the the previous sessions uh we took a.
Case study that was recommended by one of our participants and we went through that case study of what the need was we defined we went through all the processes of defining what the need is creating workflow documents diagrams business requirements assumptions and now we’re.
We’re essentially putting a wrapping it all up and putting a bow tie on it so now we’re going through of what that presentation should look like all right okay thank you no problem cool.
Thank you i think i just entirely missed that question um did you hear what i was talking about of how far what was the last thing that you guys heard from me regarding the presentation and how to keep the documents ready oh okay okay so then i may have lost you guys so again i was just going over this.
Uh so does this make sense to bring all this stuff okay perfect um and then again showing up for the interview you got to dress for impress um for men um black or gray suit polish shoes well groom hair beard for women again a pant or skirt suit if you don’t have a suit ladies just wear pants.
And like a cardigan or like a with a nice blouse you need to wear close toe shoes ladies don’t walk in there with like open-toe shoes it just it doesn’t look professional enough wear light makeup not heavy heavy makeup and like small jewelry don’t wear clunky jewelry just it just doesn’t look um like the part for interviews you just kind of.
Need to look um very professional and very focused um always arrive 15 minutes early have a portfolio or a notebook to take notes i hate it when people show for interviews um as an interviewer always have a notebook right because you may need to take notes um.
So just always have a notebook or a portfolio in your hand to walk into the interview with and always always have extra resumes on hand you never want to show up without any hard copy resumes because sometimes you know interviewers may not have gotten a copy of your resume before the interview right let’s say if i.
Wanted to pull one of my colleagues in for the interview just to get their feedback and i didn’t give them a resume then it just looks really awkward to be in an interview um when they don’t have something so try to avoid those situations just always bring hard copies of resumes so again.
Going back to the case study remember the business analysts need uh uh remember business analysts meet business needs by doing all of these these are very very high level again we’ve done a lot of this stuff in our previous trainings this is again just to what as jeet said to put a boy bow tie on our package um these are the.
This is the way that i’m going to show you how to present so this is slide just shows you things that business analysts in a typical scenario uh meet so uh typically we identify all stakeholders we’re gathering requirements we’re documenting those requirements we’re validating them we’re creating test scripts or planning for uat we’re.
Conducting uat we’re launching the project and we’re training the stakeholders right and this little um uh diagram that you see at the bottom um i’m gonna use this when we get into the presentation mode of the case study to showcase a logical flow on how you should present the case study so make sure you look for these.
On those slides when we start talking about them and um before we get started document and validate when you’re in the analysis phase you’re typically going back and forth between documenting gathering documenting and validating just because when we work on workflow diagrams you typically create them you validate them.
If they’re approved then you go back and you do the requirements or you you know document the requirements does that make sense okay awesome in the previous slide yeah uh plan uad what is the test script you mean test cases similar to what qa.
Yeah so typically um what business analysts do right um our qa folks also create test scripts right but there may be creating them from a different standpoint uh typically our base they look at our requirements and they create test cases for the business um also to test right so that’s what i mean test scripts or.
Test cases okay and then typically even if our business analysts aren’t creating those test cases they’re already planning on how to conduct uat who all needs to be involved what test scripts you know they need to validate for us to complete uat okay does that answer your question.
Yes it did yes as erwin just said that uh regarding the test scripts uh suppose a business want to con like uh conduct a uat uh so it is it’s the responsibility of uh the ba to create the test scripts it might be a high level test script uh.
Test cases before considering uh going live which need to be conducted or which can be conducted by business so the test scripts will be prepared by ba in this case like so okay so don’t confuse yourself right so um it is a responsibility of qa analysts right our quality assurance folks to create test scripts.
Um the reason why um i’ve mentioned that as a responsibility of a ba is sometimes those test scripts are very very detailed right because our qa folks are looking at this from um making sure that the the button is where it needs to be right they’re not necessarily looking at the business functionality the business functionality working as it should.
So from that standpoint you can utilize the test scripts that our qa folks put together but it’s also a good practice to look at your requirements and create test scripts from there right to make sure that from because you understand the business needs a lot better uh i would imagine than our qa folks who are you know looking at the requirement.
They’re looking at the business requirements and looking at the technical requirements and they’re creating their test scripts right so it’s always good practice to have your business stakeholders validate or go through the tests on the test scripts to make sure that they’re approving before you launch the project.
That you always need to conduct uat how do you conduct uat you look at the requirements right typically our business analysts will say if the requirement is i don’t know let’s say registration for in in our scenario is um the senior citizens need to be 65 years old right so in that scenario you would have.
You know your business stick holders uh create a profile for somebody who’s 63 years old and make sure that they’re denied access right something like that so based on your business requirements that you’ve captured you would create scripts for them to make sure that they can validate that those business.
Requirements have been met you always want the business to test and get approval before you launch the project ok ok any more questions there before we begin uh okay so i have one question gathering the requirements we understand interviews survey.
Past documentations etc can you elaborate on chat that is joint application development how the process works sure so joint application is um typically when you don’t uh when timelines are typically tight you typically want to have so the goal is to bring everybody.
Um that’s a decision maker in a room right so you may have people for marketing you may have people from product lines you may have people from accounting you may have people from various departments that are impacted by the project so you bring in business representation who are decision makers not you know.
Middle management level you typically want to have decision makers in the room and you also have developers in that room so the goal is for joint application development is to have a facilitator in the room go through the requirements get validation and sign off on the direction of the requirements that we’re meeting have.
Developers in the room to validate if that’s feasible or not so the goal is to cut down timelines to make decisions and to have a facilitator who can lead those requirements gathering sessions right so typically as a business analyst we work with each individual area we gather the requirements we validate if there’s.
Contention we follow up with those business teams that all takes time right meeting with each business user and validating those requirements the goal will join application development jazz sessions is to have everybody in a room right maybe a one-day session maybe a three-day session maybe a five-day session but after those sessions your.
Requirements are solid and you’re moving on to the build phase so that’s the difference all right okay so and uh sorry to add one more question uh how is it different from the workshops that is being conducted so can i have a difference between the chat and the requirement workshops which is being.
Conducted or is the chad is a requirement workshop so that is a requirements workshop what i’m saying is uh typically when we’re having interview like interview sessions with different stakeholders right that process is you know you as a business analyst may be meeting with the marketing teams first right and.
Gathering all of their requirements then you may be meeting with the accounting teams and gathering all their requirements so meeting with each individual group right and then you’re consolidating all of these requirements and making sure that there’s no contention between the requirements right okay it takes time.
Also think of it this way with a workshop it’s ongoing and in a job session your purpose and the mission of that meeting is to come out with everything that’s been identified discovered document requirements are documented a high-level design is also been documented so when this draft session happens.
It’s it’s an all-day event where all the key players as sergey mentioned come into a meeting you hammer out all the details and that and only then do you leave that meeting room workshops on the other hand requirement workshops happen over a period of time you might meet with one team one week you might meet with.
Another team the next week so it’s an ongoing process as where a job session is all the key decision makers the developers marketing team legal team policy team depending on what organization you are what tool or project you’re working on you don’t leave that meeting until.
Everything has been identified and sometimes these job sessions run all day long and you’re in that room you’re not leaving that room until you have everything that you need to develop the function or tool you’re developing got the difference thank you yeah and then when when jeet says ongoing that means that if our analysis phase is like.
Let’s say three months right um it’s ongoing within that three months and that’s as jeet said maybe you’re meeting with the marketing team week one accounting team week two and then you need to compile all those requirements and make sure that they’re not um conflicts between the requirements in jazz sessions you’re hashing those.
Things out um in those sessions so you know typically i haven’t seen in my 15 years of experience i’ve only seen this happen once and that’s only when there’s like um senior like leadership approval to do.
This because typically decision makers for all these departments don’t have the time to sit in a room together right for that long they’re not allowed to have be on their phone they’re not allowed to leave the meeting as jeet said because we want to make sure that we capture everything that’s needed and we walk away everybody walks away.
With the understanding that um everything that’s been documented are the approved requirements for us to move forward for development cool okay any more questions before we begin so yeah i just asked that question because i had uh uh you know i had a lesser clarity on.
The difference between the chat session and requirement workshops awesome great question thank you okay so um going back to our case study the type of interviews that you may have if you’re doing a case study interview is there’s one that’s interview e-led.
