Importance of a Business Analyst

Source http://www.bizreviews.info

Each year technology advances at break neck speeds. These advances are utilized by businesses all across the globe. Multi-million dollar corporations are caught in a “keeping up with the Jones” race to develop new products or better ways of serving the consumer. At times, the bottom line starts to fall. When the trend starts to become a normal thing, there is a problem. This is when a company may need to step back and regroup. Even then, trying the same old thing just does not produce the desired results. A business analyst can come in and trouble shoot the issues.

A certified business analyst is trained to recognize problems and come up with solutions. He or she can listen to what the management is saying and turn it into facts and figures which can be incorporated into a project program. Listening is one of the best attributes a business analyst can have.

When the professional business analyst listens, he or she will hear what is being said. They will also hear what is being implied. The management may know what the problem is, just not how to fix it in a timely manner. Listening to all parties involved will give the analyst a broader scope of the problem. This may mean meeting with IT and other employees. Listening to lower level teams may lead to discoveries no-one knew existed.

The business analyst is removed from the situation, an outsider looking in. This does not mean the analyst has to be an outsider. He or she can be in the organization already. It is just that they can look at the project objectively and determine what is a waste of time and what is not. A different perspective is always a fresh start to any program. It is important to not follow in the same path. It did not work the first time, why would it work this time?

It is important to bring in someone who has a creative side. Someone with good people skills can manage a group of people to motivate them into action. A good business analyst will do this very thing. Acting as a liaison between different teams and departments, the business analyst can keep each unit informed of what is happening. He or she can delegate duties while explaining what must be done and why. He or she may allow freedom of expression and allow someone to generate fantastic ideas which may have been tossed aside in the past.

It can become frustrating to implement a plan of action only to discover when it is put into affect, it is no longer a viable solution. The business analyst will not allow this to happen. He or she is looking at the end goal and keeping up with changes which may affect the outcome. The perfect business analyst is abreast of what is needed and what is wanted. He or she can use this information to develop a flexible plan. Instead of a plan “B”, the plan “A” will be structured to allow for change or new needs.

The reason it is important to have a business analyst is because businesses need “what if” people. They are the ones who determine if a market changes how to incorporate new ways to target it. The business analyst knows if a new technology is on the market, and how it may help the company. Looking at a “what if” situation, the business analyst can determine what will or will not work. The professional business analyst can put a floundering company back on top.

source www.youtube.com

Good Reasons to be a PMP

Source http://www.1800projects.com

In this post I would like to discuss the reason why you should be get PMP certification.I assume the you (the reader) has already managed projects (full projects / sub) in various capacities. I do not expect you to be designated as PM, but you must have carried out certain PM functions with in your organization or for your client.
Gone are those days when the senior most person was designated as the Project manager or a seasoned technician was designated as the PM. In today’s world, where success and only success counts, organizations are rethinking on this strategy. In today’s challenging business environment, more and more organizations are in the process of building project management practices. It is amazing to see this paramount shift since every one and their brother wants their projects to be managed by experienced project managers (Guys who know how to deliver the promised stuff).This has given rise to a huge demand in certified project management professionals, who have substantial experience in project management and sound knowledge. As organizations diversify, integrate and interact with each other, the core project management profession has also developed its own standards and best practices. This initiative was led by the PMI, the result of which is the highly appreciated PMBOK guide, which is used as a base line by many practicing project managers. This has led to a scenario where a practicing PM or an aspiring one must have a sound understanding of processes and practices outlined in the guide to PMBOK. This coupled with good experience in project management will catapult a PM to an exotic commodity.
A PMP certification acts as an evidence or proof of competency as you strive to climb the corporate ladder.Though one might have years of project management experience, it is not always that one has followed the best practices.As you grow in your field of choice it is very important to learn new skills, tools and adhere to industry standards.Preparing for PMP exam itself will reinforce the best practices.
A PMP certification can open many doors. Perks involve getting better at what you do, recognition, pay rise, lateral career shifts, job satisfaction and more.A PMP certification demonstrates to the current and prospective employers as well as clients and colleagues that you have significant experience in your field and that you have formal education in Project management. In fact most of the companies today have mandatory requirements for PMP , for promotions and Project manager recruitment.

Highlights:

• More and more organizations are making PMP as a prerequisite for project manager recruitment
• Increasing list of clients would like their projects to be managed by PMP professionals.
• PMP certification is one of the most highly sought after, and are highly paid.
• The certification will distinguish yourself from those so-called “PM claimants”
• Will definitely help you improve the way you manage the projects.
• Will help you be more inline with the industry standard.

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How is CICS prepared for future IT market demands?

