All trades have their opaque gobbledegook including mine. My favourite from nursing still remains. “an ontological hermanutic approach” Eventually after reading the piece of research and after spending some time with the dictionary I grasped that this means – ” a storytelling look at”

None of those phrases mean anything to me and I cannot even tease out the meanings.

It’s a bit like when you and Drac and Dr P talk about medical hurty things.

Edit – 10 mins too late

Edit 2 – Onto the second page, and no-one’s had a pop at the UXers (a branch of Business Analysis).

One key thing surely should be the ability to explain things in english that normal folk can understand

Indeed. And in words of single syllables for developers to understand 🙂

and in pictures for graphic designers to understand?

Do all these Business Analysts and ‘Developers’ exist in say, Germany?

Why is ‘developers’ in quotes there? It’s not some fake silly job role, developers are the people who actually write the code so about as down-to-earth as you can get. And yes they have them in Germany and in any country where they write code. German for ‘developer’ is ‘entwickler’.

I promise these roles are not nonsense, they are important, and if you do it wrong it buggers up the entire project. The shitty IT projects and ‘new software’s you’ve come across are bad because the analysis is not done properly. It’s rarely the developers’ fault.

Many are highly skilled in the art of sales prevention.

It’s rarely the developers’ fault.

It’s usually everyone’s fault.

Business analysts pick the grapes.

UX designers make the wine.

🙂

Our business analyst has a mug that says “Business Analysts: Solving problems you didn’t know you had, in ways that you don’t want” He didn’t choose the thug life though.

I see Homer’s not happy with Binner’s work.

UX designers pick the grapes.
UI designers make the wine.

FTFY

Everyone in IT’s a bloody architect these days

I’m a Technology Strategist!

Please don’t ask me to explain what it is though.

I used to be a Business Analyst though. Career went IT Support, Developer, BA, IT Architect, Technical Lead, manager of people, manager of more people, Innovation Lead, Head of Innovation… Technology Strategist.

Most of the roles I’ve really liked come down to “talking to people about what they’d like to achieve, then getting others to help them do it”.

“experience of the domain the change is needed in so can help with influencing sensible type requirements

Shall I help with plainer English?

In your context….working on a project that is delivering something to a bunch of nurses. The BA probably was, or knows very very well nursing (the domain) where the project is going to be uised (change)

influencing sensible requirements means someone who has a scooby about how things work in the real world (of nursing in my example) helping to design the new thing so it has some actual chance of being used by the people (the nurses) it is being supposed made for and does what it is supposed to (meets the objective).

Don’t think that was really much BizTalk gobbledegook was it?

Being condescending is another key skill 😉

I’m not a BA I’m a part time EA 🙂

(I had a couple of years stint of managing a BA team amongst others…)

UXers (a branch of Business Analysis).

Can’t believe I’ve just seen this. I know a number of UX’rs who would be very offended by this. Quite a few BAs too 🙂

Clearly, you’ve never had a conversation with an architect 😉

I once endured an exasperating spell as structural engineer on an NHS project. Meetings were of course run by the architects who had some bizarre ideas. It culminated in me saying something along the lines “no you can’t have x, y and z because the bloody thing won’t stand up”. It earned me a kick under the table from my gaffer.

Still the catering at the meetings was first class and I’m pleased to say the hospital is still standing 30 odd years on.

No one posted this yet?

Good BA vs Bad BA:

Customer – I want a boat

Bad BA – What kind of boat?

Good BA – Why?

When you put it like that, I think perhaps this could be a role I was born to do. I’ve been doing exactly this most of my working life, I never realised it was a ‘thing’ with an actual title and everything.

When you put it like that, I think perhaps this could be a role I was born to do. I’ve been doing exactly this most of my working life, I never realised it was a ‘thing’ with an actual title and everything.

I think you might be confusing ‘Good BA’ with ‘Belligerent Techie’ 😉

of all the stuff said on here, this is the phrase that I don’t understand

We are a large enterprise organisation.

a large organisation that does “enterprise” (whatever that is)?
an organisation that does large enterprises (whatever they are)?

No one posted this yet?