Which means that you’ll be asked to present your results um in front of a panel you may have five to six people in the room and explain your approach during the presentation that’s the difference right but if it’s an interviewer love a lead then they’ll just still ask you questions on the case study and then.
Your goal is to explain your approach during the q a so in here where it’s interview let interviewee led which means that you’re going up in front of the room you’re as you’re presenting your documentation your goal is to um to talk about how you got from a to z in in interview or led again they’ll just.
Ask you questions on hey how did you come up with the requirements and how did you do this and how did you do that so again make sure you understand the approach before you go in for your interview so with that let’s go um into the presentation um to the panel right um what like i said when we first.
Started you should always prepare an agenda like a powerpoint slide if you’re presenting to a panel right um you should always have an agenda um so these are the things that will we worked on during this case study we talked about assumptions we documented workflows we talked about overall requirements for the project and then we did a deep dive.
On the registration we did future state function like workflows we documented those requirements we did user stories and we did prototypes so anything that you’re going to talk about or anything that is an output that they’ve requested documentation on for the case study i would put them on as.
On the agenda slide just to give everybody a framework of everything that you’re going to be talking about during the presentation okay and then this is about the xyz organization it’s always a good idea to give everybody and a good intro of um the case study that you’ll be working on.
Because again there may be people in the panel that are not aware of what case study you’re working on so it’s always a good idea to talk about the organization and the case study that you’re working on and then project assumptions these are things that we’ve done in the past training so.
Again if you’ve missed that go back and check that out i’m just gonna we’re just a time shut check it’s 7 40 right now 35 7 40 right now so really quickly let’s go over this um i’ve talked about using this um as a cheat sheet for you guys because i’m trying to give you guys a framework on how.
To present your case study right so we talked about project assumptions it’s a pretty good idea to talk about project assumptions and that is part of like gathering requirements so again make sure you talk about your assumptions and outline outline them before you get into the nitty-gritty of the case study.
We talked about overall business requirements for the project this is still in gathering requirements phase so it’s a good idea to talk about these um and then we talked about current state functionality as is as we understood it um this is now in the validation state of requirements right this is where.
You understand the business need you work with your stakeholders you’re putting them in a workflow and i call that validate requirements because this is an opportunity for you to get in front of the business and say did i understand this correctly and this is a lot of times where lots of conversations happen because and if.
You’ve got it completely wrong that’s a good thing you guys um that gives you an opportunity to have a better understanding of how the system works and it gives you an opportunity to build a better system from my standpoint so you want to talk about documenting your as is workflows this is in the validate standpoint.
This is where we dive deep on our registration requirements i’m going back to gathering requirements because you want to showcase again your logical progression as a business analyst and how you’re going to meet those business needs is by doing these things again more registration requirements that we.
As a team have had worked on in the previous weeks more requirements again still in the gathering requirements state business rules again in business gathering business requirements you want to document these you want to let your panel know that these are the business rules because.
There i see business rules as like your um as your limits what can you not go above or beyond on so this is really important for you guys to present in your case study we worked on a 2b workflow diagram this is again any workflow diagrams go back to validate your requirements.
This is a write-up this is again on the registration summary of requirements so that again goes back to documenting we created our functional requirements again documenting requirements and then we created user stories and i think i missed some of them but.
The goal here was to showcase that again going back to documenting business requirements oh jeez made it nice and fancy okay so here are your user stories you would want to present these in your presentation and then again um you when you’re doing your prototyping you are validating.
Um your requirements so these are good things to showcase okay any questions um on how to present during a panel and what things you should um present okay okay so i have one doubt here uh is it i mean are you recommending it the way of.
The order that that will be you know be best to present to the employer who has actually given the case study yeah so the reason um so if you go back to the case study they requested us to do things a little differently right they first.
Said they wanted us to document create a flow and then write requirements and things like that so what the way that i i’ve changed this up is in this order right the goal of creating this cheat sheet for you guys is to help you order how you want to present your case.
Study right so typically you first identify your stakeholders then you gather those requirements then you document them then you validate them so again documenting and validating you will interchange on go back and forth on and then we didn’t need to do uat for this project but here’s how you should.
