- ISBN13: 9781598635652
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
The Business Analyst (BA) plays an important role as liaison between business stakeholders and the technical team (software developers, vendors, etc.), ensuring that business needs are reflected in any software solution. Despite the importance of the job, there is currently no book specifically designed as a comprehensive reference manual for the working BA. The Business Analyst’s Handbook solves this problem by providing a useful compendium of tools, tables, lists,… More >>
I have just receieved my copy of this book, and my first reaction is;
Dear Author, Find yourself a new publisher!!!
One which can at the very least get the Contents table to match the actual contents of the book.
If you intend to use this book as a reference, good hunting!
Because that is what you will be doing to find the correct page for the rference you need, as the contents table certainly bears no semblance of reality.
Rating: 1 / 5
The Business Analyst Handbook should be repackaged as an analyst’s breast pocket brief. Business analysts such as myself think and move fast; we are authors of how to build systems. We generally carry 20 years’ experiences beneath our belts upon whatever area we specialize. We have little time to sit and read textbook style handbooks, that only explain what we already know. In our modern times, there is so much distraction tugging at your jacket tail, we do not have the time to do book reviews and lugs heavy reading material about on our next consulting assignments. The authors of “The Business Analyst Handbook,” should do in a dance clap and wheel and come again on this product that can be useful or they can hire me to rewrite the book and present it in a more useful and time saving reading format.
Rating: 3 / 5
This book should be on the desk of every Project Manager, Business Analyst, Systems Analyst, and Technical Writer. The definitive guide to forms, formats, and analytical concepts. Well done! (Now, if only I could get it in Kindle format!!)
Rating: 5 / 5
One of my favorite books is the The Complete Illustrated Guide to Joinery. It provides a comprehensive description of almost every known joinery technique. If you are working with a fine hardwood and creating a centerpiece for your home you might use a dovetail joint. On the other hand if your building a box for your kids to play with then you might just use a simple butt joint.
Howard Podewsa does for the Business Analyst what Gary Rogowski does for the carpenter. In The Business Analyst’s Handbook Howard give a complete and comprehensive description of the tools and techniques available to today’s Business Analyst and the factors that influence when they should be applied.
Drawing again on my joinery analogy The Business Analyst’s Handbook is “meant to be used not put on a shelf to gather dust”. Pick up a copy, you won’t regret it.
Rating: 5 / 5
The author says in the introduction that he began his career in Chemical Engineering and attempted to create a book similar to Perry’s Chemical Engineer Handbook. At first I thought it was a neat idea to have everything I could ever need to know as a BA in one place. After muddling through the first couple of chapters, I noticed that this book contains way *too much* information in one place. It’s like trying to read an encyclopedia cover to cover. This book may have its place in very rigorously structured environments where BAs need to quickly reference something, but as a comprehensive starting point for Biz Analysts it fails miserably. I think the biggest failure of this book is that it attempts to formalize everything too much without first getting across a hi-level overview of what a BA is supposed to learn from a particular section.
As a BA for several years, I can say that I found nothing in here of practical value. The organizations in which I have worked did not place much value of formal structure of analysis, so that may be why I do not find this book worthwhile.
Plus, the writing style is dreadfully dry. As my title suggests, when an engineer writes a book about soft skills this is about what you might expect. I’m a former engineer myself and have first hand knowledge of the low value placed on communication skills by many otherwise competent engineers (of course there are exceptions). I got more techniques for analysis out of Project Management books than this one (like the portable MBA series book on Project management) and I believe there are much better books out there but they probably don’t have Business Analyst in the title.
Rating: 1 / 5