* Copyright © 2014 Business Insider Inc. All rights reserved. Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy .
Larry Ellison’s Job Swap Is Only The Start Of A Big Transition
How People Learn
Despite his best efforts and long hours, Nobel-Prize winning physicist and professor Carl Wieman grew frustrated by his inability to teach and his students’ failure to learn. When I first taught physics as a young assistant professor, I used the approach that is all too common when someone is called upon to teach something. First I thought very hard about the topic and got it clear in my own mind. Then I explained it […]
A Predictive Analytics Primer
No one has the ability to capture and analyze data from the future. However, there is a way to predict the future using data from the past. It’s called predictive analytics , and organizations do it every day. Has your company, for example, developed a customer lifetime value (CLTV) measure? That’s using predictive analytics to determine how much a customer will buy from the company over time. Do you have a “next best offer” […]
9 Habits That Lead to Terrible Decisions
Several years ago we came up with a great idea for a new leadership-development offering we thought would be valuable to everyone. We had research demonstrating that when people embarked on a self-development program, their success increased dramatically when they received follow-up encouragement. We developed a software application to offer that sort of encouragement. People could enter their development goals, and the software would send them reminders every week or month asking how they […]
Good Business Analyst, Bad Business Analyst
A Good BA has a product management approach to their role, partnering with stakeholders to define the very best solution. A Good BA is the subject matter expert of the project requirements. They are viewed by both Creative and Tech teams as one of their own while in reality serving neither, only the client’s project goals. A Good BA has patience to learn from the client, educate the client, and push back when needed. […]
The Value of Business Analysis: Identifying Business Need Featured
The Value of Business Analysis: Identifying Business Need One of the critical roles of the Business Analyst (BA), or Enterprise Analyst (EA), in the area of Enterprise Analysis is to identify business need. Many business professionals make the mistake of thinking that since it is named Enterprise Analysis, that identifying business need can happen only at the enterprise level. Nothing could be further from the truth; Enterprise Analysis and identifying business need, can happen […]
How to Plan a User Acceptance Test
We see this problem all of the time. Companies and teams want to do the User Acceptance Testing process right, but they just don’t know where to start. The problem is that the starting point is usually to hand the product over to the users and allow them to check the product against their own business requirements. This informal testing process can be extremely costly if the users miss something. So how do you […]
Don’t Have A Big Data Strategy Yet? Good.
Big data noise has reached the point where most are reaching for the ear plugs. And with any good hype bubble, the naysayers are now grabbing attention with contrarian positions. For example, The New York Times expressed doubt about the economic viability of big data in ” Is Big Data an Economic Big Dud? ” This post grabbed a lot of attention, but, like many others I read, it fundamentally misses the point of […]
Why It’s Important To Start Every Big Data Project With A Question
During a recent webinar on big data, several listeners wanted to know what the biggest stumbling blocks and reasons for failure were when it comes to big data projects, and what they could do to avoid them. Given the amount of resonance, in particular the top issue I cited, I thought I’d share it in this blog post. Please let me have your views and comments. There are clearly many reasons why projects struggle […]
Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model
Implementing Change Powerfully and Successfully Kotter’s Change Model Learn how to implement change successfully. © iStockphoto Change is the only constant. – Heraclitus, Greek philosopher What was true more than 2,000 years ago is just as true today. We live in a world where "business as usual" is change. New initiatives, project-based working, technology improvements, staying ahead of the competition – these things come together to drive ongoing changes to the way we work. […]