Present your documents in the order of either gathering and documenting and then validating so that’s how i’ve ordered the things that need to be done for this case study for the interviewers to have a logical way so like think about this you’re telling a story right you’re telling them what.
The xyz organization is about here are the assumptions for the project here the business requirements here’s how we understood the way that things work there overall and then we decided to dive deep into the registration requirements here the requirements for registration here’s our future state functionality.
Here’s the write up on that future state functionality here’s um here’s more write-up on future state functionality this is our user story format of how our future state functionality should work and here’s what our future state functionality may look like so what you’re doing is you’re telling a story from start to finish where they.
Can follow what you’re doing all right and you also this will give you an opportunity to showcase that you know the right order to do things you don’t want to start creating wireframes or start presenting wireframes before you’ve shown them that you’ve documented requirements because.
It doesn’t work like that in the real world you need requirements you need to understand that as is before you can determine the 2b so that also will show your the panel that you understand what the logic logical flow of these steps are you need to do a.
Before you can do b before you can do c so that will also show them that you have a good grasp on the the sdlc and understand what steps need to be done before you can start the next phase of the project all right yeah yeah it’s very important to tell a story.
And to make sure that you don’t lose your audience and i guess um what i this thing that i created this icon um it’s hard to see in this thing right here is to show you guys um typically how things flow in the va world so when you’re trying to put together a presentation for your case study make sure you follow this approach um so that.
Way you’re telling a story yeah make sense yeah okay any any more questions okay so if you um go into an interview and it’s a interviewer led which means it’s question and answer mode um all i would say is um.
Be confident in your answers um don’t get too nervous right um did i i don’t know if i ever told you guys the story um many many years ago in one of my leadership training classes this lady showed up and she was our trainer on leadership right so she says to us that.
Every year her and her sister and her mom go on a hike and every year you know her sister says i’ve got a great plan she’s confident as hell and you know she knows the trial and she’s got a plan and she’s got lunch planned out and everything so she’s so confident that her mom and her always.
Listen even knowing that every year she gets them lost for hours on the trail right so it’s all about confidence if you’re confident about stuff people will most generally you know think that you know uh your way or in their scenario even knowing that her sister got her lost every year um during that.
During that hiking trip they always followed her because she was so confident about you know knowing the trail having lunch plan and having plans to do after that hike so again be confident in your answers they’re just trying to understand your thought process they’re not there to ridicule you at all.
Always have hard copy documents available for reference use this checklist approach right here and structuring your responses and then just good luck in presenting your case study that you work so hard on okay how to send documents via email if.
You’re working on a case study most of the time they will want to see your documentation right so this is how you would send them via email you know you’re gonna structure your email to mr mrs whoever as requested for business analyst interviews scheduled for april 13th i’ve prepared case study documents for the.
Xyz organization attach you will find the following you will find the powerpoint slides as we talked about you should always prepare you will find the as this workflow diagrams you will find the 2b workflow diagrams you’ll find the prototype of registration screens and then looking forward to meeting you in person for my.
Interview sincerely your name and then the way that you want to name your attachments always put your last name always put your name on the name of the file just because if they’re doing interviews and case studies they’re probably getting lots and lots of documentation so here’s how you would i would name them.
The name of the case study xyz organization business analyst case study right your name your as-is registration as is workflow diagrams your name your 2b diagrams and your name and then prototypes and the reason why i made the as is to be and prototypes in different files is because if you’ve.
Created them as we did in our previous trainings it’s a different file type right either microsoft vizio or draw.io so you want to give them a good file of the work that you’ve put in so most likely these diagrams will be different file formats so you want to get you know save them separately and.
Then everything else that we’ve worked on you can put in the powerpoint slides any questions you’re good okay so who here um has done a case study for an interview me shut up okay so how was this compared to what you’ve done.
Uh this is actually like um yeah so let me actually you know consolidate uh my learnings over this case study this is uh this is a way which i never thought of to be very honest this is a way which i never thought of because i was not whenever i got i got.
This case study i was not aware of what i should do that is the first step which that is the roadblock number one and number two is like uh i just wanted to when i received it through mail i wanted to talk to the person to identify the expectations from the case study he say he has given some requirements and he wants some.
