Dec
18
How Are Techniques Selected For The BABOK?
December 18, 2006 |
Occasionally, I will get asked why a particular technique hasn’t been included in the BABOK. While I’d love to tell you that I have a rigorous checklist that I use to score each technique or method of analysis and then use that to determine what makes it in, I doubt you’d believe me. Nevertheless, there are some criteria I use to determine what goes in. (In this case, I can say “I”, because I’m directly managing Chapter 5 which contains those techniques).
The guideline used in the development of the BABOK is that the tasks and techniques it describes should be “generally accepted” by the BA community. That doesn’t mean that it has to be used by a majority of BAs–I suspect that would result in no analysis techniques getting in the BABOK. Rather, I look for a “substantial presence”. In practice, that means:
- Books on the technique: Are authors lining up to write books that you can find in your local chain describing how to use the technique? I recognize that this biases content in favor of more recent techniques (UML, Agile, etc.) but it means that there’s substantial support out there for a new BA looking to learn these, or a more experienced BA who needs to brush up their skills in order to get certified. Besides, today’s leading edge is tomorrow’s conventional wisdom.
- Tool vendor support: I know not everyone uses modeling tools. I myself rarely use anything more sophisticated than Visio or Omnigraffle. However, the vendors go where the money is, and again, the training follows the tools.
- Standards bodies: Is the technique supported by an independent standards body? techniques that are tend to gain a lot of traction compared to those that are simply promoted by independent consultants. This is one key reason, for example, why BPMN is likely to appear in BABOK 2.0 and Role-Activity Diagrams won’t.
There are also some things that will pretty much guarantee that a technique will not make it in. Any proprietary technique (owned by a single vendor and not freely available) is out. For instance, I had a reviewer or two bring up “line of visibility” diagrams–well, as far as I can tell BPMN does the same job but is an open standard, while no detailed description of the line of visibility diagram can be found on IBM’s website. Remember, if it’s in the BABOK it’s potentially on the certification exam. With no public resource to refer to, how can a BA study for certification?
In the final analysis (sorry) there’s nothing that prevents you from using a technique that’s not in the BABOK if you find it useful. The BABOK only exists to present a baseline set that represents a minimum collection of techniques that will get you through most situations.
Comments
What I'm Reading- Do You really Believe in What you Do?Requirements Defined - Seilevel's Software Requirements Blog
- C.R.A.C.K. Requirements managersBetter Projects
- ‘IT has no inherent value’IT Project Failures
- Business Analysis in an Uncertain EconomyJonathan Babcock
- Why We Lost Focus on Development PracticesAgile Management Blog
- Talking about what we doRequirements Defined - Seilevel's Software Requirements Blog
- BPM is not Software EngineeringGo Flow
- 3 Big CaliberRM Gotchas And How To Fix Them Part 1Requirements Defined - Seilevel's Software Requirements Blog
- Project World and World Congress of Business Analysts (PW&WCBA)Better Projects
- Troubled ProjectsHerding Cats