Jonathan Babcock

Welcome! This site specializes in providing tips and tools for Business Analysts and systems development in general. If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. If you’d prefer, you can also receive my posts directly to your e-mail. Thanks for visiting!Here are some links to interesting articles and information I’ve [...]

Here are some interesting items I’ve come across over the past week or so that I’d like to share.
I read a though-provoking article the other day by Tony Lock on why IT is still not communicating well with its business counterparts. Per Lock:

[F]ew organisations have formally established and monitored service levels reporting in terminology and [...]

I know - this has been more of a “bi-weekly” digest of late. I’ll do better. In fact, I’ll be posting a few times this week on some of the measures I’ve taken to write more effective requirements. Novel concept, I know, but I think many may find it useful. That said, here are some [...]

My apologies on missing last week. Between travel for work, a sister’s wedding, and the Thanksgiving holiday, I had a hard enough time just getting a few hours sleep at night.
Anyway, we’re back this week with some more links and commentary items I’ve found interesting or funny, and that I thought like-minded individuals might enjoy.
Language/Communication
Pain [...]

I’ve been traveling this week, so I haven’t had a lot of time for commentary, but I have had time to read some good stuff. Here are not notables and quotables from the past week’s reading.
Building Relationships
I recently had an opportunity to spend some time working on a project with one of my company’s [...]

A random sample of my readings for the past week.
Humor
Developers are in tremendous pain. Have a look at their desperate call below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE7gzecA43U

Apparently, this is from a Devshop commercial. Hey, if there product is nearly as sharp as their commercial, it may be worth a look!
While we’re having a little fun with developers, why don’t you [...]

A few notes and quotes from this past week’s reading.
On UML Modeling:
How to draw UML activity diagrams, Scott Ambler. Scott provides a brief, introductory-level list of guidelines by Scott Ambler for drafting UML activity diagrams.
The use and misuse of includes and extends, MJMurphy. This article discusses the notion that includes and [...]