Deliverables and so you know there were more doubts when i actually read the case study and i wanted to understand the expectations from the interviewer but many chance i did not get a chance to.
Talk to him because he was busy with this work to be very honest he was not able to allocate any time and he had he asked me to send it what’s in whatever i know right so what i did was i have some amount of brd and fsd exposure to be very honest so i thought that okay this is something which she wanted as an fsd.
And i created my own version of fsd of the of the requirement that was given as to how i created it with my companies and i sent it to him and to be very honest there was a negative reply for the case studies that so and i wanted some people to actually come up with.
What is a case study how to decipher it how to deep dive and what what and how should it go so these four weeks gave me an immense amount of clarity on how should we approach the case study to be very honest and thank you so much i’m glad i’m glad this is helpful um i myself again as i’ve mentioned throughout the four weeks have never.
Done a case study interview i’ve managed ba teams i’ve managed uh bas i’ve done lots of ba interviews and if we were to do a business analyst case study this is what i would be looking for um jean also has number of years of experience in you know this arena so when we were working on this.
When you first requested our event i have to be honest we were kind of stumped right because typically we come every week and most of the time people want to know how to do use cases and you know workflow diagrams and things like that so those are topics that are smaller um you present and you’re done with so this required a lot of thought.
And a lot of planning so i’m glad that this was um that you had requested this and it put in um it required uh like uh overall planning and overall how to plan and then also deliver so this was a really good um use of our time to make sure that we present in a way that’s that’s that you guys understand and also things that you can.
Take and reuse um in your interviews so yeah that um what feedback do you guys have for us sarabjit uh to be very honest what i told was a great feedback a real-time feedback which i gave you so that the words immense clarity and how to go about it.
That itself was a great feedback and a credit uh which i would give you and one more thing is that i have been encouraging a lot of people you know by pasting the links of your invites in my post continuously to you know to come up and attend so that they also gain some clarity and i also tell them that if you miss any continuity you.
Have recordings in these pages yeah you can actually have a look at the recordings to catch up with what you have missed and you can connect on the dots which is being taught by you so i am very glad and i’m very you know you know i i’m looking forward for your trainings every sunday thank you.
That that is that really um that is really helpful thank you so much and uh i would also like to add a word about jeep has also been uh you know uh very helpful you know in explaining things uh yeah in a way that has to be understand in a layman term even though everybody our business analyst there might be some aspiring business analysts.
As a part of the audience so we had so you both had the empathy towards the audience and you were able to categorize uh them as you know uh based on the experiences it’s not that you are based on the experiences it’s actually you have put forward in all the layman terms where even an aspiring business analyst will be able to.
Understand what you have you dated so far yeah i really appreciate the kind words um really really that’s it hits home and um i’m gonna then give you guys a plug on the training that jeet and i have been working on um and the live project so um our goal is to create a safe.
Environment for business analysts um we both have thrived through this career right um as i’ve mentioned maybe many times you if you’re attending this or seeing this on a replay um i started my career many years ago along with jeet and it was presented to us um at least i.
Fell into it by accident for jeet it was like oh it pays great money it’s it’s a good career option but for us i think because it allows us to be change agents meaning that you get to work on many different things many different industries it’s a career that.
Doesn’t end right because you always need interaction with business teams and people that understand what the business needs are and document them will always always be in need even with um you know kobe 19 happening i still get.
Lots of um emails from recruiters on you know job opportunities so this is a a career that is in abundance and will always be in abundance um so with that said what jeet and i um have seen lots of trainings um through our our careers that are focused on textbook knowledge.
And if you guys look at the babak the business analyst body of knowledge um after having uh so i’ve done um not a plug for myself but i’ve done business analysts i’ve done project management i’m pmp certified as a project manager i look at the babak and i get confused and it doesn’t follow typically what’s.
Happening in the day-to-day world so jeet and i have put together a training program that is again i went to your point in layman terms on what are you trying to do um in your role as a business analyst it shows you from start to finish on like how do you even gather requirements how do you show up.
For an interview what type of questions to ask how do you know that you have your complete requirements and then even better than you know putting it in lehman terms we have we um always go out and we look for pro bono projects meaning those are projects that we don’t get paid to work on but we work.