Source www.searchdatacenter.com
Robert Crawford, Contributor
10.07.2009

This year marks the 40th anniversary of CICS. It has certainly come a long way from the original free system for line terminals and Assembler programs targeted for smaller shops. To pile onto -- er, honor -- this occasion, I offer my totally subjective list, in no particular order, of the basic, structural infrastructure that positions CICS for the future.

CICSPlex System Manager (CPSM)
CICSPlex System Manager (CPSM) is a mixed blessing. On one hand, it is an excellent tool for monitoring and changing resources across huge CICS region farms. Despite a few quirks, CPSM's dynamic transaction routing (DTR) runs with little fuss and works very well. Lastly, CPSM is the backbone of the Web User Interface (WUI) and CICS Explorer, two very nice management tools.

Unfortunately, CPSM is also a complicated black box with a confusing application programming interface (API) that often fails to work the same way twice. And, for one further gripe, CPSM real-time analysis (RTA) will never be very useful until all the alert information comes out as one console message instead of two.

Command-level interface
Sure, it's a little awkward and kind of jarring to see in the middle of some programming languages, but it freed IBM to work behind the scenes without worrying about someone diddling with system internals. I don't think there's any way to tell which features we take for granted that wouldn't be available today if IBM had to work around user code. For customers, this means that programs older than some recently hired college graduates can continue to run without recompiling.

More Task Control Blocks
CICS's single-task structure had two weaknesses. First, CICS can never run more work than one CPU can process. Second, any kind of operating system wait would freeze the whole region.

IBM created multiple tasks in the CICS address space and took the idea a step further, grouping Task Control Blocks (TCBs) into "modes" dedicated to handling a particular workload. Then they perfected the code necessary to painlessly (except for longer instruction path length) move a running transaction between task modes. This is where transactions using the open API will run. New modes may be on their way as IBM finds more things for CICS to do.

Resource management interface and task-related user exits
The resource management interface (RMI) grew out of the concept of CICS as a unit of work coordinator. Through RMI, other systems that require data integrity, such as databases (DB2 and IMS) or messaging (MQ) can participate in syncpoint/rollback processing. When the next big database management system (DBMS) comes out (DB3 or DL/2), CICS will be in position to support it once the RMI interface is available.

CICS run-rime libraries for higher-level languages
Support for higher-level languages like COBOL or PL/1 wouldn't have meant much if it had created too many programming restrictions or destroyed CICS's cooperative multitasking environment. Instead, someone at IBM got the bright idea of providing a CICS run-time library for the higher-level languages that would enable them to slide easily into the CICS environment. These CICS run-time routines took care of operating system-type requests (e.g., program management) as well as created separate copies of working storage so even COBOL programs could run in parallel.)

Of course, a few restrictions on what a CICS program can do remain, but those will drop off as CICS extends its multiple task control block (TCB) structure and the open API. The pain of maintaining separate run-time libraries is largely ameliorated with the advent of Language Environment (LE).

Multi-region operation
Multi-region operation (MRO) was a huge step forward. Instead of dealing with multiple single-use regions, systems programmers could connect them together into flexible and resilient CICSPlexes with an efficient, private protocol built on top of cross-memory services and cross-coupling facility.

Many concepts bloomed from this simple idea of allowing regions to talk to each other.

• Remote resource definitions, which allow a transaction in Baltimore to use a file in Vancouver without a single change to an application program. This reached its ultimate in usefulness with the distributed program link, which enabled CICS to implement a transport-agnostic client server structure and served as the entry point for CICS Transaction Gateway.
• Users could now design topologies to run transactions in parallel to avoid reaching the processing limit of CICS's quasi-reentrant TCB and get around virtual storage constraints.
• My personal favorite concept is dynamic workload routing. Specific transactions are no longer tied to specific regions. Instead, routing software can make a choice -- again, transparent to the application -- based on its own criteria, thus avoiding bottlenecks and slow or crippled systems. I couldn't imagine running the applications we have today without it.

I don't know what will be next, but its flexibility and structure well positions CICS to handle whatever the market decides next.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: For 24 years, Robert Crawford has worked off and on as a CICS systems programmer. He is experienced in debugging and tuning applications and has written in COBOL, Assembler and C++ using VSAM, DLI and DB2.

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CICS for Application Developers - MF31

CICS for Business Analysts - MF32

Having Some Fun: IBM DB2 and Oracle Database

Source Conor's DB2 News and Personal Views / Youtubepart1 / youtubefinalpart.