No, probably because it’s poking fun at management consultancy.
With a good BA helping you, you wouldn’t have made that mistake.

I never realised it was a ‘thing’ with an actual title and everything.

Apply for some jobs then. In my experience, BAs come from a pretty diverse range of backgrounds, and if you can prove you’re good at identifying the root causes of problems and understanding how things work then you’d walk in I reckon. People are (or should be) desperate for competent BAs that can sort stuff out.

dt 78. actually that is a good plain english explanation and I do not find it condescending

Plain english is one thing I think really important and find gobbeldegook is often used to hide meanings and to cover up lack of knowledge.

I did once send an incomprehensible buzz word filled email back to sender with a request for a plain english. Plain english is the key to understanding and effective communication

A good BA, pictured yesterday…

Where’s his maracas ?

He don’t need no maracas fool!

I think you might be confusing ‘Good BA’ with ‘Belligerent Techie’ 😉

Yeah, you well may be onto something there. (-:

In my experience, BAs come from a pretty diverse range of backgrounds, and if you can prove you’re good at identifying the root causes of problems and understanding how things work then you’d walk in I reckon.

One of my favourite previous roles I’ve had was basically the techie equivalent of Red Adair. We’d have escalation cases where some obscure problem had occurred, no-one knew how to fix it or even whose team was responsible for it (eg, a voicemail server – the voice guys go “it’s a server” and the server guys go “it’s voicemail”), it’d get passed from pillar to post for a fortnight with a dozen different people poking impotently at it until finally the customer exploded, at which point they’d drop me into the middle of it to sort it all out.

I’d work out what the problem was, come up with a solution, identify who should be dealing with it and then (the best part) half the time I could kick it back to them to sort out rather than having to do the mundane bit myself. I absolutely loved it and (#WhatModesty) was bloody good at it.

Food for thought if I ever get sacked. Hmm.

They are the unicorn.

And in words of single syllables for developers to understand

Who are these developers of which you speak? Everyone is an Engineer now.

UXers (a branch of Business Analysis).

This is becoming one of my favourite threads.

Can’t believe I’ve just seen this. I know a number of UX’rs who would be very offended by this. Quite a few BAs too

Yes I have been offended by quite a few BAs too 🙂

In actual real world practical terms , the role of a business analyst could be compared to that of the string quartet playing on the deck of the Titanic as it plunges to the bottom of the Atlantic…

😀

You know, if you did a Geography degree or something, and still don’t really know what you want to be, but know you don’t want to be a teacher? 🙂

I’m a Technology Strategist!

Please don’t ask me to explain what it is though.

Doss about on the internet.
Chuck random moon on a stick type ideas at management.
Cackle at large salary and managerial acceptance of ideas as future projects.

None of those phrases mean anything to me and I cannot even tease out the meanings.

You don’t know about the three sea shells?

So if ” people who can, do; those who cannot, teach” where do business analysts fit in?

UX designers pick the grapes.
UI designers make the wine.

FTFY

UI designers impersonate UXers to get a higher day rate, giving everyone a bad name in the process.

F *T* FY

Everyone is an Engineer now.

This is true.

One of my favourite previous roles I’ve had was basically the techie equivalent of Red Adair. We’d have escalation cases where some obscure problem had occurred, no-one knew how to fix it or even whose team was responsible for it (eg, a voicemail server – the voice guys go “it’s a server” and the server guys go “it’s voicemail”), it’d get passed from pillar to post for a fortnight with a dozen different people poking impotently at it until finally the customer exploded, at which point they’d drop me into the middle of it to sort it all out.

I’d work out what the problem was, come up with a solution, identify who should be dealing with it and then (the best part) half the time I could kick it back to them to sort out rather than having to do the mundane bit myself. I absolutely loved it and (#WhatModesty) was bloody good at it.

That’s an ‘Incident Manager’ then… a good one can be worth his weight in gold when things get stuck.

So if ” people who can, do; those who cannot, teach” where do business analysts fit in?

How about…

People who can do,
those who can’t teach,
those who can’t teach, teach PE
those who can’t teach PE, become BAs