On them to show you guys how to do a project from start to finish just like we’ve spent four weeks on just a business like a case study interview this is where jason and i do the work in documenting the project and validating the requirements of the stakeholders working with the developers to create that project right to.
You know have a stand up we do the testing and then we launch the project right so that in itself is a great deal of work and the reason why we want to do this when you show up as a business analyst in a in a huge organization um i started my career at metlife as a business analyst.
And when you’re working for huge organizations you have a very very small piece of the cog in everything that they’re trying to build i was supporting the legal affairs team and these were litigation attorneys so i was responsible for where a very very small piece of what they were responsible for but when you.
Attend these training sessions you get to see the end-to-end process so when you do end up in a big organization like metlife you’re able to look around and situate yourself and understand what you’re doing so that is the goal um i think that um when jesus and i spend time and.
Effort on doing this we’re not giving you the textbook definitions we’re not giving you the textbook knowledge we’re here to give you like the the real way that things need to be thought about and the things that need to be done so that that’s our goal i think our legacy that we want to uh lead with.
Indeed i’ll give you a minute to talk about that as well but to me um when even today honest honest feedback when i open the babak i have it somewhere um the business analyst body of knowledge i get thoroughly confused and lost on what the heck like i’ve never done this.
Or i’ve never seen this so it’s it’s beyond me on why i guess from their standpoint they have to document everything that things are done and it’s a good body of reference but um definitely not used um not everything in there is used on projects day to day right and that just organs back to what.
We learned in in when we went to college and universities we got the theoretical knowledge um of how things are supposed to happen but when we enter the real world things aren’t black and white as the book states them so you have to learn very quick on the job.
And even the pmbok the for the pmp certification for project managers what the book says and the terminologies that that are used in the book aren’t necessarily what happens in the real world um and if you were on the product side um again same thing as a product owner there’s.
Things that the book and the agile framework says you should do and the way you should do it and the terminology is used but in the real agile world things are done a little bit differently because there’s constraints on time resources not everyone could be in the room at all the times so a lot of communication happens via email not.
Everyone can come to that meeting so as serb is explaining our our mission here is not to have you guys become certified you will give you a good understanding of how to become certified how to advance in this career in a career where there is no ceiling.
You can start as a ba become a senior ba and then you can go to a systems analyst and program manager and you can keep growing as your knowledge increases and your understanding increases of the business world there is no ceiling i’ve worked with.
Senior program managers who started out their career as business analysts so there’s potential for growth i fell into this as herpes mentioned by mistake i did not go to school to become an analyst or a programmer i went to a design school i worked in that industry for a long time but when we had the recession in the u.s.
Almost 12 years ago i lost my job there was no work to be found that’s when i entered the i.t world and i became an analyst and i started as a junior analyst and i learned along the way and from there there’s been just tremendous growth now look around the people that are employed.
Are people in the i.t space because we have the ability we have the tools to work remotely we can work anywhere and we have an opportunity to really change thinking um of the people that work with us we make informed decisions for people around us you will become the most influential person within your.
Group because you are the body of knowledge for that tool that you’re developing because an analyst as a business analyst you understand what the as is is you understand what the 2b is or is going to be and you become that crucial person to a project so there’s job security as well um as well as job growth.
Yeah okay i would also being a business analyst i would actually promote you guys as empowering agents or empowering analysts i like that i really like that i like that awesome sounds good thank you so much everyone um i’ll post this um in the.
Group shortly i still do need time to download and upload so in a couple of hours you’ll find this online uh if you have any more questions feel free to post them in our group and then we’ll be giving you guys more information on this training that we’re working on we’re trying to finalize timelines and the project start date and things like that.
Really really excited about the new project that we have this time i think the last time we had a project and we learned so much on how to structure this project with a group like this so um it was a great learning experience we have a new one that we are kind of finalizing things on and we’re.
Excited to get that going so with that um have a great rest of your weekend whatever that may be a couple of hours or whatever be safe everyone um we’re gonna get through this covet 19 together but the more safe that you are with your families at.
Home the easier it becomes so please stay safe and stay home and um with that have a great rest of the weekend bye everyone thank you
