Friday, February 27, 2009

First Draft: Business Analysis

Finally, I got the 2 hours I needed to get myself write this post. But, you all will agree surely, that keeping busy these days should be a pleasurable affair.

Now about Business Analysis for the web based jobs. We all know that programming languages and testing tools have evolved with time to maximize automation in project processes. But either they have not been enough or have been deterrent in the project progress often causing a blockade. An unharmed progress will be based on the extent to which business requirements evolve in tandem with the application; the degree to which requirements are clearly communicated to developers; and the clarity with which business analysts -- those liaisons between the development and business sides of the house -- explain each side's needs to the other. This clearly explains the criticality of the Business Analyst’s role.

In the days of Web 2.0, an advantageous Business Analysis is far and few in between.
To enlist the few reasons which become a challenge are:

  1. Treating client’s project as own product.

  2. Features making navigation more complex.

  3. More focus on using new technologies compared to best practices.

  4. Lack of proper communication between the BA and the client.

  5. Insufficient market study and user case developments.



I’ll be trying to elaborate each of these points in my next posts. However, please do post comments to make this thread interesting. Thanks. Keep reading.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Sorry for the delay on the BA posts

Hi folks, I am sorry for not being able to follow up on the BA topic that I had promised in my earlier post. Have been held up with work badly but I hope in a days time the post should surely be done.

Thanks,
Sumit

Friday, February 20, 2009

Is our Earth dieing?

Haven’t we seen it all? Surely our generation should be remembered as one of the most dynamic and happening one in the history of this planet. It’s mighty preposterous to feel what we have seen in the few years that have gone by and will see in the ones that are coming. We have been witness to a renaissance in technology affecting every aspect of life…gadgets, constructions, automobiles, communication mediums and many more. Yet, at the doorstep of this immortal era for human comfort, mankind is again facing the ire of destiny.

The demons of a surmounting economic meltdown, unrelenting barbaric terrorism and terrifyingly consequential global warming have grown to proportions that are challenging the existence of humanity on this planet. Does this mean our earth is slowly losing subsistence? There is no assurance of life, whoever you are and wherever you are. We need to acknowledge and answer these issues collectively if the earth has to remain our abode. Else lets spend most of our money into the space programs to frantically search for life in some other planet so that we can shift there to leave behind our beloved planet as what we have made it, a diseased dustbin.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Analyzing BA

Business Analysis as the world knows it, is based solely on requirement gathering from a client and transferring them as information to the service providers. But, what most don’t realise is that the BA is also required to identify potential business threats and provide solutions to eliminate them.

Working as a Business Analyst with an undying aim to implement Web 2.0 principles in most project scopes, I found some challenges which were way beyond the extent of my functional spectrum. The failures that we had in reaching successful Project Closures give us a chance to understand the complicacies surrounding the deliverables of a project.

In my following posts I will be trying to analyze the challenges of Business Analysis (BA) and its impacts primarily on a Web 2.0 product.

Meanwhile, you can see this comic but meaningful representation of a ‘Project Failing Life Cycle’.


image source: unknown

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Mission: Silence Tweets

I maybe wrong but this certainly seems like Google’s answer to Twitter. Latitude, the latest offering from Google is out and is already catching on. It lets you track locations of your family and friends on the run without relying on calls or anything. Latitude is BIG!! And more so because it’s a real time social networking tool. I used it and felt great initially. Cashing in on its existing contact building applications like Gmail and Gtalk, this is the new networking tool that Google could have offered effectively. And so it did.

It still is a bit clumsy in some aspects though. The OS and Browser dependency shall not really popularize it wholesomely and spread the fire as soon as they would have wanted it to. For Mobile phone users, it again is restrained to some few models. But, Google promises to expand the application’s mobile usability reach soon. It’ll be interesting to see how Google propagates it and makes this its primary social networking tool.

What’s most interesting about this application is the ownership rights that a user exercises over publishing their location details. They can opt out of this feature whenever they want. Also, interestingly, the Gtalk status message will now be competing directly with the tweets and I bet Twitter will be hurt if Google gets rid of the compatibility issues.

So now the CEOs will have a perquisite for their managers. Give them a phone with Latitude enabled. And with answer already known, here comes the call from the CEO, “Where are you?”

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Social Media Search.. Way to go !!

A great thing about the enormity of the web is that, it never ceases to amaze you. Every fortnight there is a website with a fresh and attractive new concept to churn the minds of the avid netizens. I am no exception. What these sites also do is that they reassure Tim O’Reillys concept of Web 2.0 which keeps the user want to come back to a website with more than one requirement.

Recently, I came across this social media search engine which is presently tracking millions of conversations, taking place across in more than tens of thousands blogs and social media sites. User-generated discussions are not indexed by major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo etc. The reason is because; user updated data does not reside on static pages. This site converts these discussions into web pages, or permalinks, and organizes them within a tag cloud. These Tag clouds become a point where all discussions on a specific topic are accumulated.

This is a great idea and more so because Web 2.0 emphasizes on user’s ownership of their data and most users of social media portals want their data to be popularized via any online medium. A major source of online information would be coming out of the knowledge sharing exercise that all the major social networking portals provide for their users. Now with this site, it will be easier for users to specify their searches based on these online conversations. I like the idea wholesomely and hope that this site has a strong and robust enough algorithm to build up on the wonderful idea that they want to propagate. Try... www.samepoint.com