Sam Cordes If you have a BA interview coming up, this guide gets straight to the preparation work that actually moves the needle. It covers the behavioural and technical questions you are most likely to face, how to structure your answers, and what to ask in return. Built from 25 years of BA practice across government, health, utilities, and enterprise.
The business analyst mindset is not something you pick up from a textbook or a certification course. It is built through deliberate practice, honest self-reflection, and a relentless focus on value over output. This article shows you exactly how to develop it, starting with the work in front of you right now.
Choosing the right business analysis certification depends far more on your career stage and goals than on which badge looks impressive. This article breaks down the leading providers, their certification levels, and the practical differences between them so you can make a clear, informed decision. Whether you are just starting out or have years of experience, there is a structured path here for you.
Communicating requirements to stakeholders outside your immediate team is one of the most practically demanding parts of BA work. This article covers how to adapt your artefacts, structure your documents, and present requirements in a way that lands with finance, legal, operations, and senior leadership audiences. Real worked example included.
Writing non-functional requirements is one of those tasks that trips up even experienced BAs because the formats most teams default to were designed around user-facing behaviour. This article walks through three practical approaches for capturing system rules, constraints, and non-functionals, with guidance on choosing the right one for each situation. If you have a requirement sitting in front of you right now that does not fit neatly into a user story, this is where to start.
Writing user stories and acceptance criteria that genuinely guide development and testing is harder than the formats suggest. This article walks through the formats that work, the principles that matter more than format, and a real example where things did not go smoothly. If you have a backlog to refine or a sprint to prepare for, start here.
Stakeholder engagement is one of the most consequential things a business analyst does, and one of the easiest to get wrong. This guide gives you a practical framework for identifying, analysing, and maintaining meaningful stakeholder involvement across the life of a project. Drawn from 25 years of BA practice, it covers the techniques, pitfalls, and friction points that classroom training rarely prepares you for.
Choosing the right elicitation techniques is one of the most consequential decisions you make at the start of any requirements project. This guide walks through all nine core methods, their trade-offs, and how to combine them in practice. Includes a worked example from a real project where the approach had to be rebuilt mid-stream.
When you are facing a complex business problem, having a structured set of problem solving steps makes the difference between spinning your wheels and moving forward with confidence. This article walks through the four core steps I use across every type of BA engagement, from government reform to enterprise system replacement. It also covers the most common problems you will hit along the way and how to handle them.
Knowing which business analyst skills to develop next is more useful than a generic list of competencies. This guide maps the hard skills, soft skills, and BABOK competency areas that matter most in practice, with honest guidance on where most analysts fall short and how to fix it.
Business analyst roles and responsibilities vary far more than most job descriptions let on. Whether you are stepping into a BA role for the first time or trying to understand where your current work fits, this article breaks down what the role actually involves across different levels, specialisations and working arrangements.