Here’s a little animation that is based on the mythical Town of DB2 and the Village of Orrible. We hope you find it amusing…

File-AID MVS On-line - FA01 ( 3 Days )

Abstract/Overview

This course provides students with the necessary knowledge in using File-Aid to easily extract and modify data for application development, testing, and maintenance. The course covers in clear terms the capabilities of File-AID including: browsing and editing of data in different modes; file comparison techniques used during regression testing; extensive utilities; and new printing capabilities. Hands-on workshops reinforce the learning experience.

Audience - Who Should Attend?

This course is intended for entry level or experienced application programmers, data administrators, data managers, system analysts, business analysts and testers.

Prerequisite

The student requires working knowledge of ISPF/PDF; familiarity with MVS JCL and COBOL or PL/I programming language.

Objective

After completing this course you will be able to:

• Edit and browse data sets using the formatted, vertical and character mode.
• Edit and browse data sets using multiple record layouts.
• Create, delete, and access data sets using the different file organisations available in MVS.
• Set file conversion and selection capabilities to easily create test data sets.
• Perform global operations on entire partitioned data sets or selected members within partitioned data sets.
• Print the content of data sets applying formatting options and file layout.

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Why Certification

Source www.cstb.ca

Time and money are precious commodities that no company can afford to waste. One expensive and critical part of your team’s responsibilities is Software Testing. Software Testing is one area where it can be truly said that time and money spent up front reaps benefits for the rest of the project. Are you sure that your Testers are doing their job as effectively and efficiently as possible? Are you sure that the critical defects are caught and managed early and thoroughly? Are you sure that your Testers are giving you the most benefit for your dollar? Here’s one way to be sure! Get them Certified! The Canadian Software Testing Board (CSTB) is the Canadian national branch of the ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualifications Board). As such, it advocates education and examination as a practical means to excel in the software testing field. Testers certified in the ISTQB body of knowledge are able to substantially contribute to the overall success of your company. To date we have certified 500 software testers in Canada. The ISTQB Certified Tester program provides two levels of certification: The Foundation Level and the Advanced Level certificates. While the Foundation Level exam tests for basic knowledge, the three Advanced Level exams (Test Manager, Technical Tester, Functional Tester) are focused on verifying knowledge and skill in these more demanding areas of Software Testing. It has been my experience that Testers who have attained certification from the CSTB are more confident and better able to perform their Software Testing responsibilities more effectively and efficiently. Check out the current list of scheduled examinations, and get your testers Certified!

Becoming a BA

There are many opportunities for Business Analysts within an organization. These can range from entry-level positions for new graduates to senior roles requiring several years of experience within an industry.

“A business analyst works as a liaison among stakeholders in order to elicit, analyze, communicate, and validate requirements for changes to business processes, policies, and information systems.”

The role of Business Analyst is best filled by individuals with a broad skill set. Academic qualifications are important, but so are communication, leadership and the ability to see the big picture.

It is the job of the Business Analyst to bridge the gap of understanding between the business needs and the technology. For this reason, the successful Business Analyst needs to be business savvy and have a very good understanding of technology. While it is helpful for a Business Analyst to be familiar with the industry in which they are working, industry specific information can generally be acquired while working on a project.

Depending on their years of experience, Senior Business Analysts may play a lead role in the strategic evaluation of an organization’s current systems and processes. In addition, they work at a high level to analyze a client’s business, then recommend and develop solutions to address their business challenge.

This Business Analyst must be able to build a cohesive team and possess a strong customer focus. On a project, Business Analysts work closely with the Project Manager and assist with the project planning. They are responsible for the requirements planning and with the gathering and analysis of information. The Business Analyst documents the business requirements which express what actions the business must take in order to resolve a business issue and deliver work products through the project lifecycle.

The Business Analyst will collaborate with business stakeholders throughout the organization to ensure high quality, on-time deliverables and seamless communication. They usually work across a wide variety of roles, developing a diversified skill set which can lead to high level positions within a company.

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The Essential Business Analysis Skills

• Analyze and understand the business problems
• Identify and document requirements
• Communicate effectively (written and spoken)
• Manage client relationships
• Facilitate discussions
• Negotiate and build consensus
• Model data and processes
• Plan and manage activities
• Facilitate and develop business strategy
• Understand and manage organizational change

IB LEARNING

What We Do

We unlock the potential in people and enable people and organizations to achieve extraordinary results through skills development that matters for today's business realities. This may mean deep immersion in the latest technology, upgrading business processes, focusing on leadership training... or all three.

Our flexible learning programs are designed to support individual, team and organization needs in:

Information Technology - from testing to development, to relational databases to mainframe, we cover in depth technology training.

Leadership and Business Skills comprehensive learning opportunities for executive development, leadership, management and communications skills, designed for individuals or teams.

Business Process Improvement - accredited courses in Business Analysis, Project Management, and ITIL.