The Business Analyst's Handbook

The Business Analyst (BA) plays an important role as liaison between business stakeholders and the technical team (software developers, vendors, etc.), ensuring that business needs are reflected in any software solution. Despite the importance of the job, there is currently no book specifically designed as a comprehensive reference manual for the working BA. The Business Analyst's Handbook solves this problem by providing a useful compendium of tools, tables, lists, and templates that BAs can use on-the-job to carry out their tasks. For example, you might be preparing for an interview session and use the book's checklist of interviewees to verify whether there is appropriate coverage of business stakeholders. Or you might be asked to review some diagrams and refer to the Glossaries of Symbols (organized by diagram type) for guidance. Or you may be asked to prepare textual requirements documentation and refer to the Business Requirement template for a list of artifacts and table of contents. Whatever your BA needs, the Business Analyst's Handbook places the necessary information right at your fingertips.

About the Author

Howard Podeswa is the co-founder of Noble Inc., a business analysis training and consulting company. He has 29 years of experience in many aspects of the software industry, beginning as a developer for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and continuing as systems analyst, business analyst, consultant, and author of courseware and books for business analysts, including UML for the IT Business Analyst. Directly, and through his company, he has provided training and consulting services to a diverse client base covering a broad range of industry sectors, including health care, defense, energy, government, and banking and financial institutions. Podeswa has developed BA training programs for numerous colleges, universities, and corporate education centres. He has been a subject matter expert in Business Analysis for NITAS—a BA apprenticeship program for CompTIA—and a contributing reviewer for the IIBA’s Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK).